Review EPA - Dr Amoah urges government

An entrepreneur, Dr Kofi Amoah, has called on the government to review the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU) because it is detrimental to the development of the Ghanaian economy.

“Since independence, we have been dictated to by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. How do you build your internal citizenship-owned economy when the thinking behind building that economy is being done by outsiders? We have made a lot of mistakes with these agreements we are signing,” he stated.

Economic forum

In an interview after the first plenary session of the two-day Ghana Economic Forum (GEF) in Accra on the topic: ‘A Ghanaian-owned Economy: 60 Years after Independence’, Dr Amoah argued that the agreement posed a threat to the creation of competitive businesses in the country.

“I think these treaties pose existential threats for creating a Ghanaian-owned economy. We need to revisit it so that we do not make the same mistakes we made with the Bond of 1844,” he said.

Such agreements, he said, especially the EPA, reminded him of the Bond of 1844, signed in Adansi Fomena, which gave the British the right over the Ghanaian economy and even judicial authority over her people.

Caution

“I am not saying we should not sign agreements but we must be careful and make sure they are advantageous to us. In my opinion, agreements like the EPA and World Trade Organisation (WTO) are not advantageous to us,” he said.

Dr Amoah, who is also the Chairman of PVI Group Inc., a conglomerate of businesses in finance, real estate and others, touched on the example of how China became the second largest economy in the world by developing internally before opening up to the rest of the world.

Internal strengths

“China didn’t join the WTO when it knew that it could not compete. As soon as it realised that it has built enough internal strength to compete, it opened its doors and the Chinese now, through exports, have created the second largest economy in the world.

“They took their time, built their internal strength and then opened up and I think we should do the same thing,” he added.

He said trade should serve to strengthen any economy and not suppress it because no country or economy can be competent in all things.

“This Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) means that Europe is going to have 70 per cent access to our economy and we have a 30 per cent access to our economy.

Since Ghana opened conversations with the EU on the EPA a decade ago, civil society groups, including the Economic Justice Network, a body comprising the Christian Council of Ghana, Trades Union Congress and other bodies, have petitioned the government not to sign the agreement because it would lead to the total collapse of Ghanaian industries.