Adwoa Safo (left) in a pose with other participants at the meeting.
MEMBER OF Parliament (MP) for Dome-Kwabenya, Sarah Adwoa Safo, has challenged Commonwealth parliamentarians to form a strong collaboration to end civil wars on the African continent.
Ms. Adwoa Safo, member of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), made this call at the 48th CPA meeting held from 20th to 26th October, 2017, at the Imo Trade and Investment Centre, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria, under the theme, ‘Africa Agenda 2063: Vision and Master Plan.’
She said the results of war and conflicts are nothing but abject poverty, depravation and lack of development.
Ms. Safo, who doubles as Ghana’s Minister of Public Procurement, stressed the need for African governments to strive to develop new security architecture with specific emphasis on conflict prevention through peace building and the identification of early warning signals to stop civil wars that usually occur on the African continent.
She noted with grave concern, the proliferation of small arms which she noted, have become a major weapon that triggers warfare, and stressed the urgent need for African parliamentarians to legislate laws to regulate the proliferation of small arms on the continent.
In her opinion, strict adherence to the laws governing the use of small arms would help reduce the proliferation of small arms which will go a long way to reducing the rate of civil war in Africa.
She informed the gathering that the Parliament of Ghana for instance, has enacted (Act 736) which established the National Commission on Small Arms and Light Weapons, under the Ministry of the Interior to regulate the circulation of small arms.
She bemoaned how most African countries were signatories to the United Nation’s Programme of Action on Small Arms as well as the ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms, especially in the case of West African countries, yet they had not enacted their various domestic laws to deal with the menace of civil war and gun proliferation.
The Dome/Kwabenya MP also stated that African elections have been characterized by lack of transparency and fairness which eventually culminate in civil unrest leading to brutalities, noting that the upsurge of such unrest is what stagnates the development agenda of most developing African countries.
The legislator also indicated that women are the ones who suffer the most consequences of civil and armed conflict situations. She further urged the Commonwealth parliamentarians to pass the Anti-terrorism and Money laundering Acts in their various countries just as Ghana has done, in order to end the illicit outflows and inflows of funds both within and outside their respective countries.
She again entreated them to ensure that governments improve on tools for gender mainstreaming such as gender mapping, gender surveys and studies.
BY Melvin Tarlue