The wanton application of travel restrictions on African countries by Europe and other foreign nations underscore the need for accelerating Africa’s self-sufficiency and intra-continental trade, says the Secretary-General of the AfCFTA Secretariat, Wamkele Mene.
In an interview with Single African Market on the implications of the travel restrictions on some African states as a result of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, he mentions that boosting Africa’s industrial development capacity will put a stop to its traditional dependence on external markets for trade.
“We should focus on building this market [AfCFTA] on our continent and we should focus on making sure that we no longer require vaccines to be brought into Africa from other parts of the world.
We should boost our productive capacity vaccines, of generic drugs and so on, and so one of the lessons from these travel restrictions is that we must accelerate Africa’s industrial development,” he says.The AfCFTA boss was livid that rather than standing in solidarity with African states with the Omicron variant, the affected nations are being punished for identifying the virus in their territories.
“These travel restrictions have a very negative effect on supply chains; it is a violation of international trade law to discriminate against countries in a way in which African countries are being discriminated against.Mr. Mene further argues that it was because of scientists in Botswana and in South Africa that the Omicron virus was discovered, the absence of which could have brought dire consequences for the global economy.
“So, it’s a very regrettable state of affairs. Mozambique has no Omicron variant reported but countries in Europe have more cases of Omicron than Mozambique and Malawi and Zambia and yet those countries are not banned but you ban Mozambique, Eswatini and so on, and it’s totally unacceptable,” he expresses.
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