ECOWAS Parliament Speaker Bemoans Region’s Financial Challenges

By Angel-Linda Ike

Speaker of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS Parliament, Memounatou Ibrahima, has decried the financial difficulties and dangers threatening the region.

Ibrahima made this known while declaring open a meeting of the Parliament’s Joint Committee on administration, budget and finance, public account, macroeconomic policy and economic research in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on Monday.

She said the financial challenges hinders the execution and realisation of community projects and programmes that necessitated increased funding by member states.

Ibrahim’s called on member states to scale up its funding for the institution to meet its prevailing multifaceted challenges.

She stressed the need for the meeting to address the role of the ECOWAS Parliament in the community’s budgetary process, especially against the backdrop of current challenges and realities.

“I want to seize the opportunity of our meeting to call on the member states to scale up their efforts to finance the community.

“The current context is marked by the global repercussions of recession and inflation, provoked by international tensions, and the security threats within the region.

“These limited financial resources are under the important financing needs of the community.

“As you know, the community budget is supplied at 85 per cent by the community levy, which is a 0.5 per cent tax imposed on goods from countries that are not members. of the CDAO.

“Unfortunately, the last report on the state of the community presented by the President of the Commission revealed a weak mobilisation of its resources during these last years,” the speaker said.

Chairman of the Joint Committee, Benjamin Kalu assured that the Legislative arm of the regional body will intensify its oversight functions on the executive arm to ensure that the finances are judiciously and transparently used for the citizens.

Kalu who is also the Deputy Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives said this can only be achieved through meaningful engagements with key stakeholders, especially, the ECOWAS Commission and the Administration and Finance Committee (AFC), which is a statutory technical committee under the supervision of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers.

He stated that it is a key skill for ensuring that community institutions like ECOWAS have the resources to execute programs, projects and activities that are in the interest of the member countries

Kalu said, “The Parliament has a critical duty to ensure that public resources are utilised responsibly and for intended purposes by the Executives.

“As Representatives of the people of the region, we must champion the promotion and practice of transparency and accountability.

“In other words, ‘oversight’ is an indispensable parliamentary tool that should be effectively deployed to secure the accountability of the Executive to the Parliament and the citizens in general.”

The Vice President of the Ivorian National Assembly, Diawara Mamadou, said that parliament played an important role in the preparation of budgets both nationally and in international organisations..

Mamadou said it is fundamental for constituents to understand how the community parliament examines and controls its budget hence ECOWAS plays a fundamental role in monitoring through budget preparation and oversight