MPs briefed on EPA

Pg 44. Mon. March 03/08

Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho

THE Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Trade, Mr Joseph B. Danquah Adu, has called on civil society groups to partner the government to find ways of making the interim Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries beneficial to Ghana.
According to him, the country stood to gain more from the EPA, since it sought to promote the establishment of multi-national companies.
Mr Danquah Adu, who said this at a civil society briefing to members of the Trade, Finance and Agriculture committees of Parliament in Accra on Wednesday on the consequences of the EPAs, said the fear of civil societies should not be the European Union markets penetrating the Ghanaian market but rather China, which he said was bringing in goods that were putting small- and medium-scale entrepreneurs out of job.
The EPA replaces the trade provisions under the Cotonou Partnership Agreement which expired on December 31, 2007, and aims at creating a free trade area (FTA) between the European Union and ACP countries as a response to continuing criticism that the non-reciprocal and discriminating preferential trade agreements offered by the EU were incompatible with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
Mr Danquah Adu, who reiterated an earlier stand that Ghana had not signed into the agreement but had rather initialled, also said the EU did not export into the country as China did but rather established multilateral companies that the country stood to gain, and therefore called on civil societies to see the good side of the EPAs.
He called on civil society groups not only to fish out for the negative aspect of the EPAs but also to propagate some of its benefits, saying that the agreement had a package that included provisions on trade, fisheries and economic development co-operation.
He said what was causing civil society unrest was the gradual liberalisation of 80 per cent of the country’s trade for imports from EU, which he said covered mainly capital, raw material and intermediate products over a period of 15 years, but, however, gave the assurance that the government would not do anything that would be inimical to the country.
Two representatives of civil society groups, Mr Ibrahim Akalbila, Co-ordinator of the Ghana Trade and Livelihoods Coalition, and Mr Gyekye Tanoh of the Third World Network Africa, who briefed the MPs on the significance, concerns and how Ghana’s commitments threatened its democracy and development, called for a reversal of the interim agreement.
According to them, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, the only two countries which had so far initialled the agreements, had completely undermined the regional negotiating positions of the sub-region.
According to them, the agreement would only serve Europe’s commercial and geo-economic interests, adding that it would not support Africa’s development and regional integration.
They, therefore, commended countries that had not initialled the agreement and further called on the parliamentarians not to ratify the agreement in Ghana.