The ECOWAS Regional Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERERA) has introduced the much-trumpeted ECOLink to strengthen transparency and accountability in the management of resources for agencies and institutions in the ECOWAS region.The ECOLink project was initiated by the ECOWAS Commission to harmonize and improve business processes across all ECOWAS institutions and agencies. The Chairman of the ERERA), El Hadj Ibrahima Thiam, explained at the launch in Accra that ECOLink project would enable ERERA to integrate applications that access standardized enterprise data for all ECOWAS institutions, agencies and offices.
 
The other benefits of the project, Mr. Thiam mentioned include streamling time-consuming business processes, improving control over documents, reducing paper work and easing access to information.
He added that through the main development vector that Electricity Power represents, ERERA was promoting interlinks between ECOWAS Members’ production and distribution plants in providing regulatory services, thereby ensuring economic efficiency and investment relevance. “It is therefore with pride and honour that on behalf of the president of the ECOWAS Commission and all my colleague Statutory Appointees, I wish to pay tribute to our Council of Ministers for its contribution to the initiation, conceptualization, funding and implementation of the ECOLink project, amongst other institutional reforms in the ECOWAS Agenda,” Mr Thiam said.
 
According to him, the project was an Integrated Management System that would reshape administrative, financial, procurement and human resources management in ECOWAS institutions and agencies, adding that it would certainly strengthen ERERA in fulfilling its crucial mandate for the benefit of the respective economies in the region.
 
The ECOWAS Commissioner for Finance, Mrs Khadi Ramatu Saccoh who is also the sponsor of the ECOLink Project, stated: “With paperless processes, timely processing of transactions, checks and balances, overview and remote control management, the ECOLink system completely shapes ECOWAS’ management processes, and carries a breadth of modernisation and efficiency to this noble institution as it marks 40 years of existence”.
 
She also emphasised that the implementation of ECOLink would certainly strengthen ERERA in fulfilling its crucial mandate for the benefit of the ECOWAS sub-region economies. He noted: “The project is a modernized management system with various parameters, including automated payment transaction that permit electronic processing of requisition, vetting of documents, quotations from vendors, technical evaluation and purchase orders”.
 
Written by Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh