The EPA is about trade, not a charity bazaar
E. Ablorh-Odjidja

No one in Africa asked for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). It is strictly an European initiative and that should be a pointer that the agreement is for the benefit of Europe and not Africa.

The EPA is being offered as a win-win situation. But no sentient African should be sold on this argument. Neither should the signing be thought of as inevitable as some do. That conclusion can only be arrived at by those who for some personal reason have failed in their leadership role to offer a sensible counter proposal.

Ghana, for instance, is being asked to sign the EPA by October, 2014 but what is on offer?

In reality, the EPA is a Hobson's choice. Sign the agreement in its current form and your ability to manufacture and export more products into Europe will be enhanced. But at the back end of this ability is the huge risk of not being able to protect your local manufacturing base from competing goods from Europe .

However, not signing it means inviting the wrath of Europe in the form of high levies on your exports into her territories. Seemingly, this is the challenge that is stampeding our leaders into a rash conclusion of going along with the dictates of the EPA.

Forgotten in the entire process of the EPA is history.

The EPA is nothing new. Under colonialism we had an EPA; the same market hegemony that Europe had in many of its territories in the colonial days is being sought under a new name. Those were the days when the French and British had their captive markets in Africa.

Under colonialism, goods from the master territories were preferred and more lightly taxed than goods from other countries.

It is a pity that ECOWAS countries with their colonial experiences are not aware of the ruse. Instead of concentrating on their regional trade and economic integration plans, some are elbowing others out of the way in order to sign the EPA.

Missing in ECOWAS' efforts is a counter offer to stall the potential corrosive effects of the EPA on intra-regional trade and manufacturing base build up in the region. The solution to EPA is simple.  Tell the erstwhile colonial masters to go take a hike with their EPA plan and invite the penalties.

To take an anti-EPA stance should not be a sudden death because the cost of the penalties imposed in Europe can be reversed by similar imposition on European imports here. I am sure the total dollar volume of imports from Europe is greater than that of exports from Africa to Europe.

I am not certain what the WTO rules are for this particular game but if Europe can play it Africa should too.

 
The world has changed since the colonial days. There are more producers and markets for goods in other parts of the world. Africa should not hold itself captive to European markets or preclude the new markets because of European preferences.

Unfortunately, ECOWAS is in no position to make this anti-EPA response because African countries rarely do much in concert. Europe, on the other hand, does it all the time, starting from the Berlin Conference in 1885 and the subsequent scramble for Africa when the same powers demarcated Africa into areas of influence and markets.

Over time, we have come to accept the trade imbalance from Europe as normal. Now we are going to turn it into a noose around our neck.

Time was when Nkrumah in the 60s tried to free the external stranglehold on cocoa pricing. He thought that West African cocoa producers would buy into the idea of storing surplus beans in silos at Tema instead of dumping them on the world market. He reckoned that the move would help stabilize fluctuating cocoa prices in their favor. The silos were built.

However, the first to shoot Nkrumah's plan down were the same African producers whose interest he sought to protect. They accused him of wanting to corner the cocoa market for Ghana.

To this day the world cocoa price and other raw material from Africa are set and buffeted by conditions not of our own creation. Under EPA we will buy from the same former masters who have controlled their product pricing for centuries, the same folks who sold us glass beads for our gold.

Gradually, the EPA will make us more dependent on Europe, if we are not already. And sooner or later, we will come to realize that though the EPA was touted as win-win partnership it is nothing but an agreement that was signed by a dupe at our end of the table.

Even infants will know currently that Europe's manufacturing base is modern, complete and refined to manufacture and package goods at a standard that no ECOWAS country can compete with now. ECOWAS has so far specialized in the supply of mostly raw material and natural resources to Europe without first adding value to the material. We need to build the capacity to do so before EPA erodes our ability to do so.

Presently in ECOWAS markets, our own folks prefer imported goods over local ones. Drivers on our  roads desire used trucks and buses with their old markings in European languages for attraction.

But the same market preferences for ECOWAS manufactured goods are absent in Europe. A toothpaste manufactured in Ghana, even if we had the capacity to produce the best paste, will face the same negative bias in European markets as most things from Africa would under EPA.

Yet still, when was the last time a chocolate bar manufactured in Ghana outsold one produced and imported from Europe in this same country? Even used goods from Europe have market preferences over new ones manufactured locally. Add the EPA with less taxes on European imports to this mix and you will leave our manufacturing base unprotected and European goods entrenched in our markets.

That is exactly the advantage the Europeans want.  And Ghana is being used as the pressure point to bring West African countries under EPA.

It is a shame that ECOWAS countries can't act in concert. The response should have been the outright rejection of the EPA or the opportunity to present them with our own offer - one more favorable to our need for rapid growth.

The EPA is about trade, not an invitation to a charity bazaar.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja,Publsiher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, April 25, 2014

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