Ghana in Search of Regional Integration Agenda 47 to Motor Vehicle Third Party Liability Insurance(ratified by Ghana in 1985); Convention Regulating Inter-State Road Transportation between ECOWAS Member States(ratified by Ghana in 1985); Protocol Relating to the Definition of Community Citizen(ratified by Ghana in 1985); Protocol Relating to Mutual Assistance on Defence(ratified by Ghana in 1989); Protocol Relating to the Establishment of a West African Health Organisation(ratified by Ghana in 1989). In this regard, the ratification process before 1993, while having the assent of the president or the head of state, never carried parliamentary approval since none was in existence, except for the brief constitutional period between 1979 and 1981. In fact, only a single protocol received parliamentary approval during this period, thus the 1979 Protocol Relating to the Free Movement of Persons, Residence and Establishment which was ratified in 1980. Structure, Functions and Powers of the Community Parliament The Protocol establishing the Community Parliament of ECOWAS, thus A/P2/8/94, was signed in the Nigerian capital of Abuja on August 6, 1994, a whole year after the promulgation of the Revised Treaty of ECOWAS in July 1993. The understanding among the then sixteen Heads of State and Government was that in order to establish a viable regional economic community that could effectively promote integration, a requisite parliamentary infrastructure ought to be put in place. 63 The Community Parliament, however, took another six years to be inaugurated as a supranational entity following the ratification of the protocol by nine countries as stipulated in the protocol and which meant that the protocol came into force. The countries consisted of Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone. The formal inauguration of the Parliament took place in two sessions with the first one held in Bamako from the 16 th to the 19 th of November, 2000 and the second one from the 21 st to the 27 th of January 2001 in Abuja. 64 In conformity with Article 5 of the provisions of the protocol, the Community Parliament is to consist of 120 seats. All member-states are guaranteed a minimum of five seats and the remaining 40 seats shared according to population size. Nigeria, therefore, has the largest number of seats with 35 members, followed by Ghana with eight seats; Cote d'Ivoire, seven seats; Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Senegal have six seats each. Seven other states, consisting of Benin, Cape Verde, the Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Mauritania take five seats each. 65 63 Kenneth Dzirasah, op. cit., p. 2. 64 ECOWAS Annual Reports, Office of the Executive Secretary, Abuja, Nigeria, December, 2005, pp. xxiii and xxix. 65 Mauritania had since left the ECOWAS as a member-state at the turn of the new millennium, bringing the membership of the organization to fifteen, and leaving its representation in the Community Parliament null and void. Cote d'Ivoire also, for a long time, has been unable to assume her seats in the Community Parliament, the reason attributed to the civil war in the country.