Helping farmers to sell products across borders-Pilot project begins

Daily Graphic (back Page), Tuesday, May 19/09

Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho

A PROJECT to enable farmers in the West African sub-region to sell their products across borders is to begin on a pilot phase, beginning with Ghana, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Sponsored by the Co-operative League of the United States of America (CLUSA), a co-operative society in the USA, the project would involve farmers in 21 co-operative societies across the country, who would export products such as fruits, vegetables, maize, yam, palm kernel and salt to Burkina Faso and Niger, where the products are in high demand.
In return, the farmers will import onions, beans and livestock from the two countries to supplement what is being produced locally.
The Secretary General of the Ghana Co-operative Council (GCC), Mr Albert Prempeh, who made this known to the Daily Graphic in Accra at the end of a seminar on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) policies on cross-border trade said the project would later be replicated to other ECOWAS States.
The seminar was aimed at educating the farmers and co-operative heads on the project.
Mr Prempeh said the project would create an opportunity for farmers in the three countries to improve and expand their businesses as well as profits in both local and neighbouring farmers.
If successful, Mr Prempeh said the GCC would establish a market at Paga, in the Upper East Region, where all neighbouring countries could bring their wares to trade and promote cross-border trading activities.
According to him, for a long time now, it had been difficult for farmers to market their produce in other African countries, although cross-border trading was being encouraged by ECOWAS, under its trade liberalisation scheme.
He said coming together would help the farmers to market their wares on a broader scale, a situation he said, would help avoid wastage in the system.
An Assistant Director at the Africa and African Union Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Mr Kwasi Asante, briefed the farmers and co-operative leaders on some of the protocols and regulations of cross-border trade based on the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS) and other mechanisms put in place to facilitate cross-border trade.
He said lack of knowledge on the provisions of the various protocols was a major hindrance to its effective application.
The ministry would, therefore, organise sensitisation workshops for various security agencies, the private sector and civil society groups to educate them, he noted.
Mr Asante bemoaned the abuse of the ETLS zero per cent duty policy enjoyed by some traders from the member states, who re-label foreign products as locally manufactured, adding that the practice was a major drawback on the free movement of goods and services within member states.
He said the ECOWAS protocol on free movement, right of residence and establishment had also brought in its wake an increase in the trafficking of humans, small arms and drugs, while some traders were also harassed by the police who set up road blocks to demand illegal levies.
To forestall all those problems, Mr Asante said the leadership of ECOWAS had formulated a new vision that placed premium on people within the sub-region instead of within states, with the view to promoting free movement of people to transact business in peace and regional space where the rule of law prevailed.
To expedite clearing procedures at the ports, he said an ECOWAS Desk had been established at various headquarters of the customs offices to disseminate information and advise nationals of member states on import and export procedures.
He said the service had also compiled the names of approved ECOWAS enterprises and their respective products in the National Customs Tariff Schedules for the attention of customs officers and the public at large.
According to him, since the private sector was being recognised as the engine of growth for any country, the ministry, through the ECOWAS National Unit, was working closely with the private sector and civil society groups that dealt with trade and free movement of goods and services in the integration process.
He said to ensure that the involvement of the private sector became a success, the ministry had established a National Approvals Committee to review applications of companies which applied to join the ETLS.