Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Thomas Tayebwa, challenged the European Union to stop shipping counterfeit electrical accessories to Africa, arguing that the continent also needs quality and sustainable products.
Tayebwa made the call while speaking during the 64th session of the OACPS Parliamentary Assembly and Constitutive Sessions of the Organization of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS) – the European Union General Assembly in Luanda, Angola on Tuesday. The five-day OACPS-EU Joint Parliamentary Assemblies commenced on February 17 and ended Wednesday, February 21.
Tayebwa observes that counterfeit electrical products including timing switches, multi-plugs, adapters, terminal connector blocks, circuit breakers, and earth leakage devices among others are a great danger to the continent as such products can cause burns, electric shocks, and even firestorms.
To mitigate the challenge, Tayebwa asked the European leaders to commit to stopping the shipment of such products to Africa. He also called on African leaders to raise awareness and illuminate the extent of this problem.
Tayebwa also rallied African leaders at all levels to reject what he called an unacceptable proposal by the European Union that requires Africa to pay the heaviest penalties of Climate Change yet the continent is the least emitter.
Verner Ayukegba, the Senior Vice-President of the African Energy Chambers on Access to Reliable, affordable, and Sustainable Energy for the Africa-EU said over 600 million Africans have no access to reliable or affordable energy while another 900 million have zero access to clean cooking fuels, mostly women and children.
Ayukegba pointed out that in many cases, the vulnerable group of the population doesn’t care where the molecules that create the power come from, and don’t even care whether it is coming from gas, or whether it’s coming from solar, or whether it’s coming from hydro but what they care about is reliable and affordable energy.
“We do believe transition is important. We do believe that energy transition is necessary. But Africa needs to industrialize. We need jobs. And so if that means that we need to use gas resources, we do need to hurry up and use those gas resources,” Said Ayukegba.
In response, Marc Angel, Vice President of the European Parliament said access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy is a key priority for the EU’s partnership with Africa. “EU has committed up to Euros 20 billion, about 83.836 trillion Shillings to support the deployment of at least 50 gigawatts of renewable energy in Africa and to provide at least 100 million people with electricity access by 2030.
“It seeks to increase access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy services for African people and businesses to promote the increased generation of renewable and sustainable energy but also increase energy efficiency,” the EU vice president said.
According to the European Commission statistics, in 2020, the largest trade partner for Africa was the EU with 33 per cent of exports to and 31 per cent of imports from non-African countries. In both cases, China was the second largest partner with 17 percent of exports and 22 percent of imports.
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