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President John Dramani Mahama, has assured that he will present the concerns of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso to the leadership of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) during the next summit.
In a media briefing following a closed-door meeting with Burkina Faso’s military ruler, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, he emphasised that the core issue behind the withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger from ECOWAS is a breakdown in trust.
He stated that he has gained new insights into the issues the three nations face in their relations with ECOWAS.
“We’ve discussed the issue of AES and ECOWAS, and I’ve got new perspectives about the concerns that the three countries have in respect of their relations with ECOWAS. I assured Mr. President that at the next ECOWAS meeting, I would pass on what they have explained to me to the other leaders.
“I think there’s a breakdown of trust amongst the leadership. It will take time to rebuild it, but we have to work on it so that we restore trust and confidence with each other so that we can work together, you know, even if we are not part of the same regional body.” He said
President Mahama disclosed that another key topic they discussed was the growing security threat posed by terrorism in the region, stressing on the urgent need for a collective approach to tackling terrorism.
”We also discussed security, in Africa, we say when your neighbor’s house is on fire, you have to help him to quench it otherwise, it will spread to your own house. Terrorism started with Mali and spread gradually into Niger and now into Burkina Faso, and like I said, terrorism is like a cancer. If you don’t fight it together, it will spread throughout the body, so how we can collaborate in terms of the fight against terrorism is another issue we discussed.” President Mahama revealed.
The two leaders also explored ways to improve transit trade between Ghana and Burkina Faso, boost agricultural exchanges, and establish a direct Accra-Ouagadougou flight.
“Also we discussed the issue of our economic relations in respect of trade between our people, free movement of our people between our countries. We also discuss issues about the trade between us in agricultural products. We export some products to Burkina Faso and Burkina also exports some products to Ghana, so we talked about how we can facilitate that trade.” He stated.
In his media briefing, President John Dramani Mahama noted that they discussed the importance of energy cooperation, particularly in increasing power supply to Burkina Faso. With Burkina Faso recently acquiring a storage terminal in Ghana’s port city of Tema, he revealed that ongoing discussions are underway to leverage Ghana’s existing pipeline infrastructure for the efficient transportation of petroleum products to Burkina Faso.
“We’re also looking at a possible direct flight from Accra to Ouagadougou at least once a day. There’s an airline in Ghana that wants to start that flight and then also how we can increase the supply of power to Burkina Faso, and also the transit corridor for petroleum products.
“Recently Burkina has bought a storage terminal in Tema and so we’re looking to see how they can use the pipeline. We have a pipeline to Bolgatanga and we want to extend it to Wagaduku so that we can push the fuel and diesel products through.” He stated.
Source: Elvisanokyenews.net
