Parliamentary Seminar to discuss approach towards the newly restructured ECOWAS Commission, precedes 2022 second Extra-Ordinary Session
Lomé, the capital of the Republic of Togo, is billed to host the 2022 second Extra-Ordinary Session of the 115-Member ECOWAS Parliament.
The Session, which will open on 03 October 2022, is scheduled to close on 08 October 2022.
This is in line with Article 27 (2) of the Supplementary Act A/SA.1/12/16 relating to the Enhancement of Powers of the ECOWAS Parliament which provides that an Extra-Ordinary Session may hold at the initiative of either, the Chairman of Authority, Speaker, President of Commission or at the express request in writing of an absolute majority of Members to the Speaker.
The major agenda of the Extra-Ordinary Session is the consideration and adoption of Parliament’s 2023 Annual Budget Estimates. However, preceding the session will be a 2-day Parliamentary Seminar themed: “Application of the Supplementary Act on the Enhancement of Powers of the Parliament in Light of the Restructuring of the ECOWAS Commission”, from 29 to 30 September 2022, in Lomé.
The Seminar is designed to explore and discuss the Parliament’s approach to the new administrative restructuring of the ECOWAS Commission, in line with its mandate within the context of the Supplementary Act.
The key highlights of the Parliamentary Seminar include: (a) Operationalizing the New Institutional Reforms at the ECOWAS Commission: The Implication on the Mandate of the Parliament and Inter-Institutional Cooperation (b) Exercising Parliamentary Power in Areas such as Rendering an Opinion and Mandatory Assent (Articles 8 – 14) and Parliamentary Inquiry in relation to Mediation (Articles 7(d) & 41) and (c) The Role of ECOWAS Parliament in the Democratization of the Regional Integration Process in line with its Powers under the Supplementary Act.
This Seminar stands-out as a remarkable engagement for Parliament to discharge its mandate under the legal framework of the Protocols in the Community Parliament, and the Vision 2050 of ECOWAS to transform from ECOWAS of States to an ECOWAS of people, where the voices and aspirations of its citizens are evidently represented in the decision-making process of the Community.
The ECOWAS Parliament which is a Representative Assembly of the peoples of the Community has a statutory and guaranteed minimum of (5) seats for each Member-State, while the remaining forty seats are distributed in proportion to the population of each country. Consequently, Nigeria has 35 seats, Ghana 8, Côte d’Ivoire 7, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Senegal have 6 seats each. The other countries namely, Benin, Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Togo have 5 seats each.
