Onyeama: Achieving ECOWAS single currency by 2020 will be a challenge

Geoffrey Onyeama, chairman of the ECOWAS council of ministers, says it will be a challenge to achieve the ECOWAS single currency by 2020.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 54th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS heads of state and government in Abuja on Saturday, he said the criteria that needs to be fulfilled before single currency can be achieved have not been fully addressed.

“There is a roadmap, the convergence criteria that have to be satisfied before we can really get to the stage of a single currency,” Onyeama, who is Nigeria’s foreign affairs minister, said.

“In ECOWAS, we have a group of countries that in essence almost have a single currency mechanism in place and we have other countries that have their own currencies and being able to align all these is going to take some time.

“It will be a challenge to achieve the single currency by 2020 but all the efforts are being made.”

He said central bank governors, finance ministers and experts in the region are working toward ensuring that the set timeline was achieved.

“The political will is there and it is really a question to see whether the economic and fiscal realities will converge with the political aspirations.”

In his remarks, Jean-Claude Brou, president of the ECOWAS Commission, said the region had made very good progress in its efforts to ensure free movement of people among member states.

Brou said that part of the efforts was to have biometric identity card for all citizens in the region to promote security and facilitate the achievement of the single currency.

“Three countries in ECOWAS are already using the ECOWAS Biometric Identity card, so we are urging other countries to do it,” he said.

“It has security features and that will also increase security in the region and at the same time, not prevent free movement of goods and persons which is a very important step of the single market.”