The Trades Union Congress is indicating to the Parliament of Ghana not to ratify the Economic Partnership Agreement reached between ECOWAS and European Union.
The mouthpiece of Ghanaian workers described the deal as “inimical” and has condemned it in no uncertain term.
At the 45th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Governments on July 10, 2014 in Accra, the sub regional economic grouping, after over 11 years of intense negotiations, agreed to sign the partnership agreement.
The agreement for instance allows Ghana to have 100 percent access to the European market, except for rice and sugar, while EU countries will have 75 percent access to the Ghanaian market duty free and quota free.
An European Commission statement issued hours after ECOWAS took its final decision noted that on 17th March, the EU Foreign Affairs Council confirmed EU support of at least €6.5 billion for West Africa during 2015-2020.
But Ghana’s Trades Union Congress in a statement issued by its Secretary General, Kofi Asamoah said the decision is contrary to the long held views and positions expressed by experts, stake-holders and ordinary citizens and corroborated by reputable institutions such as the United Nations.
“TUC calls upon Parliamentarians to demonstrate due leadership when this inimical agreement is presented to them for ratification,” he cajoled the legislators.
He said the terms and provisions of the EPA will lead to a total collapse of the domestic manufacturing and other productive sectors due to “undue pressure from the subsidized goods from Europe and loss of revenue from trade taxes”.
He remarked: “One expects ECOWAS leaders to pursue a trade policy that protects local goods, encourage home industry and taxes foreign products thus putting the burden of revenue on the foreign goods; a trade policy that secures the ECOWAS, or for that matter, an African market for the African producer and not one that upholds European standards for the European worker.”
Mr. Kofi Asamoah was worried that even though ECOWAS leaders fully understood the consequences of the agreement, yet they went ahead to sign the EPA, “putting the region’s development in jeopardy thus curtailing their own governments’ ability to take charge of their home grown developmental policies, is very strange, to say the least”.
