Marigibi County – Liberia’s Minister of Foreign Affair Marjon Kamara has termed the two days meeting of the ECOWAS AD HOC Ministerial Committee on Institutional Reform as significant for the development of the country.
Report by J.H. Webster Clayeh – [email protected]
“It has been several years since we were able to hold something of this magnitude.”
“The memorial of it is very vivid to me,” Minister Kamara said during the opening of the two-day ministerial meeting of ECOWAS’s Foreign Ministers held at the Famington Hotel in Margibi County Monday.
She added: “It was 1979 when we hosted the African Union Summit and as some of you may recall; maybe others were too young, but we were still holding the Chairmanship of the African Union when the coup d’état happened in Liberia and that was the marking of point for some of us to flee the country. So that should tell you the significance for us; of your present here.”
The Ad Hoc Ministerial Committee on Institutional Reform meeting is part of series of important ECOWAS meetings, ahead of the 51st Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Community, on 4 June 2017, in the Liberian capital.
These meetings include the Ad Hoc Ministerial Committee on Institutional Reform on 29 and 30 May 2017, followed by the Mediation and Security Council on 31 May 2017, and the 78th Ordinary Session of the Council of Ministers, on the 1st and 2nd of June 2017.
Minister Kamara added that the work of the committee has an important consequence for the future of their organization and their community. She said since2006 the organization has been engaged in what she called a “protective reform process”.
“It comes with the transformation of the executive secretarial into the ECOWAS Commission. In 2013, we received new reporter from the Maxwell Stamp consultant. The ECOWAS Authority has kept this effort alive,” she said.
According to Minister Kamara the act of institutional reform has become imperative across Africa, which she said is spearheaded by African Union (AU) body.
“We must resolve to bring this process to a successful conclusion”, the Liberian Foreign Minister said.
Kamara added: “So, your deliberation over the two days should have this as an objective; to conclude the reconstruction of the commission and other ECOWAS institution in a manner where we improve operation deficiency, enhance fair rotation and increase allocation to the program which benefits the citizens of our country.”