Never a Dull Moment in West Africa(4)…especially in 2014!

“The Accidental Ecowas & AU Citizen”
By E.K.Bensah Jr
The New Year has opened rather optimistically for West Africa in the sense that there has been a lot of noise first, about the imminent shipping line (SEALINK) that will connect West Africa to that of Central Africa; as well as the fact that West Africa is set to grow by 7.1%, with Ghana predicted to have the highest GDP of 10.3%

Never mind the fact that no journalist asked a question about the common currency and the Presidency's approach (for it) at worst, roadmap at best, to prosecuting the agenda given Mahama by the ECOWAS Commission to get as close as possible to achieving a common currency for West Africa. Never mind, either, the fact that our President had to fly all the way to Abidjan to attend a follow-up meeting of ECOWAS-TICAD meeting when ECOWAS could simply have relied on technology – as the World Bank office often do – by holding a video-conference for the Heads of State for those who could. Imagine the carbon footprints that would have saved.

For an ECOWAS Commission that is thinking big things about West Africa, it is evidently a shame such big things do not translate as far as reducing the impact of the effects of climate change. This is interesting, considering the fact that there is a climate change outfit at Legon here in Accra, called WASCAL, linked to ECOWAS, and sponsored by the German government. May we be permitted to ask what they actually are doing about West Africa and climate change?

Despite the upbeat start to the year, it sadly looks like business as usual for ECOWAS: many travels all over the sub-region (and even more so, especially when the year is coming to an end and budgets not yet exhausted need to be exhausted to enable more money pour in for the next year, resulting in many travels by ECOWAS Commission officials all over the sub-region!) and very little substance on enforcing policy on important issues like dropping the nettlesome and contentions Economic Partnership Agreements(EPAs).

If Tuesday's edition of this Paper is to be believed, the European Commission is upbeat about signing an EPA with Ghana. Protests and research notwithstanding, it looks like a handful of ECOWAS officials have buckled under the pressure of the EU who know that the West African sub-region is bound to grow, and how that growth will clearly inure to the benefit of a Europe in the doldrums. You can almost hear them sniggering “West Africa rising indeed”. And who can blame them.

It is easy to speculate that greed has been the order of the day on the EPAs, and that that will always prevail over major agreements like this, but I daresay no-one has yet to account as to why despite the protestations by civil society, and visceral abhorrence to the EPA by the African Union, the sub-region has chosen to plod along on deaf ears—as if to say that the AU's voice does not matter.

In a year that three AU programmes/institutions – that of agriculture – CAADP -- ; that of the Pan-African Parliament; and that of the Peace and Security Council – are celebrating a decade of existence, it beggars belief why a very necessary reflection of where the continental institution needs to be and go is found wanting.

Why has the AU not sought to sanction ECOWAS over the obtuse manner in which is prosecuting the agenda around West Africa's economic development and the EPAs. Why has the AU seemed a sorry image of pusillanimity in showing teeth against what is a vicious manifestation of overt disruption of West Africa's regional economy? Why after a decade of solid research that categorically states that the EPA will disrupt Africa's integration efforts has ECOWAS – dedicated to uphold the well-being and livelihoods of community citizens of the sub-region – chosen a path that will do the exact opposite?

These and many more questions must begin to be asked by all African integration watchers as we start 2014 battle-ready to defend the West African regional economy from the hawkish European Commission.

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