The Gambia is at risk of losing about 80% of her fiscal revenue from tax on import due to the duty free and quota free trading with the European Union when the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are signed.

The EPAs, a set of trade agreements between Africa Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and the EU, are expected to bring about increased trade and economic development for the two blocs through a tariff-free and quota-free system, but many decision makers and cautious economists in Africa have been sceptical about the whole deal, saying it would bring more harm than good to the economies of Africa, who is always at the receiving end of the trade relation.

The director of the newly created Ministry of Economy, National Planning and Industrial Development, Lamin Dampha, said although there will be increased market with EU, but The Gambia will not be able to take advantage of the opportunity because of the absence of a strong productive sector. EPAs will pose serious policy, resource and adjustment challenges that will apparently outweigh the opportunity to increase volumes and varieties.

Speaking at a one-day workshop on the EPAs for National Assembly Members organized by the National Youths Association for Food Security (NaYAFS) held at the Laico Atlantic Hotel in Banjul, Mr Dampha said import growth will undermine domestic production in import-competitive activities, which will lead to unemployment and income losses. He added that EPAs will also threaten intra-ECOWAS trade, which is one of the fundamentals of the regional integration.

The Gambia will certainly require budgetary support to cushion the effects of revenue loss as a result of the EPA. There will also be a problem of Balance of Payments – the 42% increase in imports would require twenty-two-fold increase in export to achieve trade balance in post-full EPA.


“Although EU may provide some form of stop-gap resources in the short-to-medium term, a full EPA would probably come at a much higher price,” Mr Dampha explained. He noted that The Gambia will prefer to continue to utilize the Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative currently being enjoyed in Least Developing Countries (LDCs), without necessarily losing development assistance from the EU.

Madam Dede Amanor-Wilks, International Director for West and Central Africa ActionAid, said one thing “we can be sure of is that any integration that the EU is proposing must be in Europe’s interest”.

She said: “Some of us fear that signing EPAs will derail all the efforts made at the level of institutions such as ECOWAS to achieve integration, and we must acknowledge that the ECOWAS has gone further than most regional blocs to achieve integration.

“Free movement of people is one of the achievements we can be proud of in ECOWAS, though there is still much work to be done to ensure it is not only that we can afford airline that travel freely but that the thousands of small traders who cross borders everyday are also given this freedom of movement.”

“Among ECOWAS states, it is only Ghana and Cote-d’Ivoire that have so far initialised the EPAs. This signals that once the sticking points are negotiated they will sign full agreements. Nigeria on the other hand has announced that it will not sign.

And this underscores the role of regional integration. Nigeria, which is blessed with an abundance of human and natural resources, can afford to say ‘No’ to EPAs. “By grouping together and integrating key aspects of our economic and social organization, we too can say ‘No to EPAs in their current form’.”

BY: LAMIN JAHATEH