African Parliament warns on donor dependency

By Joyce Namutebi        

Members of the Pan African Parliament have warned African Union (AU) member countries against relying on donors to foot the organisation’s budget.

The members, including those from Uganda, said that AU member states must pay a bigger portion of the AU budget given that the abundant resources the African continent is endowed and if put to good use, can cater for the budget.

“Being heavily dependent on donors is not good,” Uganda’s representative, Onyango Kakoba said adding that donor financing comes with conditions attached.

This was at a press conference at Parliament to brief the country about the recent plenary of PAP on the budget process, and the committee session held starting March 13 to 20 in Midrand South Africa.  

During the plenary session, the members scrutinized the AU budget for 2016 amounting to over US$531.3m, almost 70% of which is being funded by donors, Kakoba said.

It is expected that the Heads of State would approve the budget in June. The budget will finance the organs of the AU including PAP, the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights, the Peace and Security Council and the Assembly.

Kakoba explained that this was the first budget of AU to be looked at by PAP because previously the budget was handled by heads of state and other organs of the AU.

AU is a union consisting of 54 African states. The only African state that is not a member is Morocco. The AU was established on 26 May 2001 in Addis Ababa and launched on 9 July 2002 in South Africa to replace the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).

AU objectives include to achieve greater unity and solidarity between the African countries and Africans, defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of its Member States and to accelerate the political and social-economic integration of the continent.

The Pan-African Parliament was established in March 2004, by Article 17 of The Constitutive Act of the African Union, as one of the nine Organs provided for in the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community signed in Abuja, Nigeria, in 1991.

The ultimate aim of the Pan-African Parliament is to evolve into an institution with full legislative powers, whose members are elected by universal adult suffrage.

Kakooba, who chairs the committee on justice and human rights, said they looked at issues concerning the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). He said that ever since the process of review was started 17 countries including Uganda have been reviewed.

Launched in 2003 by the AU APRM is a mutually agreed instrument voluntarily acceded to by the Member States of the AU as an African self-monitoring mechanism.

Kakoba said that the challenge is that although there is requirement for the APRM report to be presented at regional and sub-regional levels, this is not being adhered to.

He said PAP members are surprised that although the jurisdiction of the African court on human and people’s rights was in June 2014 expanded to handle international crimes such as genocide and war crimes, no African country has ratified the protocol.