Scuttled EPA forum

Last Thursday, I witnessed an enactment of people’s power. It happened in an atmosphere which lacked transparency, with the concomitant mutual suspicion. Government position appeared to go against popular views, which lacked information for certainty in decision making.

It was at the national forum on the Economic Partnership Agreement. The arena for conflict, entrenched and uncompromising positions, had been created and both sides were mutually suspicious. Therefore, when out of the blue it was announced that the representative of the European Union was going to make a comment about deliberations at a certain point, the atmosphere became charged. There was an outburst of protests of “no, this is unacceptable” from a vocal group which could not have been in the majority. But as it is the case with public opinion, the protests were openly expressed on the floor.

So forceful was the protests that the moderator, Mr Sydney Casely Hayford, and the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr  Haruna Iddrisu, failed in their pleas to give the man a hearing. He had to be escorted. That development could have been avoided if he had been formally put on the programme or had made his submission during the open discussions at the end of presentations by the invited groups. 

The incident happened because those against the EPA in its current form were unyielding, whereas those promoting the signing of the agreement were intolerant of anything that detracted from signing the document. Beyond that, some of the civil society organisations opposed to the EPA which had analysed the document were suspicious of government. In the end, what was expected to be an informed debate turned out to be expression of opinions.

An otherwise useful exercise to enable Ghanaians to objectively understand the issue was scuttled, since none was ready to make concession. Both sides seemed convinced about their respective positions on the issue. And we are at this because no evidence based study has been conducted to project the pros and cons of each side beyond beliefs, some of which are more ideological and sentimental than functional economically. But that should not be strange because the EPA is underlined by political considerations rather than informed by pure economic consideration.

Perhaps the route taken by Dr Charles  Ackah, a Senior Research Fellow, who represented the Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), that the matter represented moving into unknown and uncertain waters and therefore required evidence based study policy instead of opinions, deserves attention. He likened our relationship with the European Union to a football match. 

He said Africa had been playing against the EU in a manner in which the EU decided not to field defenders and a goalkeeper. But after many games, the African teams have not been able to score goals. However, in the name of international best practices, which the EPA represents, the EU is insisting that the African teams should also remove their defenders and goalkeeper to ensure openness and evenness in the competition. He wondered whether the African teams which had hitherto failed to score against the EU with the numerical advantage could now do so when there were equal numbers of players on both sides.

In essence, what Dr Ackah is saying is that for many years we have not been able to penetrate the EU markets without tariffs. On the other hand, EU products are diffused in our markets amid imposition of tariffs. Now that we are to open our markets to the EU without tariffs, as has been the case for our products into the EU markets, how would the equation be?

If there is any merit in the football anecdote of Dr Ackah, then we are faced with an albatross, a sort of the Santrofie bird, which according to our elders if you pick up, you pick trouble but if you let go you miss a fortune. 

That is why we must move away from opinion and sentimentalism and get into serious evidence-based research to objectively come out with all that we need to find out about trade with the EU and tariffs. For, as some say, “if something does not give, something else will not happen.”  But we must know exactly what we have to give and what we have to lose.

It is only when the balance is even or in our favour that we must sign the EPA. We must not just take food into our big mouths merely because we are hungry. We need to weigh the consequences of our hunger against our dignity before we decide. After all, barima nsi nsuo mu ansa na waham. We must know the depth of the water before we step into it so that we do not have to take a deep breath.