The Daily IIJ

Ghana will from next year begin issuing the Economic Community of West African (ECOWAS) passport that will subsequently replace the existing national passport.

The national passport is expected to run side by side with the ECOWAS passport for a one year period after which the national passport will phase out.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Muhammed Mumuni disclosed this in Accra last week.

He said the project initiated in  2003 is a harmonised smart passport (e-Passport) for ECOWAS citizens and will kick start for Ghana to join the likes of Nigeria, Senegal and Benin that have already begun using it.

The electronic passport will have a chip to capture and store  the bio-metric data (finger print information) of holders.

The biometric identification serves as a security check to make it impossible for people who fraudulently apply for more than one passport to do so.

Mr. William Awinador Kanwirige , Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs  explained further in an interview that the adoption of the ECOWAS passport is a progress made from the use of the ECOWAS Travel Certificate.

“The ECOWAS passport does not only give you an ECOWAS citizen identity. Citizens will also use it when applying for international visas,” he said.

He made known that the new  passport will have the inscription of ECOWAS as well as Ghana, to distinguish it from those held by other ECOWAS citizens.  

“Every applicant will be tied to the information he gives us. With that we are optimistic that the new system will tackle passport thefts and multiple acquisitions.

We will be rolling out sensitization programmes nationwide, to let Ghanaians know of the upcoming change and some new rules that come with the application for the new passport,” he said.

The message of the 2009 UNCTAD report that Africa must pursue regional integration as a panacea for growth and poverty reduction in these financial  crunch times, confirms that ECOWAS countries must not rush into signing the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

Coordinator of Third  World Network (TWN) Africa, Dr. Yao Graham has observed, and warned against countries in the sub-region such as Ghana that are considering signing individual EPA agreements with the European Union (EU).

The report titled ‘Strengthening Regional Economic Integration for Africa’s Development’ said  Africa must pursue regional integration as a means to building stronger and more resilient economies that can weather the impacts of the global recession.

It made reference particularly to the troubled exports of the region, owing to demand declines coming through from low international purchasing power as well as newly emerging protectionism, that will make it difficult for Africa to sell abroad. Another is potential price collapses of staple exports.

Speaking at the launch of the 2009 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report on Africa in Accra last week, Dr. Graham said the EPAs when signed on individual basis, would doom the prospects of regional integration.

He pointed to the danger in Ghana and Cote d I’ Voire turning around the regional front to initial individual interim EPAs and cited the blow Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland dealt to the Southern African Customs Union when they ignored mutual regional confidence to initial the EPA with the EU.

Whilst Nigeria, singularly holding about 60 percent of the ECOWAS market continues to kick against the current regional EPA,  Ghana, one of the three developing countries in the region is planning to sign a solo comprehensive EPA with the EU.

Dr. Graham warned against such moves and charged Ghana’s parliament to dispassionately and in a non-partisan manner take a well informed stand on the EPA, should the document be placed before it for adoption.

“Individual EPAs will make ECOWAS’s dream of a customs union fiasco while a regional EPA will erode development policy space from ECOWAS governments.

“The EPAs are essentially supposed to be development policies and until ECOWAS is sure about that, it would be suicidal and betrayal of future destinies if the EPAs are signed in their current form,” Dr. Graham said.

Mrs. Shirley A. Botchwey, Member of Parliament for Weija and former Deputy Minister of Trade, pointed out that the country will continue to joggle around for the right trade policy regime unless it had a clearly defined foreign policy that gives direction on engagements with the rest of the world.  

“What Africa needs is increased trade and investment  within its borders. Regional economic blocs are key to this.

“Africa’s voice is weak  in the international arena because we do not have one voice. We can only have one voice when we are one economic power,” she added.

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