The Extra-Ordinary Session of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Parliament is set to begin tomorrow October 12, 2021 at Winneba.
The 10-day programme will see representatives of the 15 member-states of the ECOWAS Parliament visit Ghana for this session, which is one of two sessions that are held outside the Nigerian capital of Abuja that ordinarily hosts the sub-regional legislature.
The session will be dedicated to reviewing and approving the budget of the ECOWAS Parliament.
However, this will be preceded by a seminar that will focus on democratic consolidation in the sub-region.
Member of Parliament for Bawku Central and member of Ghana’s delegation to the sub-regional body, Mahama Ayariga, disclosed this on Friday. The seminar, he said, will look at issues of elections in the sub-region including electoral systems, election monitoring, democratic practice and its entrenchment in the sub-region.
“The seminar will also discuss challenges of security and how the problems of democratic consolidation are tied to some of the security challenges that bedevil the sub-region.
“Resource persons made up of experts from different categories of governance and security will make presentations and take the Parliamentarians through very key areas,” he said.
Mr Ayariga disclosed that ECOWAS Chairman, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who will host the delegates will address the House in what would be the most important event of the session.
According to him, the President will speak on some of the important landmark issues in the region including the events in Guinea Conakry and Mali, impending presidential elections in the Gambia and other places set to take place before the end of 2021.
The Bawku Central MP urged for massive media coverage for the programme and disclosed the sub-regional legislature tries to rotate some of its sessions in order to give visibility to its work and bring the ECOWAS Parliament closer to the people.
He praised the leader of Ghana’s delegation, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, and the government for the effort put in to prepare Winneba within a very short period for the session.
Vice-Chairperson of the Committee on Social Affairs, Gender and Women Empowerment of the ECOWAS Parliament, Madam Laadi Ayii Ayamba, in her remarks, noted that the closure of barriers in the sub-region has a very serious impact on green businesses.
This, she said, poses a lot of problems especially for women at the border towns whose trading activities usually take them across the borders.
According to her, with the borders closed these women’s livelihoods have been curtailed because they do travel by air to conduct business, which has chain effects on families and the economies of entire communities.
Madam Laadi Ayamba averred this would be one of the concerns the Committee would raise during the session in addition to other issues including the representation of women in the various Parliaments of the sub-region.
Ghana’s delegation to the ECOWAS Parliament include MP for Effutu Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, leader of the delegation; Kwasi Ameyaw-Cheremeh, Mahama Ayariga; Sampson Ahi, Abdul-Aziz Musah Ayaba, Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah and Laadi Ayii Ayamba.
