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The deadline for the adoption of a single currency for ECOWAS is five years away, and President John Dramani Mahama, is rallying member states to work hard to meet the various timelines.

A review of the activities of a task force on the ECOWAS Monetary Programme showed that member states needed to work hard to enable it meet the various timelines. 

President Mahama who participated in the review meeting in Niamey, Niger, on Monday said, "There will be no room for excuses and especially as political leaders our people will not appreciate any further excuses.

President Mahama and President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger were mandated by ECOWAS in October 2013 to spearhead the sub region's efforts towards a single currency and monetary union by January 2020.

A statement from the Flagstaff House said, at Monday's meeting, the two presidents received the report of their tack force and reviewed the roadmap towards 2020.

Background 
The use of different currencies by West Africa countries has been a major setback to achieving regional integration.

Eight countries, seven of them former French colonies use the CFA franc as their common currency.. They are Senegal, Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire and Niger,mall former French colonies, 

However, Guinea, also a former French colony uses the Guinean franc.

Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony' uses the CFA franc.

Each of the five English-speaking West African countries of Ghana, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, used its own currency while Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony has escudo as its currency.

Roadmap 
To ensure uniformity, the 15-member states of ECOWAS had come out with a roadmap that would see to the realisation of the long-awaited dream of a single currency by 2020.

The roadmap was approved and adopted at the 24th meeting of the Convergence Council of Ministers and Governors of the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ).

It envisaged to launch the ECOWAS Monetary Union in 2020 with the establishment of the ECOWAS Central Bank and the introduction of the common currency .

Readiness 

President Mahama said despite the delay in meeting the Accra declaration of 2000 and the Bamako Accord, which set the pace for a common currency, significant progress had been made in the last few years, and added that a lot of action had been seen under the presidential task force.

But he sounded a earning. "We have a really busy schedule and timelines to meet before the 2020 launch of the ECOWAS monetary union and introduction of a single currency."

He gave an assurance hat he and President Issoufou would continue to work to push their colleagues heads of state for the needed political support for the activities of the various Central Banks and Finance Ministries towards meeting the various criteria and timelines.

"The process towards the establishment of the proposed ECOWAS Monetary Institute must start now in order to have the working group ready ahead of June 2015 as contained in the roadmap," he told the Niamey meeting, 

Mr Mahama added that, "The fine countries making up WAMZ including Ghana, Guinea, Gambia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, know that we have a huge responsibility to ensuring that the main objective of realising a single West Affican currency takes off."

Stressing the importance of coordination in achieving results, the President said the inability of the WAMZ to meet the four convergence criteria was partially as a result of uncoordinated activities.

He said the benefits of a common currency were enormous and as West Africa must take advantage.

"There can be no better time than now to boost trade among our countries, and a single currency will more than facilitate business transactions among our people," he added.