The decision was announced yesterday at the 12th AU Extraordinary Summit held in Niamey, Niger, after Ghana beat off competition from countries including Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar and Senegal.
The core mandate of the secretariat will be to implement the AfCFTA Agreement, which has since been ratified by 25 member states of the AU.
The AfCFTA is a trade agreement among 49 AU member states, with the goal of creating a single market, followed by the free movement of people and a single-currency union. The AfCFTA was signed in Kigali, Rwanda, on March 21, 2018.
A statement from the Jubilee House yesterday said during the closing session of the summit, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo thanked the assembly for the decision, stating that “it is a privilege that, for the first time in our nation’s history, we have the responsibility of hosting an important pan-African institution”.
Donation
He said Ghana was ready to donate $10 million to the AU to support the operationalisation of the secretariat, saying: “I have set up an inter-ministerial committee of my government to work with the AU Commission towards this end.”
The President urged the assembly to direct the AU Commission to prepare and execute a host-country agreement, in accordance with the Executive Council Decision EX.CL/195 (VII) Rev.1 of July 2005 on hosting AU Organs and hold consultations with Ghana and key stakeholders to prepare the statutes of the AfCFTA Secretariat, with a view to providing a report for the consideration of the Council of Ministers of Trade.He also called on pan-African institutions such as the UN Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank, the African Export-Import Bank and other key stakeholders, including friends of Africa, to provide such support as they could towards the establishment of the secretariat.
“I am determined to do whatever I can to guarantee the smooth take-off of the secretariat and help make sure that it turns out to be a world-class institution which will become the pride and joy of all Africans,” he said.
“We owe it to generations unborn to ensure that the biggest trading bloc on the globe, whose outcomes will be rewarding to all and which will assist in attaining the ‘Africa We Want’ does not falter,” President Akufo-Addo added.
