Kofi Bentil makes a very intriguing point about the so-called
Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Ghana and the European Union.
Bentil’s argument for signing the EPA is that we have no
better option.
But this is simply not true.
We can meet the needs of the very few – five or so –
exporters who will suffer distress by not signing the EPAs from the huge savings Ghana will make by not signing.
It will cost the exporters of banana, processed
cocoa products and tuna a total of US$52 million annually in extra duties if we
don’t sign. However, if we don’t sign, it will save the Ghanaian treasury a
minimum of US$150 million (according to MOTI figures) or US$374 million
(according to the#UNECA/South
Centre) each year, which we could otherwise have lost in tariff revenue by
signing.
Some of the savings can be used to support the distressed
exporters for a period to allow them to diversify their export market.
That way, we will also save our domestic industries from the
threat of inevitable collapse that signing the agreement will impose. We will
also save the space for applying our own policies which will otherwise be
sacrificed by signing the EPAs.
It is true that the EU has become even more single-minded in
pursuit of its agenda for the deregulation of services, investment and
government procurement, together with restrictive disciplines in IP and so
forth – with the aim of obtaining free, unrestricted access for European
investors to all sectors of Africa’s economies.
As to the thing about the EPAs being the result of failure of
leadership and strategic thinking, that may be so, but we cannot punish the
ordinary, hardworking people, producers, etc for the selfishness and
irresponsibility of their leaders.
And nobody, as far as I am aware, has blamed colonialism for
anything relating to the EPAs. The argument rather is that if we sign the EPAs
in its current form, we will be returning our economy to what it was in
colonial times/Guggisburg colonial economy – simple exporters of raw/bulk
primary products in exchange for manufactured goods. i.e. Mere hewers of wood
and drawers of water for the benefit of others in the international economic
order.
Bentil doesn't seem to realize that the EPAs will take apart
every attempt at regional integration in the sub-region. The ECOWAS region is a
critical market for Ghanaian (and for that matter Nigerian, Ivorian and other
West African) exporters of manufactured products and services. In effect, a
full-blown EPA will sink Ghana’s attempts and future efforts at
industrialization which really is a critical piece in moving this country into
a meaningful middle income global player.
Even studies by the World Bank, apostles of liberalisation as
we know them, have warned ECOWAS of the dire consequences of opening up their
market by more than 60% in a free trade agreement. Under the EPAs Ghana will
open its market by 75 %.
What Bentil doesn't also appear to get is that the EPA is a
lock-in agreement, secured by a lock-in mechanism. At its barest, this means
that if Ghana, for whatever reason, decides to offer better terms (than the
EPA) to another country or bloc of countries, it will have to extend same to
the EU.
By the way, whatever meaningful leverage Ghana ever had to
deal with such restrictive free trade agreements as the EPAs were whittled away
under the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 1990s and under
HIPC/PRSP clan.
