March 24, 2021
By Mohamed M. Sesay
The Honorable Minister of Finance Jacob Jusu Saffa has yesterday, 23rd March, disclosed that the country remains in delivering its financial obligation to the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS).
He added that government is in preparedness to make its financial contribution to ECOWAS in the tune of five hundred thousand United states dollars for the year 2021.
Minister Saffa made this statement during the opening session of the ECOWAS Parliament held at Bintumani Conference Center on the Theme: “Involvement of ECOWAS Parliament Members in Monitoring the Application of Protocol Relating to Community Levy”.
Minister Jacob Jusu Saffa stressed that the integrative ideal of ECOWAS is one of the policies of President Bio’s Government. He assured that they as government are very committed to achieving the same goal that ECOWAS espouses.
He added that the ECOWAS Community has underscored an enviable achievement since its establishment in 1975 by developing a network of protocols and resolution all gearing towards protecting and promoting regional economic status of member states.
He furthered that, since the start of the successive implementation of ECOWAS’s community integration at regional level, member states have been obliged to pay annual membership subscription. Accordingly, he said, several articles were promulgated in respect to ECOWAS community Levy including article 70 which requires that community Levy should be used to provide funding for ECOWAS.
He stated that the community levy empowers ECOWAS protocols to oblige the Sierra Leone government to rectify all ECOWAS community levy which resulted to the formulation of a new tax regime on custom which was presented on the 7th June 2001. He said Sierra Leone is in compliance with the legal instrument of the ECOWAS community levy, adding that the ECOWAS Levy is collected by the Sierra Leone’s National Revenue Authority.
He disclosed that the custom department of the NRA pays monthly returns for funds to the ECOWAS Office in Abuja through the Ministry of Planning and Economic Development.
“In accordance with the implementation of the ECOWAS community levy, inter institutional committee was established to manage the affairs. In Sierra Leone, the committee comprises the ministry of planning and economic Development which is the chair of the committee, the Ministry of Finance and the National Revenue Authority are members of the committee. Several trainings have been carried out by ECOWAS for these three institutions for the implementation of the community levy”, he said
In her statement, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Corporation Hon. Nabela Tunis noted that ECOWAS as a community is not a wealthy region in real terms as compared to the European Union. Nevertheless, she argued that the region is as a viable Regional Economic community, she said ECOWAS has been able to put in place since 2000, a self-financing mechanism of a 0.5% levy on the value of all good s imported into the region meant to be collected by member states and paid into a dedicated ECOWAS account.
She confessed that over the years, Sierra Leone has benefited greatly from ECOWAS interventions in the areas of peace and security, governance especially support to electoral processes, technical support to health, education and other critical growth sectors. She added that, it is evident that such support has serious financial implications which are why government attaches great importance to the ECOWAS Session. She implored all to focus the discussion around the need to mobilize additional revenue in order to keep the regional community effective and efficient.