THE Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is reportedly shelving its long-standing plan to establish a single currency, known as the ECO, after years of struggling to actualize the initiative.
This development was disclosed by Senator Edwin Melvin Snowe Junior, the Co-chair of the ECOWAS joint committees on Social Affairs, Gender and Women Empowerment, Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Political Affairs, Peace, Security, and African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), during an interview with Daily Trust in Banjul, Gambia, over the weekend.
The ECO, a single currency initiative, was proposed in the late 1990s and gained significant traction in 2000 when the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) was established.
The currency was intended to serve as a cornerstone for economic growth and integration among the 15 member states of ECOWAS.
It was expected to simplify transactions, eliminate currency exchange complications, and promote a more unified and prosperous West African region.
However, despite its ambitious goals, the initiative has faced significant setbacks over the years, primarily due to political challenges within the member states.
Senator Snowe Junior highlighted these difficulties, noting that the political hurdles have significantly hindered the realization of the ECO currency.
“The single currency is a work in progress. It has its own political implications.
“There has been a lot of political situation that has to be addressed. It’s not that we don’t have good economists or analysts who can understand and implement it.
“We have had little or less problems from the English-speaking zone but because we have the French CFA with the reserve in France and then you have the BCEAO bank as another federal bank for the French-speaking country, we have to integrate the currency.
“So, it still needs a lot of political will and that is why the last three countries that had coup d’état are talking about changing their currencies because their reserve is in France and not in West Africa or Africa,” he said.
He said the regional bloc is now proposing a single currency for the Anglophone countries and another one for the Francophone countries in the region as a replacement for ECO.
“That is why sometimes we propose that Nigeria, which is the hub of our region, in addition to Ghana, Liberia, Gambia and Sierra Leone, that is the five English-speaking countries, could have one currency for now.
“Then, the Francophone countries could have another currency. Then you can ask Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde to join either the Francophone or Anglophone so that we have two currencies for now.
“And then, over the years, those two currencies can migrate into a single currency,” the lawmaker said.
He said political instability in the region had halted the consideration of the proposals of two currencies for the region but assured that focus would be shifted back to the issue as soon as possible.
“We have been more concerned with putting the region back together, resolving the security situation in the region and then we can put back the single currency issue on the front burner,” he said.
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