We'll start using single currency from 2020 - ECOWAS

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has said that the regional bloc will begin a single currency starting with some member states in 2020.

Moustapha Niasse, the president of the National Assembly of Senegal, revealed in an ECOWAS seminar that had in attendance Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, president of the ECOWAS commission and Moustapha Cisse Lo, the speaker of the community parliament, Sahara Reporters reports.

The meeting focused on the challenges and prospects surrounding the creation of the ECOWAS single currency.

Moustapha said: "The single currency will make it possible to lift the commercial and monetary barriers, lower the cost of transaction and spark up economic activities in the region.”

The speaker urged all stakeholders to reflect the road map on the single currency.

The parliament further requested heads of state and governments to be firm in adhering to the 2020 deadline for the establishment of the ECOWAS single currency.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that the head of ECOWAS observer mission to Nigeria and former Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, on Wednesday, met with the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Yakubu Mahmood at the commission's headquarters in Abuja, where she promised to help ensure a peaceful, free and fair elections in Nigeria.

Sirleaf who arrived Nigeria on Tuesday, February 5, also said that her visit was to get more pieces of information as regards Nigeria’s coming election.

She was earlier received by the vice-president of ECOWAS commission, Finda Koroma, at the Presidential Wing of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.