By Kebba AF Touray
The ECOWAS Parliament adopted its budget of four hundred and eighteen million, sixty-two thousand and nine hundred and twenty-seven UA (418,062,927 Unit of Accounts) for the 2025 fiscal year on Wednesday, December 11, 2024. The regional parliament also advocated for an extended deadline for three member states’ impending exit from the regional body.
The bureau of the parliament made the said adoption during its recently concluded emergency session, which was held from December 6th to 11th, 2024, in Abuja.
The Bureau of the Parliament of ECOWAS expressed a strong desire to see the Authority of Heads of State and Governments deploy an extra-ordinary measure to extend the deadline for Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to leave the ECOWAS Community, scheduled for 29th January 2025.
According to the parliament, this is to give room for further reflection and negotiations to avoid the region’s disintegration. Pursuant to Article 25 (B) (3) of the Supplementary Act relating to the enhancement of the powers of the ECOWAS Parliament, the regional parliament made its position known while deliberating on the draft community consolidated budget of the ECOWAS community’s institutions for the year 2025.
The draft budget was presented to the Bureau of the Parliament by Amb. Wale Awe, chairperson of the ECOWAS administration and finance committee (AFC).
Amb. Awe, together with the Commissioner for Internal Services at the Commission, provided detailed answers to interrogations from bureau members bordering on the extent of prudent management of community levy resources at the disposal of institutions.
Consequently, the ninth meeting of the Bureau of Parliament passed the resolution ECW / PAR: / RES. 018 / DECEMBER / 2024 on the draft consolidated community budget for the year 2025.
After cautious consideration, the AFC proposed a consolidated budget by giving a favorable opinion for the adoption of revenue and expenditure totaling 418,062,927 Units of Account (UA).
The budget for the ECOWAS Parliament was adopted with the sum of 18 696 897 UA, which shows a 19.5 percent decrease from the previous year’s budget.
The ECOWAS Commission and its agencies received a downward revision of 1.4 percent from that of the previous year, culminating in the adoption of the sum of 221.780,096 UA.
The West Africa Health Organization (WAHO) budget increased to 14.21 percent, to the sum of 71,596,777 UA. This consolidated community budget depicts the revenue and expenditure of all ECOWAS institutions, detailing their statutory obligations, and special projects on peace and security activities for instance.
In addition to the draft budget, the bureau also gave a favorable opinion on ten other community Acts referred to the parliament by the ECOWAS commission, for consideration.
The Acts center on diverse fields from energy, transport, water resources, information, and technology to education.
Earlier on, the bureau had an interactive session with the ‘program for women’s political participation in Africa.’
During the interactive session, the program pleaded with the bureau to facilitate the community parliament’s ability to encourage greater involvement of women in political governance around the sub-region.
Unit of Account (UA) is a monetary unit established by the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) with the following exchange rate of 1 UA to 1.31 US Dollars in December 2024.
