Moghalu: Africa Needs Private Sector Bill of Rights to Complement AfCFTA, Eradicate Poverty

Dike Onwuamaeze

The Chairman, Board of Directors and Advisory Board of the Africa Private Sector Summit (APSS), Professor Kingsley Moghalu, has called for the adoption   of a charter on the Private Sector Bill of Rights (PSBoR) by all African governments to help the continent achieve an enabling environment for business and increased prosperity.

Moghalu made this call yesterday in Cairo, Egypt, when he delivered the keynote speech at the AfCFTA Joint Private Sector Session during the 2023 Afreximbank Intra-African Trade Fair.

The speech was titled, “The Africa We Want: The Private Sector Bill of Rights as a Companion Instrument to Regional Economic Communities and the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.”

He argued that that trade, business and economies in general in Africa could not grow sustainably, create wealth and lift millions from poverty without strong, predictable enabling business environments that the PSBoR would engender in the continent.

“This is the value proposition of the Africa Private Sector Summit’s (APSS) proposed Charter on the Private Sector Bill of Rights. As I hope that I have demonstrated, the PSBoR is an indispensable compliment to Africa’s Regional Economic Communities and the potentially transformative AfCFTA Treaty. 

“The PSBoR, when adopted, will provide many practical benefits to varied stakeholders including governments, stock exchanges, African businesses, development partners, and the continental and global publics.

“Thriving businesses pay taxes to the government, increasing revenues. Similarly, a thriving private sector generates listings and sustainability of capital markets. Productive economies with skilled, well-educated labour forces will position Africa to join the 4th Industrial Revolution.

“In short, the complementarity of the PSBoR rivate Sector Bill of Rights to the RECS and the AfCFTA equals an Africa that is truly open for business!” he said.

Moghalu, a former deputy governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, postulated that the envisaged quantum leaps from the impact of AfCFTA simply could not be achieved without a vibrant and thriving  private sector.

“While governments have signed and ratified the AfCFTA, it is companies and business enterprises that trade across Africa, far more than governments. This means that the African private sector must be strengthened to leverage the provisions and protocols of the AfCFTA to expand intra-African trade to create prosperity.

“This means that enabling business environments for trade and investment must be created to actualise the protocols of the RECs and the AfCFTA,” he said.

Moghalu, explained that the mission of the APSS was to promote trade and investment across Africa through an enabling business environment, adding that the APSS’ methodology was to work through an ecosystem approach in which it collaborate with other entities such as the Pan-African Chamber of Commerce and Industries (PACCI), the African Business Council (ABC), and the Africa Education Trust Fund (AETF) to leverage the private sector’s ability to drive trade and investment in the continent.

Therefore, “APSS is engaging with African governments and other relevant parties for the adoption by all African countries of PSBoR for an Enabling Business Environment.

“The PSBoR contains 24 specific rights. These rights include the rights to easy establishment of businesses, a conducive legal framework for business, infrastructure, peace and security, and consultative relationships between governments and businesses in the making of regulations that govern or affect business,” he said.

He also pointed out that the adoption of the PSBoR would fast-track the actualisation of the key framework protocols of the AfCFTA.

These protocols are tariff reductions, liberalisation of trade and services progressively, cooperation on investment, Intellectual Property Rights and competition policy as well as cooperation on all trade related issues, customs matters and the implementation of trade facilitation measures.

Others are the establishment of dispute settlement mechanism and constituting and maintaining an institutional framework for the implementation of the AfCFTA.