Southern Africa: Tension in SACU Revealed By the SADC EPA

When Namibia together with South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho, the so-called SADC EPA Group, signed an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union earlier this month, it was only a day after the South African president announced that a ministerial retreat will be convened for the members of the Southern African Customs Union.

These developments are too close to be coincidence and it smacks of a pre-emptive move by the South African government to salvage its waning control over the region through the customs union. It is obvious that five of the six EPA signatories are members of the customs union while four are signatories to the so-called Common Monetary Agreement, the CMA.

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