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West Africa: Government Urged to Implement Trade Treaties
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Public Agenda (Accra)
16 June 2008
Posted to the web 16 June 2008
Selorm Amevor
Accra
The Ghana Trade and Livelihoods Coalition (GTLC) has called on governments in the West African sub-region to speed up the implementation of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS) and the ECOWAS Common Agriculture Policy (ECOWAP).
According to the GTLC, the ETLS allows member states to trade without the imposition of import tariffs on unprocessed agriculture products and when value is added to the products the requirement is for a proof of origin of the product by obtaining a certificate from the ECOWAS secretariat to permit its trade within West Africa.
The GTLC is of the view that currently trade issues in the sub-region have been faced with challenges of delays as a result of the numerous barriers that exist within member countries as well as bureaucratic impediments in the request and processing of document to benefit from ECOWAS policies.
The National Coordinator of the GTLC, Mr. Ibrahim Akalbila said these at a press conference which was a prelude to a sub-regional week stakeholder durbar to be held in Burkina Faso on the theme "Effective Regional Integration for Better and Sustainable Development" in Accra.
Mr. Akalbila however commended the government for the reduction in the number of barriers on the country's highway corridors linking member states, but also asked government to do more to reduce challenges that increase the transaction cost of doing business between member states.
According to him the government has already shown the commitment as contained in the 2008 budget statement which indicated its initiative to implement the ECOWAS Heads of state decision to convert the sub-region into a borderless region whereby citizens can create and avail themselves of opportunities, emanating from unrestricted movement of goods, services and persons.'
"Ghana has a singular opportunity to speed up the process of the move from 'ECOWAS of states' into 'ECOWAS of people' by 2020 through strengthening the existing relationship with Burkina Faso to test and transform systems necessary to facilitate the process," he added.
He said together with their counterparts from Burkina Faso, they have identified an opportunity to the 'ECOWAS of people' in the existing tomato trade between the two countries. This is because 70 % of fresh tomato produced in Burkina Faso is sold in Ghana.
Mr. Akalbila called on both governments to set up a joint enterprise on tomato production and processing, thus utilizing the factories at Wenchi and Pwalugu.
Besides, a joint branding of processed tomato for marketing within West Africa and support to women groups in the tomato sector should be encouraged, according to him.
In addition, government should also establish a system that ensures a realistic purchase price of tomato that considers the real cost of production of farmers, support to farmers to increase production and the adoption of a protective common external tariff.
To achieve all these, he suggested that both governments should set up a joint committee comprising the respective ministries of trade and industry, food and agriculture asnd farmers to implement the suggestions.
Mr. Akalbila indicated that the although the tomato industry is bedeviled by many challenges, including access to fertilizer and pesticides collaboration with their Burkina Faso counterparts would give them the urge to produce more for the regional market.
Mr. Mohammed Issah, a member of the steering committee called on the citizenry to ensure that governments implement treaties they rectify since on most occasions the implementation is left to government alone.
According to him civil society groups should pick up issues in signed treaties and put pressure on government to implement since that will be seen as a positive contribution to the socio-economic development.
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The GTLC is a trade and agriculture policy advocacy organization with a membership of 106 small farmer and producer organizations, non-governmental organizations, community based organizations across the country.
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