Founder and Executive Chairman of the Africa Prosperity Network, Gabby Otchere-Darko, says visa restrictions between African countries are costing businesses valuable opportunities and undermining efforts to create a single African market.

speaking on JoyNews’ The Pulse, he said visa application processes can take days, meaning businesspeople may miss meetings and other opportunities that require them to travel at short notice.

“The cost is not just in delays. Because to apply for a visa itself is a process, and it can take days. It also means that you miss opportunities,” he said.

Mr Otchere-Darko said the restrictions affect more than businesspeople, pointing to students and people travelling to attend sporting events and concerts.

He explained that although such events may be recreational for attendees, they also represent business opportunities for those organising them.

According to him, Africa’s ambition to establish a single market through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) cannot be fully achieved without the free movement of people.

“The focus now is how to get businesses moving. But you can't have businesses moving if you don't have free movement of people,” he said.

He also called for greater attention to movement within the digital economy, which he described as one of the biggest economies on the continent.

Mr Otchere-Darko said some African countries are increasingly seeking to protect limited jobs from foreign competition because of frustrations over job creation.

He cited developments in South Africa and Kenya as examples, arguing that protecting fragmented national economies could ultimately limit the opportunities available to young people.

“What some of our leaders are looking to is to protect the fewer jobs that are there, rather than saying that, look, if we allow our economies to integrate, then it creates greater opportunities for job creation,” he said.

He argued that removing trade barriers would also create stronger incentives for investors and industrialists to establish businesses across the continent.

Mr Otchere-Darko said an investor establishing a factory should be able to look beyond the size of an individual national market and consider the much larger regional and continental consumer base.

“If you have a single market, one of the biggest things about a single market is that you take away, because what you have is a common customs, which means that things are not, they don't attract duties if they move across borders,” he said.

He said removing such barriers could encourage industrialists to establish factories because they would have access to larger markets.

He cited the potential of moving from Ghana’s market of about 35 million people to the ECOWAS market of about 460 million, or the wider African market of about 1.5 billion consumers.

“The more borders you take away, the greater opportunities for investors to then, what, create the businesses that will generate the jobs and the economic activity that will allow our countries to grow,” he said.

Mr Otchere-Darko therefore stressed that Africa’s economic integration is closely tied to the continent’s ability to generate jobs and expand economic activity.