President Adama Barrow has told his colleague Heads of State and Government that The Gambia remains committed to achieving the goals of the ECOWAS single currency, the ECO, according to State House.
President Barrow on Tuesday attended a virtual meeting organised for Member States of the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ).
The Gambian leader said while the ECOWAS Authority has made progress on the proposed introduction of the ECOWAS Single Currency by the year 2020, the Francophone countries in ECOWAS, through its West African Economic and Monetary Union, UMOEA, also recently announced a similar programme with opposing exchange rate monetary policies within the same region, according to State House.
“There is need, therefore, to review these decisions in line with Article 15 of the 48th Ordinary session of the Authority of the Heads of States and Governments of 16th December 2015,” President Barrow told the meeting, attended by Presidents of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, Ghana and Nigeria, State House said in its press release.
Since 2017, The Gambia has constantly achieved three of the four primary convergence criteria, missing only the Budget deficit criterion; similarly, on the secondary convergence criteria, The Gambia has consistently achieved one of the two criteria, missing the public debt-GDP ratio, State House said.
The Gambian President urged that the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Zone should provide guidance on this crucial issue, calling for a review of the parallel monetary programmes in the West Africa sub region.
“I will emphasise here that The Gambia remains committed to the revised roadmap of the ECOWAS Monetary Cooperation Programme. This commitment has been translated into sustained improvements on achieving the set of macroeconomic convergence criteria,” he said, according to State House’s press release.
Tuesday’s meeting Chaired by the Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government, H.E Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone concluded with two propositions: convene an emergency Summit of Heads of State to discuss a way forward for the two monetary unions’ decision on the ECO [and] call on UMEOA community not to go ahead with the launch of the ECO pending the proposed meeting of Heads of State of the ECOWAS.
