The Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Africa (AfCFTA), Wamkele Mene, has revealed that the budget of the secretariat has been approved.

He said this paves the way for the secretariat to start advertising for various vacant positions in order to get qualified persons to fill all the posts.

At a media engagement on Thursday October 15, Mr Wamkele Mene said “in the next few weeks we shall be in the position to start advertising positions both the ones that are the professional levels and those that will be support staffs.”

He further noted that mentorship will be provided to young trained professionals.

“Specifically for people that come from the universities so that they have opportunities to work with us for a year.

“The idea is to build the spirit of young country professionals so that after the period that they spend with us they can either be absorbed into the secretariat or they can joined the private sector,” he said.

The AfCFTA is a free trade area which, as of 2018, includes 28 countries.

It was created by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement among 54 of the 55 African Union nations.

The free-trade area is the largest in the world in terms of the number of participating countries since the formation of the World Trade Organization.

Accra, Ghana serves as the Secretariat of AFCFTA and was commissioned and handed over to the African Union (AU) by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on August 18, 2020 in Accra.