AfCFTA success questionable, countries ‘can’t take care of themselves’ – Dr Mensah

Dr Lord Mensah told GhanaWeb that while the thinking behind AfCFTA is very good, he struggles to see the continental free trade agreement, expected to start in January 2021, achieving its objectives.

“If you look at the countries that are going into this agreement, most of them are not capable of taking care of their own selves. Some of them having companies that cannot be in the system for more than a decade. These are things that we need to work on before we start thinking about AfCFTA,” he told GhanaWeb on Friday, October 23, 2020.

He said for the intercontinental trade agreement to be successful, the member states must be committed to improving their economic and security situations.

“In Africa, there are a lot of countries sitting on time bomb because of unemployment situations; countries are not prepared within themselves, how much more externally,” he said.

The Economist also said another issue that he is concerned about with regards to the AfCFTA is the fact that many African countries do not seem to have one particular product that they can break into other African markets with.

“For a successful AfCFTA, countries must also have a product that they are keen on taking to other parts of the continent,” he said.

AfCFTA is the flagship project of the African Union’s Agenda 2063, which is expected to create a market of 1.2 billion people with a combined GDP of $3 trillion.