Let us make AfCFTA African; the cry of the African people.

Africa has rolled out the African Free Trade Area which has been bestowed with what I assume are high expectations. As I write the AfCFTA is being showered with praises as being historic and going to stimulate and improve the intra-African trade.  I remain pessimistic about AfCFTA and the figures being thrown around as its potential achievements. Protagonists has continued to use statistics quoted in policy papers presented at different conferences and to me most of these figures and targets are out of reach for the AfCFTA and when times comes it will make this project a failure. AfCFTA is comes at a time tariff reductions have failed and nationalism is on the rise as nations are fighting the crippling devastating effects of COVID-19. As the debate of free trade areas rages on without a conclusive stance, what has won is the push for trade liberalism which the forces I shall call the ‘invisible actors’ dominating the discourses and research around the continental free trade area. Most papers be it policy or academic have managed to convince the political actors for the need to sign and ratify the AfCFTA as figure being thrown around are enticing. The AfCFTA has taken aboard all the eight existing regional economic communities which are all at different stages of integration.

 The major issue will be how AfCFTA will deal with the issues regarding the overlapping of membership which has remained a contentious issue as most countries were members of more than one region economic community. There is no clear clarification as whether the AfCFTA is a supranational body which overrides the exiting RECs as it contradicts itself in saying all existing RECs shall be respected especially those at an advanced stage to the AfCFTA. The question is, if there are RECs which are more advanced than the AfCFTA, what benefits will they derive form the continental FTA?  They will rather resort to their REC and continue trading under their old preferential agreements.

But free trade has produced many negative effects, in particular deplorable working conditions, job loss, economic damage to some countries, and environmental damage globally. Multilateral organisation the World Trade Organisation (WTO), World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) continues to advocate for free and unfettered trade, much to the detriment of some national economies and millions of workers in the developing countries. The African countries which are going to be affected by the AfCFTA are folding their hands basing their arguments for the FTAs on the papers which are products of the protagonists of FTAs. The bigger population of Africa remain confined in the informal sector and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) which are not given adequate representation to air their views and shape their future. The question which remains unanswered is, whose integration is Africa pursuing?

The leaders of African countries should be real and address the real issues affecting their countries. The economies of Africa save for few countries like South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria are anchored by the SMEs and the informal sector and a few multinational corporations (MNCs) which are domineering in relation to regional and national trade policies. Only a continental projects which includes the aspirations of the sectors dominated by the African people remain African and has the capacity to take the African people out of poverty. Any proposition which regards the SMEs and the informal sector as an after though is foreign to Africa and its people. I remain sceptical on the AfCFTA as it has proceeded without clear emphasis on how the SMEs and the informal sector will be emancipated to participate in the continental FTA.

The AfCFTA Secretariat in Ghana has a daunting task ahead of them to prove that AcFTA is not just another creation of the African Union to add to a list of existing ones. The Secretariat has to prove that their existence is not a mere creation of the developmental agencies but rather an answer to Africa trade challenges. They should be ready to accept criticism and be ready even to start afresh on certain procedures and protocols if they are not responding to African people`s trade challenges.

AfCFTA have a role to ensure that enough policy initiatives are put in place to address the concerns being raised for infant industry protection and that it is a big boys club which is furthering the interests of the MNCs which are foreign to Africa which have the capacity to make rules. As I write there is emphasis on the benefits coming with AfCFTA at the expense of hazards and dangers associated with FTAs which are going to resurrect as non-tariff barriers (NTBs). Africa it is too early to celebrate the AfCFTA and the invisible hand which has taken us this far should hand over the project top the Africans. Let’s make AfCFTA African and allow it to be responsive and sensitive to the Africans.

Levious Chiukira

lchiukira@gmail.com

+263773065062

 

 

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