The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), Good Or Bad?

Osumanu Abubakar, The Author

The issue of EPA and whether government should sign or not should not have been an issue of contention. However,it has been an issue of contention and I think it needs to be addressed perspectively.

Putting the EPA issue into the right perspective,I think it is imperative to say it as it is without a modicum of partisanship even though I am an ardent supporter of this government.

If we sign onto this agreement,we are going to be compelled to succumb to the whims and caprices of the predators in the European Metropolis.

I want to examine some of the effects we are likely to be hit with should we sign this EPA.

1. If we sign the EPA,we are going to open our economy 80% to the Europeans.

What it means is that whenever they bring goods any ECOWAS country,it is 80% tax free.

This is very dangerous and injurious to the health of our economy. This will dwindle our economy.

2. If we sign on to this EPA,then it means we are going to liberalize our government procurement.

Liberalizing our government procurement will give the Europeans the chance to compete with our local companies.

How will Ghanaian companies survive? What it means is that our local companies are going to collapse because they cannot compete with the European companies and giant companies of multi-national co-operation.

3. If we sign on to this EPA,we are going to liberalize our capital accounts. What it means is that we will not be in control of our own foreign reserves. This is a dangerous phenomenon.

How can we call ourselves an independent country when we cannot control our own foreign reserves??? This is a big question that I live the the conjecture of everybody.

4. If we sign on to this EPA,then we are going to liberalize our intellectual properties. These Europeans will take over our intellectual properties when they are liberalized. These predators from these Colonial Metropolis are already preying on our resources and we are going to allow them to take over our intellectual properties???

The consequencies will be disastrous.
5. One major effect is also the losing of our lincensing regimes to protect our industries.

Under the WTO rules,we have the full right to use the lincensing regimes to protect our industries.

If we make the terrible mistake of signing onto the EPA we will lose the right to use the lincensing regimes to protect our industries.

We all know the consequencies of losing the lincensing regimes.

I think as a country we need to take a cue from what happened during the AGOA days.

When we signed the AGOA,they told us we could export goods with tax free. Interestingly Ghana exported some goods and the first batch of textiles that we exported were returned and we were told our goods didn't meet the American Standards.

They have a standard we do not determine so you could envisage the drama if we make the mistake of signing onto the EPA.

I would want to leave it here for now.
The bottomline is that this EPA will not do us any good but rather,it is going to collapse our already challenged economy and sends us to the Gambling House of Colonialism.

I think we should not sign on to this agreement because it is injurious,dangerous,inimical and in the final analysis,will deepen our status as a neo-colonial country.

Thank you.