Nigeria’s contribution to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in the last 16 years is more than the contribution of 12 other member countries in the same period.
A document presented by the ECOWAS Commission to Parliament during a Virtual Second Extraordinary Session, revealed that Nigeria paid 853,310,564 UA (West Africa Unit of Account) for the period under review.
The West African Unit of Account (WAUA) is the authorised currency used in ECOWAS. The exchange rate for July obtained from ECOWAS shows that one Unit of Account equals $1.3799633.
Nigeria’s payment represents 40.42 per cent of the total payment of $2,913,088,908 payment made by all the 15 member states, and is higher than the payments made by 12 other countries put together, except Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.
Ghana paid about $508,577 million, Cote d’Ivoire $347,262 million, while Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo paid a total of $879,711 million.
Ghana’s payment represents 17.45 per cent of the total sum, Cote d’Ivoire 11.9 per cent, while the cumulative payment by the other 12 countries represents 30.1 per cent.
The community levy data showed that many countries were yet to pay the total sum from their community levy assessments.
Based on the assessment, if all countries had paid in full, the sub-regional body would have gotten more than $3,710 billion as against the $2,913 billion paid, leaving a deficit of $797,215 million.
Based on this assessment, Nigeria had paid 64 per cent of its payments, leaving an outstanding of 36 per cent.
Going by the above, if all countries had paid their complete levy, Nigeria alone would have paid more than $1,842 billion, representing 49.64 per cent of the total Community Levy accruable to ECOWAS.
