Third Network Africa (TWN) on Thursday asked government to dump the interim Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) it had signed with the European Union (EU) about four years ago, saying it poses a threat to regional integration in the West African sub-region.
Mr Gyekye Tanoh, Head of Economic Unit, TWN, said Ghana’s continuous use of IEPA, was a threat to re-positioning of the national economy and to regional integration in the Economic Community of West African States bloc.
Besides, the country’s IEPA undermines the ECOWAS EPA positions and process.
EPAs are reciprocal trade arrangement that the EU is seeking to forge with African, Carribean and Pacific countries in place of the preferential regime under the Cotonou Agreement, which allows the countries tariff and duty free exports to the EU.
“Today, more than 90 per cent of Ghana’s most dynamic manufacturing exports go to the West Africa sub-region. As we have already discussed, the EPAs directly undermine this,” he said.
Mr Tanoh was speaking at a stakeholders’ forum on the Ghana Interim EPA process in Accra. The forum forms part of the organisation’s coordination work of the National Civil Society Organisations Platform on EPAs.
The forum comes ahead of the ECOWAS Ministerial Monitoring Committee (MMC) meeting on EPAs scheduled for Accra in September this year. The MMC is the highest EPA authority for ECOWAS and its member–states.
