PAMA, MAN To Champion Ratification Of Single Currency – AfCFTA

As Nigeria commences formal export of locally produced commodities to South Africa, Rwanda, Cameroon and Kenya this month under the Guided Trade Initiative of the African Continental Free Trade Area, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) and PanAfrican Manufacturers Association (PAMA) are closely working with African leaders to champion the ratification and adoption of a single African currency.

This is to weaken the strength posed by dollar, Euro, yuan and other foreign currencies on the African continent. The President of PAMA, Otunba Francis Meshioye, who also doubles as MAN President, in an interview with New Telegraph, revealed that the only way out for economic emancipation is for all manufacturers and other allies operating under AfCFTA to ensure that single currency (Afro or Afriq) prevail as the legal tender.

Meshioye explained that it was time for Africans to free themselves of neo-colonialism on the continent, saying the dominance being enjoyed by dollar and other key foreign currencies must be adequately reviewed by the AU to strengthen the opportunities that AfCFTA brings to the table.

The MAN president said that the single liberalised market for free trade in goods and services, which African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) offers, could boost Nigeria and other countries in the continent in terms of export by more than $600 billion with wage gain of more than 10 per cent, if AU leaders aggressively campaign for the ratification of the continent’s single currency at the highest level.

He said: “The African Monetary Union (AMU) is the proposed creation of an economic and monetary union for the countries of the African Union, administered by African Central Bank. “Such a union would call for the creation of a new unified currency, similar to the euro; the hypothetical currency is sometimes referred to as the afro or afriq.

“The single African currency is to be composed of currency units made up of regional union reserve bank currency units of which are made up of country specific currencies (The Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) – Northern Afriq, Southern African Development Community (SADC) – Southern Afriq, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) – Western Afriq or ECO, East African Community (EAC) – Eastern Afriq, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) – Central Afriq etc.).

“The Abuja Treaty, an international agreement signed on June 3, 1991, in Abuja, Nigeria, created the African Economic Community, and called for an African Central Bank to follow by 2028.

As of 2019, the plan is to establish an African Economic Community with a single currency by 2023.” The PAMA/MAN president stressed further that the continental trade treaty presented a unique opportunity for increased production capacities and trade volume, and above all is a catalyst for significant reduction in poverty.

In addition, he also added that AfCFTA was lifetime opportunity for African countries to trade more with one another, refocus national economic, investment and industrial policies to be in sync with continental aspirations to enhance private sector development, grow national economies, increase the number of African multinational companies and fastrack the process of fully integrating the continent into the global market.

According to him, AfCFTA no doubt offers opportunities for ramping up production, upscaling trade volume and creating enduring wealth for the continent. Speaking further, the renowned industrialist pointed out the motivations for creating a monetary union and a single currency in Africa and that evaluating its progress was key at this period.

He added: “Africa has drawn much inspiration from the European single currency experience that accounts for much of the progress in economic and monetary integration among members of the Eurozone.

“The Euro has proven to be an efficient means of conducting business transactions by participating countries, and the success is in part attributed to the high degree of convergence and homogeneity of the participating economies.”

Last month, speaking on the sidelines of the Abuja Stakeholders Workshop on AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol, the Executive Secretary, National Action Committee on AfCFTA, Olusegun Awolowo, told journalists that though trading under the main AfCFTA had yet to start, the secretariat of the programme had introduced the Guided Trade Initiative.

He said: “We haven’t started trading in AfCFTA, we are duly going through the protocols. But recently the AfCFTA secretariat itself launched what they call the Guided Trade Initiative to get some countries to start trading outside their regional blocks.

“We’ve signed onto it and I think that by the end of April we are taking a few companies, big, medium and small enterprises to actually launch trading in Africa. All we are doing now is that we are going through and signing all the protocols, as well as finding a way on how to implement them.