Pushing The Agenda Of Peoples' And Economic Integration Through Tomato Trade

We have seen transporters, too, drive recklessly, killing maiming people and escaping justice, absconding and leaving behind their trucks in Burkina Faso; we have seen intermediaries cheating buyers and drivers engage in contraband activity or buyers pay for their cargo in counterfeit CFA. Additionally, we have seen smart packaging systems contrived to trick producers.

 
These things happen because there are no referees in the game to applying the rules which we already have in our statute books.

 
State Actors
Thankfully, today the picture can change in the light of a framework that has been fashioned under the auspices of the Ministry of Trade and Industries and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration through the Ghana Embassy in Ouagadougou.

 
This is a result of hard work and an understanding of the issues on the part of the political authorities and technocrats of the two Governments. Significantly, the two women who have made a mark in birthing this initiative are Madam Hannah Serwah Tetteh, who as a Minister for Trade pushed our files and who, incidentally, today as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional integration is adding further impetus to the dream and reality of a peoples' ECOWAS and regional integration through trade in an indispensable vegetable in which Ghana ranks as leading consumer.

 
The other is Burkina Faso's representative or Member of Parliament for Yako, Mrs. Fatoumata Diendere-Diallo, in whose constituency the signal was given for a proposal on which I volunteered - asa social worker with experience in working on Royal Netherlands and Canadian Embassy funded projects. I was ably supported by Dr. Souleymane Ouedraogo, Director-General of Food and Water Resources of Burkina Faso and his Deputy, Dr. Mathias Zigane in leafing through files, looking at projections and exploring initiatives that would facilitate peoples and economic integration through a Tomato Project.

 
Mrs. Diendere-Diallo, who represented Burkina's National Assembly in the engagements and initiative, is a former Mayor of Ouagadougou, who brought on board her experience in local council governance strategies to bear on negotiations and consultations resulting in the design and creation of the Project.

 
Economic Opportunities
In the last Burkina Faso State-sponsored buyer-producer forum which she hosted in Ouagadougou as a rep of Parliament and the Executive in her position as Member, Committee on Foreign Relations, Madame Fatoumata aptly concluded the final steps to a journey that would see this year a Tomato Project that rids the cross border trade of nearly all of the horrid challenges which, not only hinder smooth trade among buyers and producers in the Savannah and Sahel, but also blazes the trail for a more organized informal sector activity intended at creating equitable opportunities in realizing the dream of sub-regional economic integration.

 
The last strategic meeting which MOTI missed a result of the fact that it was held during the last Easter holidays had Burkina Faso State technocrats and private sector captains of industry, including directors of Burkina-Togo Cement quietly, sneaking around to exploreinitiatives in processing, agro consultancies, packaging,improved haulage and   transport systems and trade finance.

 
As politicians have admitted, creation of employment through sub-regional partnerships is the preserve of the private sector of which the informal sector is an inextricable part. Flowing from that will ultimately be an improvement in the quality of life of peoples and communities which the project hopes to affect.

 
Tomato traders may be largely illiterate, but they have blazed the trail that other forward looking informal sector players may emulate. Agricultural workers in Ghana make up about 55% of the informal sector. Replicating this framework will go along way in raising revenue, reducing costs to production because of the sanitization of the environment and particularly making access to data on the part of Government less tedious.

 
On the oncoming project, it is required that all players submit an electronic data of players to facilitate the design of structures and systems early enough to enable players mutually benefit from their chosen vocations.

 
Decentralization of Regulatory Roles
District assemblies in Ghana have a huge role to play in all these, since they are the regulators of our markets and, therefore, largely responsible for controlling glut on the market in the absence of semi-processing and warehousing systems.Frameworks, however beautiful, can only be effectual and viable, if they are implemented to the letter; and we can only hope that the inauguration of this Project in the coming months will not only be marked by national flags, but real movements of peoples and economies to improve, cultural and socio-economic wellbeing of sub-regional and ECOWAS nationals.