The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS member states have been cautioned for its increasing debt burden.
The President of ECOWAS Commission, Jean-Claude Kassi Brou gave the warning while presenting the 2021 Interim Report on the State of the Community during the ongoing 2021 First Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament in Abuja, Nigeria.
Mr. Brou, who attributed the growing debt burden of member states to Covid-19, explained that the increasing indebtedness of member states would have adverse impact on the economy of the region.
He said, “One thing that we need to be concerned about is public debt; we see gradually public debt rising slowly but rising year after year.
“The major drop that we saw a few years ago with the HIPC initiative, it is now growing, of course COVID-19 has not really helped.”
“We need to be very mindful about the debt issue because we do not want to get to where we were years ago in a debt trap.”
Single Currency
Mr. Brou also said Covid-19 had created difficulty for the region’s monetary programme for the creation of a Single Currency which was suspended for two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This situation has created difficulty with our programme, the monetary programme, for the creation of the Single Currency because of the COVID, your saw the numbers, the deficit of the budget, inflation double digits Heads of State decided last September to suspend the programme,” he stated.
On security challenge facing the region, Jean Claude Kassi- Brou disclosed that Nigeria, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso,have recorded 714 terrorist attacks in 2021.
He also disclosed that within the period, a total number of 2089 fatalities were recorded in the affected countries.
Mr. Brou said insecurity which was previously in the Sahel Region (Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso) and Northern Nigeria, was spreading to other regions and even threatening the coastal area.
He lamented the humanitarian crises in the region, which he said, had a growing number of internally displaced persons and refugees to care for.
Maritime Security
On maritime security, Mr. Brou said according to International Maritime Bureau, there was increase in pirates’ attacks in the Gulf of Guinea as the first quarter of 2021 witnessed 43 percent of all reported piracy incidents.
On the implementation of regional security plan, Mr. Brou stated that member states contributions were critical to fund implementation of the Plan of Action.
He disclosed that the pledges so far received were only from West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), Ghana and Nigeria.
Confidence Okwuchi
