EU TO SUPPORT ECOWAS BORDER POST PROJECT (SPREAD)

THE European Union (EU) has accepted to provide funding for the establishment of joint border posts to facilitate transit procedures at the country’s borders.
The joint border post project is part of efforts to accelerate the implementation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) protocol on free movement in the sub-region.
To this end, a series of workshops have been held for member states to finalise and validate the necessary documents to that effect, while bilateral meetings have also been held among Ghana and its neighbours for the construction of the border posts.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has already been signed between Ghana and Togo in that regard since the last quarter of 2007 and an ECOWAS Commission is expected to visit Ghana, Togo and Cote d’Ivoire soon to finalise preparations for those projects
The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and NEPAD, Dr Charles Yaw Brempong-Yeboah, announced this in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region at the opening of a workshop on the ECOWAS protocols on free movement of persons, goods and services.
The workshop was also on the right of residence and establishment in member states for about 200 security agencies and other border operatives drawn from the Ashanti, Brong Ahafo and Northern regions.
Dr Brempong-Yeboah said as part of the process towards the promotion of the ECOWAS protocols relating to free movement, regional infrastructure, inter-state road facilitation and good governance, programmes had been developed and substantially implemented, while plans were also far advanced to construct railway lines between Lagos and Accra, linking Cotonou and Lome.
The deputy minister noted that many years after the adoption and ratification of the protocols, there were still numerous roadblocks and checkpoints on international highways in the sub-region,
He observed that the results of the Improved Road Transport Governance (IRTG) surveillance undertaken by the West African Trade Hub (WATH) covering the period from October to December 2007 revealed that on the Tema-Ouagadougou highway alone, there were 24 checkpoints/roadblocks, 24 checkpoints between Ouagadougou and Bamako and 17 between Lome and Ouagadougou.
According to him, what was most astonishing about some of those roadblocks and checkpoints was that they appeared to be positioned in an unco-ordinated manner, pointing out that one might see a police checkpoint between a short distance of five to 10 kilometres, together with a Custom barrier which, to any traveller, could be frustrating.
Dr Brempong-Yeboah said while it was true that some of those roadblocks were necessary for security reasons, it was also true that some of them had nothing to do with national security or public order, adding that they were simply there as non-tariff barriers to trade and a hindrance to the free movement of citizens.
“It is imperative for all of us to stop hiding under the cloak of poor conditions of service and economic difficulties and facilitate the removal of existing tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade because administrative or physical barriers to trade, whether legal or illegal, significantly slow down intra-regional trade, increase costs and reduce the competitiveness of local products. Such barriers can even encourage smuggling and other unorthodox trading activities,” he emphasised.
The deputy minister stressed that every effort ought to be made to correct the current low levels of intra-community trade, obstacles to the free movement of goods and persons, openness to dumping, cross-border smuggling and crime and other unilateral actions that tended to violate ECOWAS protocols.
Dr Brempong-Yeboah cautioned, however, that while there was the need to facilitate the entry of other ECOWAS citizens into the country, the security services, especially the Immigration Service, should be on the lookout for undesirable elements who might want to take advantage of the ECOWAS protocol on free movement to foment trouble in the country.
In a welcoming address read on his behalf, the Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, observed that the problem with intra-ECOWAS trade was that member states mainly produced the same things and cited the example of Ivorian plastic goods competing against those made in Nigeria on the Nigerian market, while Nigerian plastic products competed against Ivorian ones in Cote d’Ivoire.
The Regional Minister noted that the potential for ECOWAS was tremendous and that the Industrial Master Plan (IMP) adopted by ECOWAS at the 17th Session of the authority in 1994 provided a strategy, adding that it had essentially created an avenue for the industrial sector to become normative by creating more forums for business people and professionals to communicate, congregate and generally interact.