Kalu called for relentless focus on bridging regional infrastructural development and implementation gaps, noting, for instance, that the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor, the backbone of ECOWAS economy, “remains an unfinished promise.”
“Currently, it is not just the potholes that cost us; it is the administrative friction.
“We can build a six-lane highway, but if a truck spends 14 hours at a border due to redtape, that highway is just an expensive parking lot.
“We don’t just need a mechanism to report Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs); We need a regional body with actual enforcement powers to penalise the bureaucratic delays that strangle our supply chains,” he emphasised.
According to him, while physical infrastructure and administrative inefficiencies pose even great challenges, functional integration is key to ECOWAS trade expansion and implementing AfCFTA.
On ECOWAS monetary integration, he advocated the adoption of the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS), describing it as a functional, pragmatic immediate solution to current regional trade payment challenges.
The MP underscored the urgent need for a digital switch from Eco, the ECOWAS single currency system ambition, which has been lingering for decades without success, to PAPSS.
“For decades, we have chased the dream of a single currency (the Eco). It is time for a reality check. Total macroeconomic convergence is a 20th-century mirage.
“Instead, we need to strategically direct our energy toward the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System (PAPSS).
“The Reality is that PAPSS provides some of the key benefits of a single currency; including instant settlement in local currencies, without the loss of national sovereignty,” he said.
The lawmaker stressed that the digital switch would also eliminate what he described as dollar-dependency, which he said costs Africa five billion dollars annually in transaction fees.
“Why wait in perpetuity for a shared banknote when we can solve the payment problem today with a digital switch?
“Let us stop debating whose face goes on a currency that does not exist and start connecting central banks to a system that already works.
“By prioritising the Guided Trade Initiative (GTI), we make the AfCFTA a reality for the manufacturer in Aba, the agro-processor in Cote d’Ivoire and the small-scale trader in The Gambia,” Kalu added.
NAN reports that the parliament’s one-week extraordinary session and seminar, which aims to strengthen the MPs to effectively advocate and oversee AfCTA’s implementation, began on Monday and will end on Saturday.(NAN)