STATEMENT BY ALBERT M. MUCHANGA, AFRICAN UNION COMMISIONER FOR TRADE AND INDUSTRY DELIVERED TO THE COMBINED OPENING CEREMONY OF THE MEETINGS OF AFRICAN MINISTERS OF TRADE AND THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENTAL FREE TRADE AREA HELD ON 14TH DECEMBER, 2019 IN ACCRA, GHANA

Your Excellency Nana Addo DankwaAkufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana;
Honourable Ministers;
Senior Trade Officials;
Chief Negotiators;
Your Excellencies Ambassadors and Heads of Mission Here Present;
Distinguished Delegates;
Ladies and Gentlemen:

I would like to begin by, earnestly, thanking His Excellency the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Akufo Addo for finding time to grace this combined meeting of Ministers responsible for negotiating and implementing the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Your Excellency, your commitment to the cause of Pan-Africanism is well known and greatly appreciated. I do recall that it was Your Excellency who first supported the motion of the AfCFTA Champion at the January, 2018 Assembly of the African Union Heads of State and Government to have an extraordinary Assembly for the sole purpose of signing the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area. A record of 44 countries signed the historic Agreement in Kigali.

As they say, the rest is history.
Your Excellency’s commitment to Pan-Africanism has been further demonstrated by the willingness of the People and Government of the Republic of Ghana to hold these meetings and preceding ones at short notice. Beyond commitment, Ghana has warmly welcomed us as well as provided excellent facilities for the conduct of our business.
Honourable Ministers and distinguished delegates, I request you all as a mark of collective appreciation to give His Excellency the President and the People of the Republic of Ghana, a generous round of applause.

Your Excellency the President;
Honourable Ministers;
Distinguished Delegates:
I would now like to address the Honourable Ministers.

I will begin by saying that we are meeting here today to embark on preparations for the start of trading on 1st July, 2020 under the African Continental Free Trade Area as well as facilitate operation of its secretariat.
As you Honourable Ministers undertake these strategic tasks, I would like to remind you that you are also heroines and heroes of the African Continental Free Trade Area.

I will invite you to go back in your minds and recall the stalemates on several issues that you were faced with in December, 2017 in Niamey, Niger after the Senior Trade Officials concluded their work.
Further recall that the Champion of the African Continental Free Trade Area, His Excellency Mahamadou, Issoufou requested you Honourable Ministers to break the stalemates so that he could present a forward-looking progress report to his peers the following month.

As policy makers, you decided not to disappoint the AfCFTA Champion. In this connection, you also decided to look at all the contentious issues and after working with a high sense of responsibility, resolved them within three hours.

As a result of this, the AfCFTA Champion was able to present a progress report which was well-received. As earlier indicated, the President of this Great Country supported the motion of the Champion to have an Extra-Ordinary Summit to sign the Agreement.

The momentum established at Kigali has grown by leaps and bounds. The AfCFTA is in the news, in Africa and other parts of the world.
Through the African Continental Free Trade Area, Africa has become a key defender of the multilateral trading system.
Through the African Continental Free Trade Area, Africa has decided to create her future.

As a consequence, we have, through the African Continental Free Trade Area created real possibilities for attracting large-scale and long-term investments. These are crucially required to promote broad-based development and generate decent livelihoods for ordinary Africans.

As we move towards the roll out the AfCFTA market on 1st July, 2020, your task, Honourable Ministers, as policy makers, is to ensure that the roll out is done on that day.

This where your leadership is now crucially required. You are faced with the new challenge where work on key issues to facilitate start of trading, especially on rules of origin and offers on tariff concessions on trade in goods and offers on trade in services is moving rather slowly. Momentum is declining. The energy levels are going down. Instead, bureaucracy is seeping. Where there is bureaucracy, there is slow progress.

With this slow progress, you may not be able to deliver a full package of instruments that would fully support the start of trading on 1st July, 2020 and usher in an active and efficient market.

At the same time, you decided, and so rightly, at your inaugural meeting held in October this year in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia that the start of trading will be on 1st July, 2020 as decided upon by the Niamey, 2019 Extra-Ordinary Summit.

In this respect, failure to deliver to the upcoming Summit is not an option.

Your key task, therefore, Honourable Ministers, in the two meetings being held today and tomorrow is to ensure that you resolve all outstanding issues with the same determination, passion and leadership insights that you so ably exhibited in December, 2017 in Niamey, Niger.

The stakes are higher this time round. Our Heads of State and Government announced to Africa and the rest of the world a date of the start of trading. It is your duty to protect their integrity and reputation by ensuring that the start of trading is rolled out on 1st July, 2020 in accordance with their 2019 Niamey Decision.

Your Excellency the President;
Honourable Ministers;
Distinguished Delegates:
I will not make a long statement.
I will just make two points before I conclude.

The first one is on project financing. The Afro-Champions Initiative will be briefing you, Honourable Ministers on the work that they are doing to establish a financing framework for the African Continental Free Trade Area. The Framework, which is private sector driven has the potential to increase investment flows in Africa from both external and internal investors. My recommendation is that after the Afro-Champions Initiative have made their presentation, you convey it, along with your observations to the Champion of the African Continental Free Trade Area with your recommendation that it be considered by the February, 2020 Assembly of African Union Heads of State and Government. Through the Financing Framework, the African Union will fully bring on board, the private sector in the implementation of the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area.

My second and last point is that leadership lights. Leadership provides vision as well as direction. It also inspires followership. In order to generate groundswell for the African Continental Free Trade Area among ordinary Africans, leaders have to talk about it and act in support of it in their daily leadership activities and responsibilities. In so doing, a new culture, in support of the African Continental Free Trade Area will emerge among ordinary Africans. Once the AfCFTA becomes a people’s movement, nothing will stand in our way.

And nothing must stand in our way. Small and fragmented markets, commodity dependency and aid dependency have reached their course in Africa’s development trajectory. The alternative is one African market and we should realize that vision and make it deliver a transformed Africa of independence, unity, stability, progress, happiness and high sense of self-worth. Africans and Africa deserve these, and nothing less.

I end here and thank you all for your kind attention.