By DOH JAMES SONKEY
CPDM Member of Parliament for the Wouri South Constituency, Hon Owona Kono Joseph Hyacinthe has been elected President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the African, Caribbean and Pacific, ACP countries and Co-President of the joint ACP/European Union Parliamentary Assembly for a two years mandate that begins on 20 December 2017.
The Cameroonian Parliamentarian was unanimously elected to these positions during the 47th session of the Parliamentary Assembly of ACP countries last October 11, 2017 in Bruxelles, Belgium.
Talking to journalists at a press conference last October 18, 2017 in Yaounde, the new President of the ACP Parliamentary Assembly and Co-President of the joint ACP/European Union stressed that “my election is eloquent testimony of the dynamism of Cameroonian diplomacy piloted at the highest level by the President of the Republic, H.E Paul Biya.”
The MP underlined that the diplomatic victory confirms once again the confidence that Cameroon and its Parliament enjoys on the international scene in general, at ACP and EU in particular.
Hon Owona Kono further said “My victory equally translates the hard working spirit of Cameroonian elected officials. I want to use this opportunity to thank the Head of State, H.E Paul Biya, the House Speaker of our National Assembly, Hon Cavaye Yeguie Djibril for their support for my candidature. We have a role to play in a few months during the negotiation of the post 2020 Cotonu agreement as we want to make it a win-win agreement. We have started telling our European partners that their future is in Africa and I believe that we can make it come true. They can invest in Africa and that will go a long way to solve a lot of problems such as that of migration.”
The ACP Parliamentary Assembly was created on 15 April 2005 when 27 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries signed the charter as provided for in Article 18 under the Georgetown agreement that equally created the joint ACP/EU Parliamentary Assembly which is first in its kind in the whole world to unite Parliamentarians from the African, Caribbean, Pacific countries and the European Union. It should be recalled that the ACP group was created in 1975.