ACBF CALLS FOR AFRICAN CENTRAL BANK, AFRICAN MONETARY FUND

LAGOS, Nigeria – The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) has called for the establishment of strong inter-regional pan-African establishments to foster economic integration.

Specifically, the ACBF is calling for the establishment of African Central Bank, African Monetary Fund among others to forster regional integration. The ACBF made the suggestion through its Executive Secretary, Prof. Emmanuel Nnadozie on Thursday at the 2017 Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

“Everybody has a role to play in the regional integration of Africa, we need to ensure that pan African credit institutions are adequately involved in the integration process. In the spirit of ‘Africanness,’ the AU Anthem should be sang alongside the national anthem, the AU flag should be hoisted alongside flags of African nations in public places.

“We also need to establish the African Central Bank, African Monetary Fund amongst other institutions, “ he said.

Nnadozie stressed the need to address political issues confronting transboundary integration in Africa as well a means of broadening intra-regional infrastructure.

“There is no question that regional integration is critical to Africa’s development. A lot has been achieved since the idea of regional integration was introduced to the continent though there is a lot of room for improvement. Of Africa’s 55 countries, only five belong to five regional economic committees while four belongs to three of such.

“Regional integration in Africa has tended to follow a top down approach, most African countries are intergovernmental in nature making it difficult to make decisions. It is important to address these issues, we need transformational leadership, Africanness, allow a solid financial capacity and foster a regional citizen development process”, he said.

He explained that the ACBF which was founded in 1991, to address the issues of designing and building the human capital of Africans had invested over $1billion to help various governments in the region.