ECO, West African currency, takes off next year

BARRING any last minute change of mind by the Heads of Government and Finance Ministers in West Africa, the long -awaited common currency for the region, the Eco, will finally take off as planned on December 1, 2009.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor and chairman of the regional West African Monetary Agency (WAMA), consisting of governors of the regional Central Banks, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo disclosed this at the weekend in Abuja.

However, not all member-states may join at the take-off date because of their levels of implementation of the convergent criteria. But they may join later when they meet up with the requirement.

Also yesterday, the Action Congress (AC) hailed the appointment of Soludo to the United Nations (U.N) panel to tackle the global financial crisis.

The agreement on the new date was among the highpoints of WAMA at the end of its body 36th meeting in Abuja where members at the meeting reviewed the progress by member states on the convergent criteria issues.

Some of the convergent targets set by the member are that: ECOWAS member-countries must first reduce inflation to five per cent and budget deficit to four per cent; maintain a minimum foreign exchange reserve position that would provide cover for six months and that deficit budgetary financing by their central banks must not exceed 10 per cent of the previous year's fiscal receipts.

Soludo disclosed that as part of moves to ensure that there was no longer any shift in the kick-off date for the common currency as had been done several times since year 2000 by WAMA, was the setting up of a committee to review the several reports on the member

states' convergent progress so far met.

He said the committee was expected to brief the WAMA

body in March 2009, following which it would also brief the ECOWAS council of ministers who would subsequently brief the Council of Heads of Government who have the final say on the matter.

The implication of the adoption of a single monetary zone in the sub- region, include the operation of a single economy in the sub- region under the operation of one central bank with only branches in member states and the use of a single currency throughout the

region.

It will also promote cross-border payments and trade as well as facilitate greater inflow of foreign capital, thereby stemming

capital flight in the region.

In a statement in Abuja yesterday, AC National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said whatever anybody might feel about Soludo, his appointment as one of the 10 members of the panel would help lift Nigeria's visibility in the global arena and accord it the due recognition it was denied, when President George Bush failed to invite the country to a recent forum on the financial crisis in Washington DC.

The party said the House of Representatives was wrong to have missed the chance to rise above individual sentiments to enable it to congratulate Soludo on the well-publicised appointment.

"In the words of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, if you don't honour your own, no one will do it for you. We share in this statement and hereby congratulate Prof. Soludo for the great honour done to him - and by extension his country - through the appointment.

"We wish him God's guidance as he joins other personalities on the global panel to deliberate on what has become one of the most important events of our time - the global financial crisis.

"We have no doubt that his insights will help enrich the work of the panel, in addition to giving Nigeria a voice on a critical issue that, in the long run, will impart on the lives of all the citizens of the world,'' AC said.

The party said Soludo's appointment would help mitigate the disaster, which the international body has courted by naming former President Olusegun Obasanjo as a peacemaker in the seemingly intractable crisis rocking the Democratic Republic of Congo.