Pan-African Parliament Hansard Report, Third Session of the Second Parliament
The President in the Chair
Monday, 4th October 2010
LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres,Je déclare ouverte la troisième Session de la 2e Législature.Je vais renvoyer la lecture de mon allocution d’ouverture officielle à plus tard.Conformément à l’article 9 du Règlement intérieur, nous allons à présent procéder à la prestation de serment des nouveaux membres qui, suite à leur élection et désignation comme membres du Parlement panafricain, prennent part à nos travaux pour la première fois.
1.0 – Prestation de serment des nouveaux membres
Les membres députés, ci-après nommés, prêtent serment et occupent leurs sièges respectifs dans l’hémicycle:HON. FranciscaDomingas TOMAS du MozambiqueHON. Eduardo Joao LADRIA du MozambiqueHON Peter Hitjitevi KATJAVIVI de la NamibieHON. Arnold TJIHUIKO de la NamibieHON. AdjamgbaAgbessi THEOPHILE du TogoHON. Marie Geneviève Stéphanie ANQUETIL de l’Ile MauriceHON. Ahmed Reza GoolamMamode ISSACK de l’Ile MauriceHON. Steven OBEEDAGOO de l’Ile MauriceHON. Kingsley NAMAKHWA du MalawiHON. Hyacinta CHIKAONDA du Malawi.Nous allons féliciter les nouveaux membres et les accueillir par des applaudissements dans la Chambre.(Applaudissements)Je vous remercie.
2.0 – INVITATION DES HOTES DANS LA CHAMBRE
LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres, conformément aux dispositions de l’article 38.1(h) du Règlement intérieur, j’ai le grand plaisir d’inviter nos hôtes à entrer dans la Chambre. Il s’agit de:M. THEODOROS MELESSE, Directeur Région Afrique de l’IPPF;Dr IBRAHIM A. MAYAKI, Directeur Exécutif du NEPAD;S.E. AKERE MUNA, Président du Conseil économique, social et culturel (ECOSOCC) de l’Union africaine;S.E. l’honorable NOMVULA MOKONYANE, Gouverneur de la Province de Gauteng, notre province hôte.(Les invités entrent dans la salle et s’installentau rythme des applaudissements)LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres,Conformément aux dispositions de l’article 38.1(h) du Règlement intérieur, j’ai maintenant le grand plaisir d’inviter notre hôte spécial, l’honorable Maite NKOANA-MASHABANE, Ministre des Relations internationales et de la Coopération de la République d’Afrique du Sud, à s’installer.(Applaudissements)J’aimerais porter à la connaissance des honorables membres que nous avons reçu un message de solidarité écrit de l’honorable JERZY BUZEK, Président du Parlement européen. Il vous sera distribué.A présent, je vais inviter le Dr Ibrahim A. MAYAKI du NEPAD à donner lecture de son message de solidarité.
3.0 – MESSAGES DE SOLIDARITE
3.1 – Message de solidarité du Directeur exécutif du NEPAD
DR. IBRAHIM A. MAYAKI [EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF NEPAD]:Your Excellency, Right Honorable President of the Pan-African Parliament, distinguished honorable Members of the Bureau of the Pan-African Parliament, honorable Members of Parliament, distinguished guests; it is a great honour and privilege for me, as CEO of the NEPAD Agency, to address this distinguished body of African Parliamentarians.First, let me thank the President and honorable Members of the Pan-African Parliament, as well as the Clerk, for giving me this unique opportunity to deliver a short message of solidarity.NEPAD is extremely proud to be present at the opening of this Third Ordinary Session of the PanAfrican Parliament, and will continue to robustly engage the Parliament as a key organ of the African Union, particularly in promoting popular participation and representation of African peoples in decision-making and good governance. This is at the core of the NEPAD agenda as it relates to leadership transformation and citizen empowerment.We are evidently in full support of the PanAfrican Parliament’s transition from a consultative parliamentary forum into a fullyfledged legislative body. This will give PAP the capacity to enforce strategic decisions for cohesive and collective action around Africa’s policy and development policy issues.The legislative and enforcement powers of a new PAP will also serve to strengthen the role and impact of national and regional parliamentary bodies, thereby consolidating the gains made towards regional integration through the regional economic communities.Opportunities for closer collaboration with parliament have been enhanced following the successful finalization of the integration of NEPAD into the structures and processes of the African Union. In particular, the NEPAD process is being re-energized through the establishment of the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA) as the technical body of the African Union. NPCA, the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, serves as a specialized development agency focusing on facilitating and coordinating the implementation of Africa’s priority programs and projects.The new strategic direction for the NEPAD agency has identified six key thematic priorities namely:Agriculture and Food Security;Regional Integration and Infrastructure;Human Development;Environment and Natural Resources Management;Economic and Corporate Governance; and finally,Crosscutting Issues of Capacity Development, Gender and ICT.En conclusion, Monsieur le Président, je voudrais dire que le processus de transformation qu’a subi le NEPAD lui permet d’être un instrument cohérent au service de l’Union africaine et, bien évidemment, au service du Parlement panafricain. En tant qu’agence de développement de l’Union africaine, nous comptons jouer le rôle que vous voudrez bien nous assigner, dans le cadre du mandat légal qui a été défini par l’Union africaine. Ce rôle, nous comptons le jouer avec motivation, avec enthousiasme et avec professionnalisme.Dans la mise en œuvre des processus relatifs à l’intégration régionale, nous pensons que notre coopération va absolument renforcer la capacité à mettre en œuvre des projets et programmes régionaux prioritaires, que ce soit dans le domaine des infrastructures comme dans tous les autres domaines clés du développement de notre continent.Donc, je voudrais terminer, Monsieur le Président et Messieurs les honorables membres du Parlement, en vous disant que L’Agence du NEPAD est à votre service de manière pleine, et il a longtemps joué ce rôle de manière efficace.Je vous remercie.(Applaudissements)LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres, j’invite maintenant S.E. AKERE MUNA, Président du Conseil économique, social et culturel (ECOSOCC) de l’Union africaine à donner lecture de son message.
3.2 – Message de solidarité de S.E. AKERE MUNA, Président du Conseil économique, social et culturel (ECOSOCC) de l’Union africaine
S.E. AKERE MUNA [PRESIDENT DU CONSEIL ECONOMIQUE, SOCIAL ET CULTUREL (ECOSOCC) DE L’UNION AFRICAINE]:Monsieur le Président du Parlement panafricain,Honorables membres du Bureau du Parlement panafricain,Madame la Ministre des Affaires étrangères d’Afrique du Sud,Madame le Gouverneur,Monsieur le Directeur du NEPAD,Monsieur le Directeur de l’IPPF,Distingués membres du Parlement panafricain,Mesdames, Messieurs,Monsieur le Président,Pour la seconde fois, vous avez bien voulu associer l’ECOSOCC, que je préside, à cette cérémonie solennelle d’ouverture.Je vous en remercie grandement et vous transmets, en même temps, les salutations des conseillers de l’ECOSOCC.Avec votre invitation, vous nous avez aussi demandé de prendre la parole, pour renouveler nos sentiments de solidarité envers vous et cet organe continental.Je saisis aussi l’occasion, Monsieur le Président, pour féliciter les honorables membres qui ont prêté serment ce jour.With your permission, Mr. President, I congratulate the Members who were sworn in today. I do so in the firm belief that there is dire need to strengthen the institutions of our countries and the organs of the African Union. At a time where, on our continent, more and more people feel that salvation from any difficult situation has to pass through a providential man, institutional building is the answer to the strengthening of our countries.Institution building is also the answer to the building of the African Union. The traction towards the United States of Africa can only be achieved if we make the strengthening of the African Union a priority. We must avoid to be defined by our differences or the difficulties of the moment. I don’t intend actually to discount the importance of leadership, even that which is providential. On the contrary I seek to emphasize the fact that our leaders must realize the need for strong and sustainable institutions. We are presently in a country where an acclaimed leader, a providential one for that matter, one who has gained respect of the entire planet, decided to put institutions first. Madiba Nelson Mandela, let everyone know that South African was not about Mandela, but that Mandela was about South Africa. So, it is proper for me to affirm that a strong Pan African Parliament is not about its members, but about the move towards United States of Africa.Even before the transformation of the OAU into the AU, the need for the creation of an organization, which is the union of people and not only union of States and Governments, had been put forth as an overriding imperative. The creation of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) and the Economic, Social and Cultural Council are both firmly grounded on this premise. While the Pan African Parliament is meant to provide the interface between the Parliamentarians who hold an elective mandate, the ECOSOCC, for its part, is meant according to the preamble of the Statutes, to satisfy "the need to build a partnership between government and all segments of civil society, in particular women, youth and the private sector, in order to strengthen solidarity and cohesion among our peoples, as well as to encourage the full participation of the African Diaspora as an important part of the Continent".The roadmap for PAP is its Strategic Plan, which is actually supposed to end in 2010, and is anchored as I understand it, on two pillars: institutional and political objectives. The Parliament’s overall objective, as espoused by the Strategic Plan is, "to evolve into an institution with full legislative powers." Your Excellencies, my proposition is simple, the barometer of the political will to move towards the United States of Africa will be the pace at which this Parliament gets to play its institutional role.The Pan African Parliament is currently an advisory body of the AU. It was established in March 2004 on the basis of Articles 7 (c) and 14 of the Abuja Treaty. The Pan African Parliament Protocol was adopted before the OAU was transformed to the AU, but the organ is recognized under Article 5 of the Constitutive Act, so is the ECOSOCC. The PAP is now fully integrated into the AU system as an organ, reporting to the Assembly and its budget processed through the Policy Organs of the Union. If PAP carries the dream of the Union of the Continent, ECOSOCC is following firmly in its footsteps. ECOSOCC has now a national process almost fine tuned for the election of its members directly from the different constituencies, national, regional and continental. The Diaspora still remains for us a challenge. It is hoped that in the last two years of the mandate of the Current Permanent General Assembly of the ECOSOCC, moves will be made towards bringing in the Diaspora.As regards making the ECOSOCC operational, Sectoral Cluster Committees are established as key operational mechanisms of ECOSOCC, to formulate opinions and provide inputs into the policy and programmes of the African Union. These clusters are:a)Peace and Security;b)Political Affairs;c)Infrastructure and Energy;d)Social Affairs and Health:e)Human Resources, Science and Technology;f)Trade and Industry;g)Rural Economy and Agriculture;h)Economic Affairs;i)Women and Gender; and alsoj)Cross-Cutting ProgrammesI am aware that at the level of the Pan African Parliament, the following ten Permanent Committees exist: the Committee on Rural Economy, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment; the Committee on Monetary and Financial Affairs; the Committee on Trade, Customs and Immigration Matters; the Committee on Co-operation, International Relations and Conflict Resolution; the Committee on Transport, Industry, Communications, Energy, Science and Technology; the Committee on Health, Labour and Social Affairs; the Committee on Education, Tourism and Human Resources; the Committee on Gender, Family, Youth and People with Disability; the Committee on Justice and Human Rights; and finally the Committee on Rules, Privileges and Discipline.Mr. President we will be approaching the Pan African Parliament to see how the Clusters and the Permanent Committees can set down rules of engagement on how the two organs can add more value to the workings of the African Union.Mr. President as I come to the end of my short message, I would want to emphasize that it will be difficult for the dream of the African Union, the dream of having the United States of Africa to take place if the organs are not permitted to play their role fully. So, I call upon this Honourable House to reflect without hindrance and to act without any hindrance as well.I thank you very much.(Applaudissements).LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres, j’invite à présent l’honorable NOMVULA MOKONYANA, Gouverneur de la Province de Gauteng, cette province qui abrite le siège du Parlement panafricain, à prendre la parole.
3.3 – Message de solidarité de l’honorable NOMVULA MOKONYANA, Gouverneur de la Province de Gauteng
HON. NOMVULA MOKONYANE [GAUTENG GOVENOR]:Dr Musa IdrisNdili, Honourable Members of the Pan African Parliament, Chairperson of Economic Commission of African Union, Chairperson of NEPAD, The Minister for International Relations and Cooperation from the Republic of South Africa, fellow Africans.The Constitution of the Pan African Parliament is one of the important milestones achieved in postcolonial Africa. It is the affirmation of the collective desire by African states, sovereign and independent, to work as a united force in the advancement of Africa and her development.The Pan African Parliament is now one of the embodiments of a vision of a free and united Africa, capable of charting her political and growth trajectory, independent of the alien influence. It is the body that is well positioned to advance this vision once espoused by such luminary leaders as Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Patrice Lumumba, Julius "Mwalimu" Nyerere who were strong proponents of Africa development agenda.Honourable President,Today’s sitting of the Third (3rd) Ordinary Session of the second Pan African Parliament happens at the time when Africa celebrates the 50th Independence Anniversary of seventeen (17) African states, which includes the most populous Nigeria. This is a celebration of half a century of freedom from colonial rule. It is the celebration of the rise of the African continent so that she can proudly stand amongst the nations of the world as an important player in the affairs of the world.However, such celebration must be accompanied by sober, frank and critical introspection of our programs and development. We need to reflect on the extent to which these programs have improved the living conditions of our people. We need to do an introspection as to whether or not we have done our work in order to strengthen and consolidate democratic institutions, promote the protection of human rights as well as promotion of good governance.These are some of the critical issues that we must honestly and openly engage in as a united force whose overarching interest is the well-being of Africa and her advancement. The unity of purpose we have forged through the establishment of such institutions as Pan African Parliament will only be made stronger if these issues are central in our work.As a continent we are not immune to global challenges and threats. Africa’s growth will remain arrested if we approach these matters as a disjointed community, particularly in the face of the fast globalizing world. We are at the stage where solidarity and unity amongst African nations are paramount. Turning the tide in favour of Africa demands that solidarity of nations becomes a requirement and not just a choice.Honourable President,As the host of the Pan African Parliament, we would like to assure you and the members that our support for the work of the Parliament will remain steadfast. We will do everything within our means to make your work and stay comfortable and worthwhile.Our Provincial Government and legislature here in Gauteng are more than willing to cooperate and exchange knowledge with this institution and its members. We believe that our work will be more enhanced if we promote cooperation and sharing of best practices.I wish you all a productive work period during this sitting. May Africa prosper. Thank you and God bless Africa.(Applaudissements)LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres, j’invite maintenant notre hôte spécial, l’honorable Maite NKOANA-MASHABANE, Ministre des Relations internationales et de la Coopération de la République d’Afrique du Sud, à prendre la parole.
3.4 – Message de solidarité de HON. Maite NKOANA-MASHABANE, Ministre des Relations internationales et de la Coopération de la République d’Afrique du Sud
HON NKOANA-MASHABANE[MINISTER OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS]:The President of the Pan African Parliament, Dr IdrissNdeleMoussa,Honourable Members of the Pan African Parliament,Honourable Ministers and Deputy Ministers,Your Excellencies, Ambassadors and High Commissioners,Distinguished guests,Ladies and gentlemen.I would like to thank you for inviting me to speak to this pivotal Organ of the African Union on the occasion of the opening of the 3rd Ordinary Session of the Second Pan-African Parliament. Indeed, we are very proud as South Africa and the entire Southern Africa to have been given this opportunity by the African Union to host the PAP in this region.May I also take this opportunity to congratulate those Honourable members who were sworn in this morning. Congratulations!On behalf of the people and the Government of South Africa, I wish to convey our warmest greetings. I would like to say to all of you that you are welcome!We take this opportunity once again, to thank you as representatives of African Union Member States, for the support you gave us when we hosted, together, and successfully, and on your behalf the first FIFA World Cup in Africa. That event showcased to the whole world that this continent is no longer a sleeping giant, and that indeed Africa’s time has come, and that more importantly this is Africa’s century.Mr. President, the institutional birth of the Pan African Parliament can be traced to the Abuja Treaty that was signed in June 1991 and came into force in May 1994. The Treaty called for the establishment of the PAP as a platform for the African peoples to be actively involved in the affairs and decisions of the African Union. However, the Treaty envisaged a long term establishment of the PAP.But the Fourth Extra-ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the OAU held in Sirte, Libya, in September, 1999, adopted the Sirte Declaration which called for (among others) the speedy establishment of PAP. The SirteDeclaration marked a great leap in the coming into existence of the PAP. In July 2000, the 36th Ordinary session of the Conference of the Heads of States and Government in Lome, Togo, adopted the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which provided for the PAP as one of the Organs of the AU.Honourable President and Honourable members, we believe as a country that the Pan African Parliament is a very important Organ of the AU that has a critical role in the democratization process of the Continent, peace-building, development, unity and integration. I would want to agree with the President of ECOSOCC, that when our fore bearers that the Honourable Premier referred to earlier on, envisaged a United States of Africa, they meant the unity of our people who were divided by colonization. They did not envisage a unification of governments, but of our people. They envisaged free facilitated movement of goods and services of our people. They did not dream of an Africa in which intertrade can only be but 10%. So when we talk of United States of Africa, to many of us we talk about integration first of our people, with very strong institutions that will help govern that. So that is why we are not in haste to unite governments, but to unite our people. The 50th anniversary celebrations of the seventeen plus of our countries’ independence, means the unification of our people first. The vision of the African Union in establishing the PAP was to ensure that the peoples of Africa become active participants in the decisions of the AU pertaining to all aspects of our integration. We are, therefore, privileged as a country to have this opportunity to host an Organ of the AU whose task is to promote the shared values of democracy and good governance.It was in this light that our President, His Excellency Jacob Zuma, addressing this Assembly last year, expressed an unwavering support of our government to processes aimed at gradually transforming PAP towards a legislative body as envisaged in its founding Protocol. The African Union, we believe, needs an effective and efficient Pan African Parliament that will contribute towards the entrenchment of a culture of democracy and good governance as enshrined in the Constitutive Act.Indeed, the theme that has been agreed to for the next AU Summit to be held in Addis Ababa early next year, will be the promotion of shared values. In this regard, we commend the PAP for the regional campaigns - in Uganda, Chad and Zimbabwe - to make the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and good Governance known all over the Continent. The PAP is demonstrating through this campaign that it is well placed to support the implementation of the AU Summit decisions.Mr. President, the Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance is predicated on the objectives and principles enshrined in the AU Constitutive Act, particularly Articles 3 and 4, which emphasise the promotion of democracy and good governance, public participation, respect for the rule of law and promotion and protection of human rights on the continent.In this regard, we share the concern expressed by many on this continent that the pace of accession to this instrument has been far from satisfactory. The records of the African Union Commission show that by 31 August 2010, thirty seven countries had signed the Charter and only six had ratified and deposited their instruments with the Commission. This could have changed during the past month, however, the pace does remain slow.For our own part, we signed the instrument in February 2010, and can reveal that the process of ratification is at an advanced stage. I say so to further encourage Member States who have not yet signed and ratified the Charter to also embark on this process as it is for our common good, and it is what our people demand.This Charter, as you are all aware, wants to help improve not only the political governance on our continent, but also our economic and social governance. It is a known fact that socioeconomic development can be best realised in conditions under which public administration is efficient and effective, as well as transparent and accountable. It is the responsibility of the political leadership of our continent to create and foster such conditions for socio-economic development to be realised.This Charter provides us with an instrument, which promotes the participation of our people in democratic processes, which are not limited to just electing political leadership, but also in the administration of their affairs for the betterment of their lives. The Charter gives the necessary impetus for participatory democracy whereby all segments of the society have a say in the administration of public affairs. The PAP as a voice for our people is well suited to promote participatory democracy on the continent. This participatory democracy requires the continued participation of stronger and vibrant civil society and watchdog bodies.Once the Charter has entered into force, the PAP will have to work with all of us to assist us with its implementation, and especially its domestication by AU Member States. It is through its effective and comprehensive domestication that the Charter will have the intended impact on our respective countries. When the Charter is fully domesticated into our countries, its dreams will be a reality and its promises a fact of life for our people. Our success in the domestication of the Charter will in many ways reinforce our ongoing efforts to strengthen existing institutions which are meant to support democracy in our respective countries.Honorable Members, it is worth recalling that the AU has declared this year as the year of peace. We believe that the members of the PAP are well placed, as they come from all over the Continent, to promote peace. By working together as members of the PAP, you have proved that Africans can be united for a common cause regardless of their diversity. The PAP is well placed therefore, to spread this message of peace all over the Continent. It has been said many times that without peace there can be no development. All of us in this august House especially the female members, including the Premier, would know that when the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. By that I am referring to humble and ordinary women who will be seen carrying their goods and babies on their backs. So peace for us is not charity, it is what we expect from our leadership.I am aware of the good work that the PAP has been doing over the years in the peace and security domains. We commend you and encourage you to do more. We are pleased that your work is not confined to countries in conflict, but that you try to include in your list of countries, those that are emerging from conflicts and those in advanced stages of post-conflict reconstruction and development.The efforts of the PAP in peace and security area will go a long way in enhancing our ongoing efforts to deal with unconstitutional changes of government. The resurgence of this phenomenon undermines our continued efforts to entrench and consolidate democracy on the continent and remains a threat to the stability of Africa.It has also become more urgent for us to review the AU instruments we have in place to inform our response to cases of unconstitutional change of government. Honourable members may be aware that when we refer to unconstitutional changes of government, we no longer refer to military coups. There are other mechanisms that have come into play, where l have learnt from my young son who is studying law in South Africa that dear mother, you know there is a trend in this continent, where other countries hold elections, some organize elections. He said there are cases where a military leader carries out a coup, and then he organizes elections in which he is the sole candidate. My son calls that; organizing elections, which is unconstitutional. Our leaders have come to a determination that there are loopholes in these instruments that perpetrators of unconstitutional change of government exploit to their benefit, but to the detriment of our continent.We have to eradicate conflicts on the face of our continent if we want the next fifty years of our independence to be different from the ones we have experienced.In the next fifty years, we should not be talking of an Africa that is rising but an Africa that has arisen.In the next fifty years, we should not be talking of an Africa that is an emerging frontier of opportunities and economic growth, but an Africa that is an expanding frontier of endless opportunities and boundless economic growth.I have just returned from a meeting of the international community in New York, at the United Nations, to review our performance on achieving our targets for the Millennium Development Goals. The prospects are not encouraging for our continent. But I believe that with the bodies like the PAP, our continent can be marshaled into a force formidable enough to make maximum use of the remaining five years towards the MDG deadline of 2015 for a better life for our people.The next fifty years must belong to our people!Mr. President, we as the government would like to see a PAP that is effective and efficient, able to support the integration process of the AU. For this to happen, it is for the PAP to ensure that the institution is underpinned by a competent and efficient administration based on the principle of good governance.I say this mindful of the fact that the PAP requires capacity to carry out its important functions. It remains important in this regard for Member States to continue to provide the required support to the PAP to enable it to carry out its mandate.It is therefore necessary for us to redouble our efforts in working towards the transformation of this organ from its advisory status to a legislative one.We (South Africa) support the campaign and the decision of the AU to have the Protocol of the PAP reviewed to ensure a stronger parliament. We remain committed as the South African government to honoring our undertaking to build a permanent home for the PAP so that the honorable members of this Parliament can enjoy a comfortable stay as they do their work.We therefore wish you success in your deliberations throughout the session. Let me again welcome you to the Republic of South Africa.Your presence in our country for this session reassures us that we will not fail our people when we have on this continent, leaders of your caliber who are ready to leave behind their homes and families to serve Africa.It is this kind of commitment that will ensure that when we celebrate the centenary of our independence, in the next fifty years, our continent must be in a better shape and our people living a prosperous and better life.I thank you.(Applaudissements).
4.0 – ALLOCUTION D’OUVERTURE DE LA TROISIEME SESSION ORDINAIRE
LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres,Je voudrais en votre nom, remercier et féliciter notre invitée spéciale, l’honorable Maite NKOANA-MASAHABANE, Ministre des Relations internationales et de la Coopération de la République d’Afrique du Sud et nos autres hôtes, pour leur message de solidarité, d’encouragement et de soutien.Je vais vous demander de les applaudir, encore une fois, pour ces messages de solidarité.(Applaudissements nourris)Excellence, Honorable Maite NKOANA-MASHABANE, Ministre des Relations extérieures et de la Coopération d’Afrique du Sud, invitée spéciale de notre session,Honorables membres du Bureau du Parlement panafricain,Honorables membres du Parlement,Excellences, Mesdames et Messieurs les membres du Gouvernement,Excellences, Mesdames et Messieurs les Ambassadeurs et chefs de missions diplomatiques et consulaires,Mesdames et Messieurs les Représentants des Organisations internationales,Honorables membres des délégations parlementaires invitées,Mesdames et Messieurs les chefs de partis politiques,Distinguées personnalités en vos rangs respectifs,Mesdames et Messieurs,C’est pour moi un insigne honneur et un réel plaisir de procéder, ce matin, à l’ouverture solennelle de la troisième session ordinaire de la deuxième législature du Parlement panafricain.Je remercie tous nos invités qui ont consacré leur temps précieux à rehausser, de leur présence, l’éclat de cette cérémonie officielle et solennelle prévue par l’article 28 du Règlement intérieur de notre Parlement.Je voudrais à cet égard vous inviter, Mesdames et Messieurs les parlementaires, à reconnaître à nouveau, dans cet hémicycle, Son Excellence Maite NKOANA-MASHABANE, Ministre des Relations extérieures et de la Coopération d’Afrique du Sud, Monsieur THEODOROS MELESSE, Directeur régional de l’IPPF, Docteur IBRAHIM A. MAYAKI, Directeur Exécutif du NEPAD, Son Excellence AKERE MUNA, Président du Conseil économique, social et cultuel (ECOSOCC) de l’Union Africaine, et Son Excellence l’honorable NOMVULAMOKONYANE, Gouverneur de la Province de Gauteng, province hôte du PAP.Distingués invités,La Représentation continentale vous sait gré de votre amitié, de votre solidarité et tient tout particulièrement à vous renouveler sa gratitude pour avoir accepté d’honorer son invitation.Aussi, au nom de tous les membres du Parlement ici présents, je souhaite la bienvenue, dans notre Parlement continental, aux députés nouvellement élus, en tant que représentants de leurs peuples respectifs au sein de cette auguste Assemblée.Ces forces nouvelles, qui viennent de prêter serment, contribueront par leurs vives participations aux débats, à revigorer le blason de cette institution panafricaine.Honorables membres,Distingués invités,Permettez-moi de saisir cette occasion pour rendre un vibrant hommage à la mémoire de feu le Président Umaru Musa Yar’Adua du Nigéria qui s’est éteint environ deux semaines après la clôture de notre deuxième session ordinaire, plus précisément, le 5 mai 2010.En outre, en signe de solidarité et d’hommage aux personnes décédées dans le crash survenu à Tripoli, en Libye, le 12 mai de cette année, et dans le double attentat revendiqué par les miliciens extrémistes d’Al Chabaab, le 11 juillet de la même année respectivement, à l’heure où l’Afrique toute entière et le reste du monde vibraient au rythme de la Coupe du monde de football organisée sur le sol africain, je vous invite à vous lever et à observer une minute de silence.(Une minute de silence est observée.)Je vous remercie.Honorables députés,En votre nom à tous, permettez-moi de saisir cette occasion pour renouveler notre compassion aux gouvernements nigérian, libyen et ougandais ainsi qu’aux familles affligées.C’est également le lieu de condamner avec véhémence cet acte ignoble de terrorisme perpétré en Ouganda contre des personnes innocentes.Chers collègues,Le Parlement panafricain, dont l’un des objectifs consignés dans les dispositions du Protocole portant sa création est de promouvoir la paix, la sécurité et la stabilité en Afrique,s’attardera davantage sur la situation de la Somalie à cause des deux attentats perpétrés en Ouganda, en collaboration avec le Conseil de Paix et de Sécurité de l’UA.Dans cet ordre d’idées, notre institution initiera des réflexions approfondies sur les progrès réalisés et les perspectives de résolution des conflits en cette année consacrée « Année de la Paix et de la Sécurité en Afrique».Aussi, avec la poursuite de certains conflits en Afrique, l’avènement de crises au terme des élections et le retour du fléau des coups d’Etat, le Parlement panafricain compte engager davantage d’efforts en vue de la consolidation de la paix et de la sécurité, de l’établissement et du renforcement de l’état de droit, et de l’observation de l’ordre constitutionnel en Afrique.Honorables députés,Distingués invités,C’est dans cette optique que le Parlement panafricain, en collaboration avec l’Union africaine, les institutions parlementaires régionales et nationales, ainsi que les représentants de la société civile, s’est livré à la vulgarisation de la Charte africaine de la Démocratie, des Elections et de la Gouvernance au niveau des Etats membres de l’UA, en vue de l’appropriation, par les peuples africains, du processus, suivie de la signature et la ratification de ce document important par 11 pays au moins, avant 2011.La grande campagne « 11 before 2011 » lancée par le Parlement panafricain à cette fin, a vu l’organisation de dialogues consultatifs stratégiques relatifs à la signature et à la ratification de cette Charte au niveau des sousrégions Afrique de l’Est (Kampala, Ouganda), Afrique centrale (Ndjamena, Tchad) et Afrique australe (Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe). Ces dialogues se poursuivront en Afrique du Nord et en Afrique de l’Ouest en novembre 2010.La réalisation de cet objectif que s’est fixé le Parlement panafricain participera à enraciner la culture de la démocratie, des élections et de la bonne gouvernance aux niveaux national et continental.Honorables députés,Distingués invités,Le continent africain a eu l’honneur d’abriter, du 11 juin au 11 juillet 2010, en Afrique du Sud, la dix-neuvième édition de la Coupe du Monde de Football.Pour la toute première fois de l’histoire, cette compétition d’envergure planétaire prenait ses quartiers sur le sol africain. Tous les pays du monde entier, du nord au sud, de l’est à l’ouest, riches et pauvres, ont eu le regard tourné vers l’Afrique.C’était un défi pour le continent de démontrer qu’il peut répondre aux attentes politiques, économiques, socioculturelles, touristiques et sécuritaires des performances sportives au cours d’une manifestation d’une telle envergure.La fierté du peuple sud-africain, en particulier, et de tous les Africains, en général en cette occasion, n’a eu de semblable que la joie et l’émotion engendrées par la prestation des Black Stars du Ghana à qui nous réitérons toutes nos félicitations.(Applaudissements).Honorables députés,Distingués invités,L’occasion est idéale pour tous les représentants des peuples africains, fiers du succès de cet évènement, d’exprimer notre joie et surtout de dire à tout le peuple sud-africain Je vous remercie!!! Shukran!!!Muchas gracias!!! Muito obrigado!!!Asante sane!!! Thank you very much!!! Siyabonga!!! Realebuha!!! Siyabulela!!!((Applaudissements).Honorables députés,Mesdames et Messieurs,Au-delà de la Coupe du monde abritée par l’Afrique en 2010, cette année marque également la commémoration du cinquantenaire des indépendances de 17 pays africains et des indépendances africaines.C’est l’occasion pour nous de rendre hommage à tous les pères des indépendances, tout pays africain confondu, qui ont eu le mérite de se vouer à la libération de nos Etats du joug de la colonisation.Je saisis cette même occasion pour lancer un vibrant appel à la mobilisation générale des peuples africains en vue de la sauvegarde et de la défense de cette précieuse liberté dont nous jouissons, aujourd’hui.Je voudrais, en particulier, inviter toutes les forces vives au niveau du Parlement à faire le bilan de ces cinquante années et à s’investir dans la réflexion qui sera entreprise demain dans cet hémicycle, en exprimant des propositions concrètes qui contribueraient à la consolidation de la démocratie et au développement de notre cher continent.L’avenir de l’Afrique nous appartient et nous interpelle tous!Notre destinée nous appartient et nous interpelle tous!Ensemble, en s’inspirant des leçons du passé, nous saurons édifier un continent émergent et dynamique dans le contexte actuel de la mondialisation; un continent capable de grandes réalisations; un continent prospère; un continent où la mortalité maternelle, néo-natale et infantile est réduite; un continent exempt de conflits, d’armes, de corruption, de famine et d’épidémies.Honorables députés,Mesdames et Messieurs,Le Sommet des Nations unies sur les Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement (OMD), tenu du 20 au 22 Septembre dernier à New York, qui s’est conclu avec l'adoption d'un programme d'action de réalisation des huit objectifs antipauvreté d'ici à 2015 et l'annonce de nouveaux engagements relatifs à la santé des femmes et des enfants, ainsi que d'autres initiatives pour lutter contre la pauvreté, la faim et les maladies, témoigne de la volonté partagée de la communauté internationale de trouver une stratégie globale et intégrée à tous ces problèmes épineux.Ces trois jours de rencontres, de débats, de propositions et d'échanges ont été l'occasion, pour toutes les parties prenantes, de passer en revue un catalogue de progrès, qui va de la réduction de la pauvreté à l'expansion de l'éducation primaire, en passant par la lutte contre les maladies mortelles et l'amélioration des conditions sanitaires de millions d'êtres humains.Ce Sommet a également permis d’examiner le chemin restant à parcourir jusqu’en 2015 et d’analyser les facteurs de succès et d‘échec des politiques menées en faveur des OMD après avoir pris conscience de l’interdépendance et de la complémentarité de tous les objectifs.Honorables députés,Mesdames et Messieurs,Le Parlement panafricain est d’avis que l’adhésion à nos valeurs fondamentales communes, notamment la liberté, l’égalité, la solidarité, la tolérance, le respect de tous les droits de l’homme, celui de la nature et le partage des responsabilités, est une condition essentielle de la réalisation des objectifs du Millénaire.A ce titre, nous invitons les États membres de l’UA à s'atteler davantage aux Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement avec une volonté renouvelée, à renforcer leur efficacité au stade de l'exécution des OMD et à intensifier leurs actions collectives, en se servant des stratégies de développement nationales ainsi que des politiques et des mécanismes éclairés qui ont fait leur preuve et qui se sont montrées efficaces.En outre, le Parlement panafricain veillera à une accélération des efforts en faveur de la réalisation, d’ici à 2015, des Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement à travers la mobilisation des peuples africains pour une bonne mise en exécution des plans conçus dans lesdits objectifs.Toutefois, en cette année commémorative, il y a lieu de se rappeler la situation du Sahara occidental toujours engagé vers la reconnaissance de son identité nationale en vue d’aboutir à un processus légitime axé sur les fondements républicains.Honorables députés,C’est le lieu de reconnaître l’urgence de la coopération régionale, qui s’avère si nécessaire pour l’Afrique, ainsi que le droit inaliénable des peuples sahraouis à l’autodétermination.Le Parlement panafricain soutient les efforts du Conseil de Sécurité des Nations unies visant à trouver une solution juste, durable et mutuellement acceptable aux peuples marocains et sahraouis.Le Plan d’action émanant du Sommet de Tripoli de 2009 et appelant à l’accélération du processus de recherche d’un règlement définitif de ce différend et à la tenue d’un référendum juste, libre et transparent pour l'autodétermination du Sahara occidental participe de cet effort.Honorables députés,Mesdames et Messieurs,Au cours de cette période transitoire où le Parlement se prépare à assumer, dans un avenir proche, des fonctions législatives, le Bureau souhaiterait que nous tirions le meilleur parti de nos atouts.Il s’agit pour nous de prendre toute la mesure du processus graduel de la transformation en organe législatif et d’exécuter autant que faire ce peut et à la mesure de nos moyens, le mandat actuel d’organe consultatif dévolu au Parlement panafricain.Permettez-moi, toutefois, de rappeler que ce Parlement, hautement enrichi de l’expertise de divers horizons d’Afrique, devrait aller au-delà du rôle consultatif/conseil et exercer de pleins pouvoirs législatifs au nom de l’Afrique.Ceci nous permettrait de faire suivre d’effets les engagements pris au nom de nos peuples.Voilà la raison pour laquelle le Bureau du PAP s’est engagée à faire de cette institution un parlement au sens propre du terme.Honorables députés,Mesdames et Messieurs,Le PAP s’est engagé à accompagner vigoureusement l’agenda sociopolitique et économique prôné par l’Union africaine en vue d’accélérer le développement du continent. Cet engagement se concrétisera par des promotions dans tous les domaines, et par la consolidation de nos relations avec l’ensemble des acteurs de l’Union africaine et autres partenaires internationaux pertinents.En conséquence, nous nous devons tous de faciliter la mise en œuvre des renforcements institutionnels envisagés.Plusieurs changements seront apportés à nos méthodes de travail, à nos procédures et à nos structures. Nous devons en effet réfléchir aux moyens d'améliorer la pertinence et l'efficacité de nos activités.Le Bureau tient à poursuivre ces objectifs nobles en continuant d’emprunter une approche participative et, pour ce faire, en étroite collaboration avec toutes les structures du PAP.Honorables députés,Mesdames et Messieurs,A l'ère de la mondialisation, nous sommes inévitablement confrontés à plusieurs défis au niveau continental. C’est le lieu de citer la question de la crise alimentaire, les problèmes environnementaux, et surtout la montée de l'intolérance et de la discrimination dans nos sociétés africaines.Nous devons bâtir notre maison commune continentale sur une société ouverte, respectueuse de la diversité africaine qui refuse l'exclusion, qui refuse la discrimination et qui refuse la haine.Chers collègues,Il est de notre devoir d'intensifier le dialogue interrégional et de veiller à l’établissement d’une synergie entre les Parlements nationaux, régionaux et le Parlement panafricain.C’est le lieu de se réjouir du passage du forum parlementaire de la CEMAC en un parlement.L’harmonisation des tarifs douaniers au niveau de la SADEC, l’établissement d’un marché commun des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Est, ainsi que la coordination des politiques économiques, la promotion des programmes d’intégration relatifs aux secteurs aussi importants que l’agriculture, les ressources naturelles, l’industrie, les transports, le commerce et la monnaie par la CEDEAO, constituent également des jalons importants de la visibilité parlementaire et de l’évolution démocratique du Continent.Nous devons transcender autant que possible les clivages nationaux, régionaux, sociaux, religieux, ainsi que toutes les craintes injustifiées qui conduisent à la discrimination et à l'intolérance.Nous nous devons de faire tout ce qui est en notre pouvoir pour réaliser l'idéal des pères fondateurs de l’UA qui se sont investis pour la consolidation d’une Afrique unie et intégrée. A cet égard, nous devons collaborer étroitement pour condamner et combattre les conflits tribaux, nationaux et régionaux, qui menacent directement ou indirectement nos valeurs.Et pour ce faire, l’intégration de l’Afrique doit commencer ici même au sein du PAP.Honorables députés,Distingués invités,Mesdames et Messieurs,Le Parlement a pris part, aux côtés de la délégation de l’UA, à l’observation des élections dans plusieurs pays depuis notre dernière rencontre.C’est le lieu pour moi, au nom de la Représentation continentale et à mon nom propre, d’adresser nos vives félicitations et tous nos vœux de succès aux élus d’Ethiopie, du Soudan, de l’Ile Maurice, du Burundi, du Sao Tomé et Principe et du Rwanda dans leurs missions respectives.Notre vœu le plus ardent c’est aussi de voir la Guinée Conakry conduire, dans la transparence, le second tour des élections présidentielles reporté à une date ultérieure.Ce vœu s’adresse également à la Tanzanie, à la Côte d’Ivoire, aux Comores, au Burkina Faso, au Niger et au Tchad, qui se préparent pour les élections dans les tout prochains jours ou les tout prochains mois.Nous appelons ces peuples à la tolérance et au respect des résultats du scrutin et les invitons à assumer leurs responsabilités dans la sérénité, pour donner à leurs nations respectives, un Président investi de l’onction populaire et de la légitimité, jalons indispensables à un exercice harmonieux de la fonction présidentielle.Honorables députés,Mesdames et Messieurs,En réitérant aux Chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement africains notre gratitude d’avoir permis la création de cet institution permettant la représentation de la diversité de nos peuples au niveau continental, je voudrais exprimer à nouveau l’engagement de l’ensemble des parlementaires panafricains, à les soutenir dans leurs efforts de mise en œuvre effective des politiques et objectifs de l’Union africaine.Honorables députés,Distingués invités,Mesdames et Messieurs,L’agenda de la présente session appelle, entre autres, des allocutions sur la commémoration du Cinquantenaire des indépendances africaines, l’audition du rapport d’activités du PAP, le rapport sur les progrès réalisés dans la révision du Protocole du PAP, des communications sur la campagne en faveur de la ratification de la Charte africaine sur la démocratie, les élections et la gouvernance, le rapport des missions d’observation électorale, le Budget du PAP pour 2011, le rapport sur les changements climatiques et le rapport sur les progrès dans la réalisation des OMD.Le discours du Président de la Commission de l’UA sur le budget de l’Union africaine prévu à l’ordre du jour est un exercice majeur prescrit par l’article 11 alinéa 2 du Protocole, et attendu chaque année par les parlementaires et les peuples africains.Vous êtes tous appelés à privilégier pendant nos échanges, la discussion sur ces questions d’envergure.Sur ce, Je vous remercie pour votre aimable attention.(Applaudissements nourris)Monsieur le Secrétaire général,La suite du programme, s’il vous plait!
5.0 – ANNONCES
THE CLERK OF PARLIAMENT:Honorable President,We shall take this opportunity to present a personal gift to our special guest the Minister of International relations of the Republic of South Africa.Thank you.(The gift is presented to the Minister ofInternational relations of the Republic of SouthAfrica by the President)After the adjournment, there are regional meetings in the afternoon. The arrangements are as follows:(i)Western Caucus: Committee room 1, 14h30(ii)Eastern Caucus: Committee room 2, 14h30(iii)Southern Caucus: Committee room 3(iv)Central Africa Caucus: Committee room 4(v)Northern Caucus: Committee room 5Also, there would be a group photograph once the procession leaves the Assembly. Later on, there would be a press conference with our special guest and the Bureau.
6.0 – SUSPENSION DE SEANCE
LE PRÉSIDENT:Merci!Honorables membres,Sur ce, la séance est levée jusqu'à demain mardi, 05 octobre à 09h00.Je vous remercie.La séance est levée à 10 heures 49 minutes.
Tuesday, 5th October 2010
1.0 – COMMUNICATION DE LA PRESIDENCE
LE PRESIDENT:Honorables Membres,Cette année, l’Afrique commémore les cinquante ans d’anniversaire de 17 pays africains qui se sont libérés du joug colonial. Le Parlement panafricain a jugé utile de dédier une journée à la célébration de ces événements. Toutes les activités d’aujourd’hui seront consacrées à la célébration des indépendances de l’Afrique, en général.Honorables Membres,Conformément aux dispositions de l’article 38, alinéa 1(h) du Règlement intérieur, j’ai le grand plaisir d’inviter Monsieur Tewedross Melesse, Directeur Régional de la Fédération Internationale de la Planification Familiale (IPPF), à entrer dans la Chambre.(Entrée de M. Tewedross Melesse)Je vais demander à notre hôte, M. Tewedross Melesse, Directeur de la Région Afrique de l’IPPF, de faire sa présentation.
2.0 – EXPOSE SUR LE ROLE DE LA SOCIETE CIVILE AFRICAINE EN FAVEUR DES INDEPENDANCES AFRICAINES ET ROLE ACTUEL EN FAVEUR DU DEVELOPPEMENT DE L’AFRIQUE ET DE LA REALISATION DES OMD
MR. TEWODROS MELESSE:Your Excellency, the President of the Pan-African Parliament, members of the Bureau, all Members of Parliament, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen; it is a great honour and privilege for me to address you on this occasion of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of African independence of many of the African countries. I would like on behalf of the chairperson of IPPF Africa region, Mrs Felicite Nsabimana, and the entire board of the federation, to express our gratitude to the organizers of this meeting, and particularly you, Mr. President, for the opportunity given to me to address this august assembly. We are doubly honoured, given the fact that this meeting is being held against the backdrop of the celebration of the 50 years of independence by seventeen (17) African countries and the invitation extended to us to make a presentation on "The role of the African Civil Society in Africa’s Independence and Current Role in Africa’s Development and Achievement of MDGs".Mr President, I would like to say that in the historical perspective, there are three phases. The first phase is what I would call the pre-colonial era, the second one, the colonial era and then the independence era, which I will split into two: one is struggle for affirmation and construction of the nations, which was a very difficult period between the 60s and the 90s where it was not only the development, but were taken like a battle ground for the east-west confrontation and for the affirmation of the independence of Africa. And then after the 90s, a new era which has come proved wrong those who doubted that Africa could have full independence. This saw the emergence of South Africa from the Apartheid era. It was almost giving up, but we did not because we could not afford to, and we had no choice. Besides, we were optimistic to liberate our continent.In this, the African civil society has played different roles. I know that when it comes to the civil society, there are different perspectives and different apprehensions about the civil society. However, I must say that there are the traditional civil societies, which may not have been organized in a formal way in the traditional society for the resistance of the colonial period; be it in the form of the religious communities, the traditional ones and some of the faith-based organizations in the church or in the mosques. However, the early arrival of the religious groups was, as the founding father of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta said, "They gave us a Bible, they took our land." But there were also those religions that fought for the affirmation and independence of the African entity.Ladies and gentlemen, we must concede to this fact. The civil society is not a phenomenon that has emerged in contemporary times. The civil society was in existence before and under colonialism, albeit with one major difference - it was first and foremost for the colonizers who specifically created it to serve the interests of the white ruling class.This is particularly true of colonial settlements in Kenya and Rhodesia as well as the British, French or Portuguese colonies. In this regard, I cite the example of the Creole societies, which in the 19th Century in West Africa laid the foundation for the emergence of many opposition movements both to the colonial order and the colonial civil society in this part of our continent. Its main objective was to ensure the respect of the human rights for all. Therefore, civil society organisations in Africa played their part in the continent’s development, and this historical truth must be recognized.Civil society organizations were represented in diverse forms such as Christian Churches in Kenya and Burundi, the Moslem fraternity in Senegal and Sudan, lawyers and journalists’ associations in Ghana and Nigeria, farmers’ associations in Zimbabwe, miners’ trade unions in Zambia and South Africa, to mention but a few.The civil society has paid a heavy price in the accession of African countries to independence. Be they the fathers of independence like Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Cote d’Ivoire, Daniel Ouezzin Coulibaly in Burkina Faso, Modibo Keita in Mali, Hamani Diori in Niger, Patrice Lumumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Hubert Maga in Benin, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, Samora Machel in Mozambique, Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia, Ahmed Sekou Toure in Guinea, Amilcar Cabral in Guinea Bissau and the islands of Cape Verde, Houari Boumediene in Algeria, Nelson Mandela in South Africa and many more. All these precursors and founding fathers were products of the civil society.The history of our independence and liberation process will not be complete without special mention of the role of the civil society organizations, including teachers’ and lawyers’ professional associations, students’ organizations and trade unions, women’s organizations, youth organizations, churches and Moslem societies. Each, in its place and playing its role, constituted a catalyst to awaken the conscience of the African people. This upheaval spread across the continent, reaching university campuses in Western countries and inspiring the support of those nongovernmental organizations across the world and the circle of pioneers of the Negritude movement.Independence attained in the wake of these events, with some struggles characterized by pain, was full of hope; hope for freedom, democracy and development in a continent with immense natural wealth. African independence fathers who were at the fore of the liberation struggle found themselves leading States without a nation, with the myriad of consequences inherent in this situation where the priority was first and foremost to create the sentiment of ‘togetherness', the cement of any nation.This year, when many African countries are celebrating 50 years of independence, we note that the harvest has not lived up to the promise. In fact, half a century after independence, African countries are still in the quest for development. Our continent is outstanding in declining performance. According to the United Nations classification, out of thirty four countries worldwide, identified as having a low human development indicator, thirty are located in subSaharan Africa where HIV/AIDS, maternal and infant mortality, low levels of education, conflicts and wars are factors that contribute to dismal performance.However, there are many encouraging signs. In food security, Malawi has achieved against all odds. Recently I just read that in Namibia, the fish industry has been one of the major export items, and in reduction of maternal mortality, some countries have made progress like Rwanda. It is not enough, but there is progress. In democratization, Africa has organized many elections or held many elections. I do not know because yesterday, the foreign affairs minister said maybe they are organized or held, but the elections are taking place. When everybody had given up on us, South Africa’s independence and the Portuguese colonialists in the later parts of the 70s and 80s, and also the holding of the World Cup when everybody doubted, South Africa proved them wrong by holding a successful World Cup and we are proud of that.We need to accept a second truth. Very often in the post independence period, leaders drawn from the civil society who steered their countries to independence had incomprehensible and even conflicting relationships with civil society organizations. For a long time the crucial role of the civil society in the march towards independence was disregarded and it was relegated to play second fiddle when the States embarked on the development process. An atmosphere of suspicion arose since the latent battle between the two often led to vague attempts to place civil society organizations under the control of the State. We witnessed intimidation or arrests of civil society leaders and the adoption of autocratic and restrictive measures targeting activities by civil society organizations.However, we have also to know that it is not all civil society which is an angel, just like it is not all governments that are very democratic. There is two-way traffic. There are civil society organizations who are messengers, who are not in development. In some parts of the world, they are called non-governmental individuals, but there are also those who are working genuinely and I think the states should measure that and weigh in order to see that they are the voice of the voiceless.We have to come together to address the challenges that our continent is facing. There should be cooperation between the public sector, the private sector and the civil society to embark on this development. The challenges facing our continent require all to recognize that its development cannot be the responsibility of public authorities alone. In any case, civil society organizations in the post-colonial era have demonstrated their usefulness, and have furnished proof of the complementarity of their actions with those conducted by governments in the areas of education, health, environment, human rights and family planning and reproductive health. Civil society organizations are present in the farthest corners of countries, and effectively make up for the government action that in many cases does not reach the remote parts of the countries, or they are too sensitive to be addressed by public authorities.Since the end of the 1980s, civil society activities have gathered momentum, sometimes making history on the continent. In French speaking Africa specifically, they have been the driving force behind national conferences that were organized at the end of single-party regimes and generally chaired by the civil society. Benin is to be cited as an example. When governments were pressurized or caused to apply the draconian Britton Woods measures, all state structures were rendered inexistent or significantly weakened by civil wars that left countries apathetic, civil society actors took over from the public administration to mitigate the effects. At the height of the crisis resulting from measures imposed by the IMF and the World Bank, civil society organizations were at the frontline of the battle denouncing the iniquity of these measures, or even calling for debt cancellation for African countries.Our countries’ territorial spaces are today covered by the civil society organizations that implement programs which support the work done by public authorities. In the international area, it is these organizations that convey messages which African governments cannot necessarily raise publicly, given their position and diplomatic correctness.In addition, their role has gained recognition by the international community and regional institutions like the African Development Bank, the African Union, regional economic communities and the Pan-African Parliament. At this point, when the Millennium Development Goals Review Summit that has just taken place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, the time is right to recall the contribution of civil society organizations in the results achieved so far by African countries.Although the majority of the results are far from reaching the targets set out, the African continent has an abundance of diverse organizations and movements working on each of the Millennium Development Goals. The United Nations Development Program which led the in-country process for preparation of country reports has underscored the need for participation of the civil society organisations.Following the adoption of the Maputo Plan of Action for the Operationalisation of the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Continental Policy Framework by Heads of States and Governments, IPPF Africa Region in partnership with regional economic communities, mobilized civil society organizations to get involved in its implementation. At the end of the various consultations, country action plans were developed to ensure the involvement of civil society organizations in conjunction with governments in the implementation of the Maputo Plan. Our member associations in each of the countries that you represent honorable Members of Parliament are serving as the secretariat to coordinate the realization of the said action plans.In this regard, in partnership with the African Union and the other organizations, we have worked on the request to extend the timeline for the implementation of the Maputo Plan of Action so that it coincides with the 2015 date for the achievement of the MDGs. Acceptance of this request is an appeal for more involvement of civil society organizations to improve on the current results, and IPPF - Africa Region, has already committed itself to mobilizing them.Honorable Members of Parliament,We say that as governments have agreed in the Paris Declaration, and in the Accra Consensus for national ownership and accountability, we pledge also that the civil society will be accountable and will be working for national ownership because accountability should be and must be ‘togetherness’. As for the transformation of the Pan-African Parliament into a legislative body, and also holding accountable the civil society and the public authorities and the private sector, we hope that, that will be realized in the coming future. And that in partnership we can work towards the African renaissance because the renaissance is an important ingredient of the development of Africa. For the next generation to come we give hope and we live in hope. Thank you very much and long live African independence.(Applause)LE PRESIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, M. Tewedross Melesse, d’avoir apporté le soutien de la société civile africaine à cette commémoration.Chers collègues,Je vous demande d’applaudir, encore une fois, notre hôte, M. Melesse.(Applaudissements)Notre Commission permanente de l’éducation, de la culture, du tourisme et des ressources humaines a eu l’initiative de nous proposer, il y a de cela sept ou huit mois, la commémoration des cinquante ans d’indépendance de dix-sept pays africains. C’est l’occasion, pour nous, de rendre hommage au staff de cette commission, à ses honorables membres et surtout à son président, Mohamed Elmadani El Houderi.(Applaudissements)
3.0 – INTERVENTION DU PRÉSIDENT DE LA COMMISSION PERMANENTE DE L’ÉDUCATION, DE LA CULTURE, DU TOURISME ET DES RESSOURCES HUMAINES
HON. EL-HOUDERI MOHAMED ELMADANI [LIBYA]:Honorable Idriss Ndélé Moussa, Président duParlement panafricain,Honorables collègues,Mesdames et Messieurs,Chers invités,Nous sommes rassemblés, aujourd'hui, pour commémorer avec fierté l'indépendance, couronnement de la lutte menée par nos peuples pour la liberté, la dignité, l'émancipation et la libre détermination.La colonisation a été un système inique, qui a annihilé les structures sociales africaines et a imposé les règles du colon, niant au citoyen africain toute perspective dans la maîtrise de son propre destin.La résistance et la lutte pour la liberté, conduites par nos aînés, ont été le fer de lance de la fierté et l’affirmation de l’identité africaine.Le Parlement panafricain, plateforme de la voix des citoyens du continent, nous réunit aujourd'hui pour célébrer le cinquantième anniversaire des indépendances de dix-sept pays africains. Mais, aujourd'hui, nous célébrons, de manière symbolique, les indépendances de toutes les nations africaines du joug du colonialisme. Nous célébrons l’histoire commune. Nous célébrons surtout cette fierté d’être africains.Je tiens à remercier les membres du Bureau du Parlement panafricain qui ont validé la proposition de la Commission de l’éducation, de la culture, du tourisme et des ressources humaines de commémorer les indépendances d’Afrique.Je remercie le personnel du Parlement panafricain pour sa contribution. Et, plus particulièrement, Maître Zwelethu Madasa, secrétaire-général du Parlement panafricain, qui a compris l’importance de la symbolique de cette manifestation.Ma gratitude va également à cette jeune génération née après les indépendances, sans qui, ce projet n’aurait pu exister, je veux nommer Francine Mukazi Picard, avec l’appui de Demba Diallo.Excellence,Honorables collègues,Mesdames et Messieurs,Je citerai Modibo Keita: « Vingt années de lutte, faite de sacrifices de tout ordre, vingt ans de lutte farouche pour sauvegarder notre dignité et notre indépendance que nous ne devons jamais dissocier de la dignité et de l'indépendance réelle de toute l'Afrique. »Il s’agit de notre histoire, chers collègues; celle que nous portons en nos cœurs avec dignité; celle que nous devons enseigner avec respect et lucidité; celle que nous avons le devoir de transmettre, car transmettre notre histoire c’est la faire vivre.La célébration du cinquantenaire del'indépendance enracine, en nous tous, la reconnaissance des hauts faits de nos peuples et son passé glorieux. Nous, Africains, honorons nos héros des indépendances! Permettez-moi de citer quelques uns de nos légendes: Habib Bourguiba, Patrice Lumumba, Omar Mukhtar, Frantz Fanon, Prince Abdel Kader, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Kwameh Nrumah, Béhanzin, Menelik II, Samory Touré, Cetshwayo Kampande.Ils ont ancré, en nous, l’esprit des valeurs communes africaines. Aujourd’hui, nous sommes réunis pour leur témoigner que leurs idéaux se perpétuent à travers notre héritage. Ce jour, nous affirmons que leur sacrifice n’a pas été vain, car aujourd’hui nous affichons une Afrique rassemblée et unie.La détermination et l’aspiration des peuples africains à disposer de leur propre destin est une bataille constante.Souvenons-nous, en 1960, seuls neufs pays africains avaient obtenu leur indépendance. La solidarité africaine s'affichait déjà en ces temps, lorsque Osagefo Dr Kwame NKRUMAH, en 1957, affirmait: « L’indépendance du Ghanaserait sans signification réelle si nous ne disposons pas de notre liberté d’aider les autres peuples africains à se libérer, afin que nous ayons un continent sans domination étrangère et tourné vers la création d’une Union des Etats africains ».Mesdames et Messieurs,Cette solidarité constitue le socle de notre histoire commune. Cette solidarité a contribué à forger entre nous un sentiment d’appartenance à notre continent mère. Elle consolide l’identité africaine.La création de l'Organisation de l'Unité Africaine était une réponse au souci de conservation et de consolidation de nos indépendances chèrement acquises. Elle amena aussi l’Afrique à occuper sa place dans le concert des nations, et à répondre aux défis majeurs de ce siècle. L’Union africaine poursuit et développe cette tâche.La bataille qui s’impose aujourd’hui est la préservation de nos indépendances. Un adage dit que le plus difficile n’est pas d’acquérir la liberté, c’est de la conserver.Excellences, Honorable collègues,Nous devons avoir conscience que le développement du continent et son unification exigent la mobilisation, et la valorisation des valeurs intellectuelles et spirituelles africaines.Nous sommes un continent riche. La nature nous a bénis avec notre richesse humaine, nos énormes potentialités minières, notre biodiversité, notre faune et notre flore, qui sont autant d’atouts qui doivent nous rendre forts. Cependant, l’Afrique que l’on qualifie de Continent du futur reste vulnérable.Les crises alimentaires et économiques qui ont frappé ces dernières années nous acculent à réagir aux nouveaux défis. Ils nous rappellent aussi la nécessité d’avoir des positions communes, et de parler d’une voix aux autres nations. C’est par cette réalité que nous garantirons notre liberté. L’Afrique doit s’unir.Citoyennes et Citoyens d’Afrique,L'indépendance, certes, c’est l’émancipation politique, l'invulnérabilité économique mais aussi, le renforcement de la cohésion sociale.La culture de la démocratie que l’Afrique s’attèle à construire est primordiale. La pauvreté et l’ignorance, qui sont les maux de notre continent, ne sont pas une fatalité. Nous devons travailler, afin d’effacer ces maux, pour permettre à nos peuples de maîtriser leur avenir, et de jouir pleinement de l’indépendance acquise un siècle auparavant.Gamal Nasser le disait déjà:« Nous avons lutté pour nous débarrasser des traces du passé, de l’impérialisme et du despotisme, des traces de l’occupation étrangère et du despotisme intérieur. [...] La pauvreté n’est pas une honte, mais c’est l’exploitation des peuples qui l’est. »Chers collègues,Le respect et la protection du citoyen par nos Etats sont les conditions sine qua non de l’émancipation de l’individu africain. La dignité conquise un siècle auparavant serait vaine, si l’homme et la femme africaine ne jouissent pas de la juste redistribution des richesses de la nation. Nous ne pouvons prétendre avoir acquis l’indépendance si nous ne pouvons garantir à nos populations la liberté. Celle de s’exprimer, celle de participer au destin de la nation. Tous les Africains doivent avoir la possibilité de circuler sur le continent du sud au nord, de l’est à l’ouest.Pour assurer et affirmer les indépendances, le développement de l’Afrique, nous, parlementaires panafricains, devront être responsables du bien- être du citoyen africain.Il nous faut donner une éducation qui répond aux enjeux du siècle et qui valorise notre culture africaine. L’éducation aux politiques culturelles et la valorisation du multilinguisme doivent être pris avec sérieux. Le développement ne peut exister avec le déni de notre identité.Nous avions pris conscience du rôle primordial de l’éducation lors des mouvements de libération. L’éducation doit maintenant se focaliser sur l’unification africaine.Nous devons formuler des engagements clairs pour l’éducation, qui tiennent compte des priorités de la paix, de la citoyenneté, de la démocratie, du développement, de l’unité des peuples africains et la solidarité humaine.Nous devons veiller à introduire les principes de l’équité en genre. Les indépendances doivent bénéficier à la femme africaine et à l’homme africain.Nous devons être proactifs.L’existence du Parlement panafricain n’est que le reflet de l’expression de la volonté de l’Afrique d’avoir un forum, où la démocratie s’exprime, et les citoyens africains présents.Chers compatriotes africains,Le 21e siècle accélère les changements et les idéologies. Le citoyen africain demande à agir en son nom. Il ne doit pas être simplement représenté. Le citoyen doit agir directement pour ses intérêts et ceux de sa patrie. Les luttes menées pour l’obtention de l’indépendance lui confèrent ce droit.Nous devons nous enorgueillir de glorifier les noms de nos héros africains. Nous exprimons la fierté de nos valeurs partagées. L’Afrique, aujourd’hui, se décrit noblement comme solidaire et unie.Je me réjouis de constater que la devise « une Afrique, une voix » est concrétisée, en nous voyant tous ici rassemblés.Je dirai simplement l’indépendance, nos ainés nous l’ont légué, il nous appartient la responsabilité de la préserver. Préservons l’indépendance, afin d’être dignes de nos ancêtres. Préservons l’indépendance, afin d’être fiers de nous-mêmes.Comme nous fêtons le cinquantenaire des indépendances, nous ne devons pas oublier nos frères qui souffrent encore de la colonisation. Nous devons faire tout ce qu’il faut pour résoudre les problèmes de liberté en Afrique, où il existe. Je prends comme exemple, le Sahraoui, membre de cette auguste assemblée, qui souffre du manque de liberté. Nous devons nous souvenir toujours de notre devoir à l’égard de nos peuples qui ne sont pas encore libres.« La Luta continua »Vive l’Afrique!LE PRESIDENT:Honorables membres, je voudrais féliciter demander, pour le discours du Président Mohamed Elmadani EL HOUDERI et pour l’initiative heureuse de sa Commission, de l’applaudir encore une fois.(Applaudissements)Le Président EL HOUDERI disait que cette commémoration est symbolique. Elle symbolise les indépendances des 17 pays africains, mais aussi, les indépendances de tous les pays africains, pour marquer la solidarité africaine et pour donner à cet évènement son cachet continental.Je vais inviter les honorables Présidents des caucus régionaux, à dire un mot de félicitations et de solidarité africaine, pour donner un sens à cette commémoration continentale.Sur ce, j’invite l’honorable André OBAMI ITTOU, Président du caucus régional de l’Afrique centrale, à dire un mot en cette circonstance.
4.0 – INTERVENTION DU PRÉSIDENT DU CAUCUS AFRIQUE CENTRALE
HON. OBAMI-ITOU ANDRÉ [CONGO]:Honorale Président du Parlement Panafricain,Distingués invités, en vos rangs et qualités,Honorables Présidents des caucus régionaux et chers collègues,Honorables parlementaires,Mesdames et Messieurs,En prenant la parole, avec honneur et respect, au nom du groupe régional d’Afrique centrale, je voudrais, avant tout propos, vous transmettre les salutations et tous les meilleurs sentiments fraternels de leurs Excellences Denis Sassou- N’Guesso, Président de la République du Congo et Président en exercice de la Communauté Economique et Monétaire de l’Afrique Centrale (CEMAC), Paul Biya, Président de la République du Cameroun, Theodoro Obiang-Nguema, Président de la République de la Guinée Equatoriale, François Bozize, Président de la République centrafricaine, Idriss Deby Itno, Président de la République du Tchad, Pierre Korunziza, Président de la République du Burundi, et Ali Bongo Ondimba, Président de la République Gabonaise.Je voudrais aussi, au nom des membres du caucus Afrique centrale, et en mon nom propre, saluer très respectueusement le peuple et les dirigeants sud-africains, dans leur lourde tâche d’intégration, de renforcement de la démocratie, et du développement d’une société sud-africaine arcen-ciel.Puissent ces salutations se répercuter en échos amplifiés à travers toutes les provinces et toucher toutes les populations sud-africaines, populations courageuses, vaillantes et travailleuses qui viennent d’organiser avec succès la première coupe du monde de football sur le continent africain.Mesdames et Messieurs,Cette année 2010 est l’année de célébration du cinquantenaire de l’indépendance de 17 pays africains. En Afrique centrale, l’indépendance n’a pas été obtenue sans difficulté ou même n’a pas été un don de l’ancienne puissance coloniale.En effet, après des siècles d’esclavage, où nos meilleurs et vaillants travailleurs ont été déportés, dépeuplant ainsi notre sous-région, la colonisation a été aussi une période d’asservissement et d’avilissement qui a obligé nos populations d’Afrique centrale à se battre farouchement, et à opposer une résistance, obligeant ainsi le colonisateur, sous la pression, à octroyer l’indépendance et permettre aux jeunes Etats africains d’accéder à la souveraineté internationale.La participation - il faut le préciser - de nos dignes fils aux deux guerres mondiales, à côté des militaires européens, a également été un des facteurs déterminants de cette décolonisation.Ce demi-siècle de nos indépendances a donné lieu à des festivités grandioses pour symboliser notre joie - j’allais dire notre grande joie - d’être indépendants, libres, dignes et fiers de prendre en main nous-mêmes les destinées de nos pays.Par-delà cet aspect festif, il y a eu deux autres considérations:le bilan des cinquante années passées, etnos engagements pour les cinquante années à venir à partir déjà de maintenant.Le bilan du cinquantenaire est mitigé, parce que le legs colonial n’était pas formidable. Tout était donc à bâtir pour des populations qui manquaient de l’essentiel, et espéraient tout avoir, tout d’un coup, grâce, pensait-on, à la magie de l’indépendance.Or, il n’y a pas eu de magie. Il a simplement fallu, pour les dirigeants de la première génération, celle qui a suivi les indépendances en 1960, de regarder la réalité en face et de la prendre à bras le corps.La création de l’Organisation de l’Unité africaine (OUA), ancêtre de l’Union africaine, pour pallier l’émiettement de notre continent, participe de cette vision.L’entrée pour nos pays dans le deuxième cinquantenaire ouvre une ère nouvelle, portée par nos légitimes ambitions et notre volonté commune de combler nos retards, et de bâtir une Afrique unie, au pas de course, mais rationnellement et sans précipitation.Il nous faut édifier, bâtir nos pays, construire nos pays et les amener à un niveau acceptable de développement, d’où la pauvreté de masse sera bannie.Il nous faut, en même temps, faire assumer par les Etats leurs missions régaliennes, en matière de santé, d’éducation, de droit, de justice, de sûreté et de libre circulation des biens et des personnes, de sécurité du territoire et de politique étrangère.Autant de défis à relever, et auxquels s’ajoutent les défis majeurs de l’intégration et des regroupements régionaux dans une perspective panafricaine.Dans une pareille vision de l’Afrique du futur immédiat, nous, parlementaires panafricains, avons à jouer notre partition. Nous l’avons déjà compris et j’en voudrais pour preuve, la belle unanimité des parlementaires du caucus Afrique centrale, les 16 et 17 septembre dernier à N’Djamena, au Tchad, à l’occasion de la réunion consultative sur le thème ci-après: "Latransformation du Parlement panafricain en un organe législatif et la ratification de la Charte de la Démocratie, des Elections et de la Gouvernance".Mesdames et Messieurs,Je voudrais, au moment de terminer mon intervention, faire mien les propos d’un sage africain:« Le mythe fondateur de la lutte pour l’indépendance fut la quête de la liberté, de la dignité et du bien-être.Cinquante ans après; l’idéal n’a pas changé.Car, notre ambition globale demeure encore et toujours la liberté, la dignité, le bien-être et le progrès.C’est le combat d’aujourd’hui.C’est le combat des cinquante prochaines années.Ce combat, nous devons le gagner, pour que se perpétuent l’indépendance et la Nation. »Mesdames et Messieurs,Je vous remercie de votre aimable attention.(Applaudissements)LE PRESIDENT:je vous remercie Honorable Obami-Itou, président du caucus de l’Afrique centrale. A présent, j’invite l’honorable Miyir Ali Souleiman, président du groupe régional de l’Afrique de l’Est, à prendre la parole.
5.0 – INTERVENTION DU PRÉSIDENT DU CAUCUS AFRIQUE DE L’EST
HON. MIYIR ALI SOULEIMAN [DJIBOUTI]:Monsieur le Président du Parlement panafricain,Madame et Messieurs les membres du Bureau du PAP,Madame et Messieurs les Présidents des caucus régionaux,Mesdames et Messieurs les membres du PAP et chers collègues,Distingués invités,Mesdames et Messieurs,C’est pour moi un grand honneur et un agréable devoir de dire quelques mots sur la commémoration du cinquantenaire des indépendances des 17 pays africains, au nom du Groupe de la région de l’Afrique de l’Est.Je voudrais, tout d’abord, profiter de cette occasion pour saluer la mémoire des principaux artisans de ces indépendances africaines et rendre hommage aux pères fondateurs des nations béninoise, burkinabé, camerounaise, centrafricaine, congolaise, ivoirienne, gabonaise, malgache, malienne, mauritanienne, nigérienne, nigériane, sénégalaise, somalienne, tchadienne et togolaise.Je voudrais, aussi, joindre ma voix à celle de mon collègue qui m’a précédé à cette tribune pour féliciter, très chaleureusement, ces pays qui se sont libérés du joug colonial depuis maintenant un demi-siècle.Je forme, par ailleurs, le vœu que les peuples de ces pays frères puissent enfin connaître la félicité à laquelle ils espèrent légitimement en s’engageant enfin, résolument, sur la voie du développement durable et harmonieux.En tant que Président du Groupe régional de l’Afrique de l’Est, je dois vous avouer que ma tâche n’est pas aisée de vous présenter et de vous parler des acquis des indépendances des deux seuls pays de notre région qui ont accédé à la souveraineté internationale en 1960, à savoir le Madagascar et la Somalie.En effet, comme vous le savez tous, la situation actuelle de ces deux pays n’est guère réjouissante.En ce qui concerne le Madagascar, il est plongé depuis maintenant deux ans dans une crise politique et institutionnelle.S’agissant de la Somalie, c’est le chaos le plus total qui y règne. Depuis bientôt deux décennies, il n’existe plus, dans ce pays, un Etat digne de ce nom, et je pèse mes mots.C’est pourquoi, je saisis la présente occasion pour lancer un appel solennel à la représentation continentale afin qu’une réflexion sérieuse soit enfin engagée à l’occasion de cette session parlementaire sur les voies et moyens de venir en aide à ce pays frère ravagé et meurtri par deux décennies de guerre civile.(Applaudissements.)Mesdames et Messieurs, chers collègues, vous n’êtes pas sans savoir que le sang continue de couler quotidiennement en Somalie.Durant le mois béni de ramadan, l’odieux attentat perpétré par les insurgés islamistes Shebabs à l’Hotel Mouna situé à quelques encablures du palais présidentiel, à la veille de la fête de l’Aïd El Fitre, a fait plus de 30 morts dont 6 parlementaires.Cette situation intolérable ne peut plus durer. Elle ne peut nous laisser indifférents. C’est pourquoi, je vous lance un appel solennel pour voler au secours de ce pays frère menacé de disparition. Je forme aussi le vœu que Madagascar puisse retrouver l’ordre constitutionnel normal et qu’il puisse sortir de l’impasse dans laquelle il se trouve actuellement.Je vous remercie de votre aimable attention.(Applaudissements.)LE PRESIDENT:Honorable Président Ali Souleiman MIYIR, votre message est entendu. Vous avez entendu les applaudissements, suite au plaidoyer que vous avez fait à l’endroit de la Somalie.Je voudrais dire à l’attention des Présidents des Caucus que, malheureusement, nous n’avons pas encore fait des progrès au niveau de la communication interne du Parlement panafricain. On l’a décrié, mais la communication reste toujours une de nos faiblesses. La plupart des présidents des Caucus qui sont déjà passés ou qui vont passer présenter un mot tout à l’heure ont su, hier pour certains et ce matin pour d’autres, qu’ils devaient faire une présentation dans le calendrier de cette journée.Je vous demande de les applaudir, aussi bien ceux qui ont présenté que ceux qui vont venir, pour leur courage et leur détermination à s’engager devant la plénière, malgré la non préparation.(Applaudissements.)Sur ce, je vais inviter l’Honorable Khemakhem JAMELEDDINE, Président du Groupe régional Afrique du Nord à prendre la parole.
6.0 – INTERVENTION DU PRÉSIDENT DU CAUCUS AFRIQUE DU NORD
HON. KHEMAKHEM JAMELEDDINE [TUNISIE]:بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم سيدي رئيس البرلمان السيدة والسادة نواب الرئيس السيدة والسادة نواب الرئيس السيدة والسادة رؤساء المجموعات االقليمية زميالتي وزمالئي أقدم هذه الكلمة أصالة عن نفسي ونيابة عن مجموعة شمال افريقيا بمناسبة االحتفال بخمسينية استقالل 17 دولة إفريقي. سيدي الرئيسنحيي اليوم ذكرى خمسمائة استقالل 17 دولة إفريقية خالل السنة الحالية زاخرا بمعاني الوفاء واالمتنان للمناضلين والشهداء األإبرار الذين ضحوا بحياتهم من أجل استقالل تلك البلدان وعزتها وكرامتها باعتبار أ ن استقالل البلدان اإلفريقية لم يكن هدية من المستعمر بل تتويجا لحركات الكفاح والنضال التي خاضتها الشعوب اإلفريقية الباسلة طيلة فترة طويلة ج سم خاللها اإلفريقيون واإلفريقيات رجاال ونساء كهوال وشبابا أبهى مظاهر الصمود واالستبسال ذودا عن الحمي ودفاعا عن حوزة أوطانهم.تعود بنا الذاكرة إذن إلى عقود الكفاح التحريري، لنذكر األجيال الصاعدة بهذا الحدث العظيم في تاريخ إفريقيا، فهو ليس مجرد حدث عابر، إنه أكبر من حدث، وأبعد أثرا من مجرد شريط يستحضر الماضي، بل إن هذا االحتفال يحمل أكثر من داللة، ويرمز إلى أكثر من معنى، ويعبر عن الصورة الناصعة في صفحات إفريقيا. فمن معاني االحتفال بهذا االستقالل، االعتزاز بتحرير إفريقيا من الهيمنة المباشرة لالستعمار منذ استقالل أول بلد إفريقي وهو "ليبيريا" في 26 جويلية 1847 إلى آخر بلد وهو "اريتريا" في 24 ماي 1993.ومن معانيه أيضا أن نثبت الوفاء للشهداء الذين وهبوا دماءهم إلى وطنهم في سبيل عزته وكرامته ورخائه وازدهاره، لهذا فإننا نسوق إليهم بهذه المناسبة تحية إكبار وإجالل. ومن معاني االحتفال بذكرى االستقالل كذلك مزيد تكريس "الوطنية" لدى أبنائنا وبناتنا وتشبث اإلفريقيين واإلفريقيات بهويتهم وبوطنهم والتضحية في سبيل ع زته وكرامة مواطنيهم والعمل بوفاء وإيمان وإخالص في سبيل المحافظة على هذا االستقالل، هذا المكسب الثمين الذي يمكن أن يضيع إذا ما لم نشد عليها بالنواجد ولم نؤكد تعلقنا بها ولم نجتهد في المحافظة عليها.ومن معاني هذا االحتفال العمل بحزم على مزيد الرفع من شأن المرأة في مجتمع متوازن وسطي يولي عناية كبرى بجميع فئاته ويحترم المقتضيات البيئية والتنمية المستديمة ويقد س حقوق اإلنسان ويجعل من اإلنسان الغاية والهدف. وإ ن نجاحات الدول ارتبطت بشكل كبير بإعادة االعتبار للمرأة ومعاملتها كشريك كامل الحقوق يساهم في بناء األسرة والمجتمع والدولة. ومن معاني هذا االحتفال أيضا الوعي بأهمية تكريس "الحكم الرشيد" الموصول بالديمقراطية الموصولة بمفهوم دولة القانون والمؤسسات، والذي يمثل المحور الرئيسي في صلب التص ور المعاصر ألنظمة القرن الواحد والعشرين والذي يهيئ المناخ واألسس ألنظمة ة القرار، يمارس فيها الحكم الرشيد مستقرة ومستقل.سيدي الرئيس، لقد كانت األضرار التي لحقت البلدان اإلفريقية أثناء فترة االحتالل جسيمة حيث انتزع االستعمار حريتها، وانتزع كرامتها، وأذلها، وأفقدها سيادتها وأقصى وهمش أبناءها ت الشعوب اإلفريقية تعلق عن تسيير شؤون الدولة. وظل آماال كبيرة على نيل االستقالل لمعالجة أوضاعها المرتبكة وأزماتها التي اشتدت على الشعوب وكبلتها وقيدت حركاتها، وكانت الفئــــات االجتماعية والنخبة السياسية والناس جميعا تنتظر إنقاذهم من الجهل والفقر والبطالة التي ورثتها عن االستعمار الذي ابتز خيراتها واستحوذ على مصادر ثرواتها، واحتكر أسواقها، وقتل صناعتها، وابتاع مصنوعاتها بأبخس األثمان.لذلك، فإ ن هذ ل مناسبة ثمينة لنقي م الحاضر ا االحتفال يمث ونستخلص العبر للمستقبل.ن المتتبع للشأن اإلفريقي يقف عند حد مظاهر الحروب أ ن واالضطرابات والفقر في بعض البلدان اإلفريقية، إال التحليل الدقيق والعميق لتطور قا رتنا يبرز التطور اإليجابي للوضع العام وانكباب أغلبية البلدان على تتويج االستقالل السياسي باستقالل اقتصادي وبوضع سياسات تنموية تأخذ بعين االعتبار أولويات الشعوب.فعـرفـت القـارة اإلفريقيـة في العشـريـات األخيـرة رغم الصعوبات التي انج رت عن العولمة وعن األزمات العالمية المالية واالقتصادية وحت ى الغذائية منها، تجارب تنموية متـعددة ناجحة بفضل إرادة سياسية ثابتة على التنمية وخدمة مصلحة الوطن وفرض استقالل القرار السياسي والسيادة الوطنية والمصلحة العليا للشعب م ما جعل عديد البلدان اإلفريقية في مختلف أقاليمها تتم يز بنموها وصالبة اقتصادها ورفاهة شعبها بشهادة المؤ سسات الدولية واإلقليمية مثل تقارير دافوس ودوينق بزنز وغيرها من التقارير.كما أ ن نجاح قا رتنا اإلفريقية في أخذ مبادرات دولية كتلك المتعلقة بالسنة الدولية للشباب وفي تنظيم تظاهرات دولية ناجحة كالقمة العالمية لمجتمع المعلومات وكأس العالم األخير بجنوب إفريقيا، يبرهن م رة أخرى على ثراء قارتنا واكتسابها لمق ومات االرتقاء للبلدان الفاعلة في الساحة العالمية.وإن ه ال ش ك في أ ن هذا القرن هو قرن إفريقيا وأ ن ما تختزنه قا رتنا من ثروات طبيعية وبشرية يؤ هلها ألخذ موقع متمي ز بين القوى المهيمنة على االقتصاد في العالم.ألفارقة كما أن ه ال ش ك في أ ن مستقبل إفريقيا ال يصنعه إال وإ ن ما برهنت عليه العديد من الدول اإلفريقية من تكريس للديمقراطية وللحكم الراشد بما ينطوي عليه من توسيع المشاركة الشعبية في عملية صنع القرارات وخاصة منهم الشباب والشاب ات الذين يمثلون أكثر من نصف المجتمعات اإلفريقية وتكريس سيادة القانون وتوفير اآلليات الفعالة التي يمكن للمواطنين من خاللهاممارسة حقوقهم، يف سر ما تحق ق من محاوالت جاد ة لتجاوز الصعاب التي كانت تعترض جهود التنمية على المستوى األفريقي وخاصة منها الفقر والفساد وتهميش دور المرأة، وانخفاض مستوى التعليم والثقافة.وإن القارة اإلفريقية قادرة اليوم بمواردها الذاتية سواء منها الطبيعية أو البشرية على المضي قدما نحو تدعيم استقاللها من براثن االستعمار باستقالل اقتصادي واجتماعي يحافظ على سيادتها وعلى مصلحة شعوبها. وإ ن ما تحتاج إليه اليوم لتحقيق ما تصبو إليه جميع الشعوب اإلفريقية هو وقفة قوية وفعالة من أبنائها للرقي بها إلى مصاف القارات المتقدمة من خالل اإلسراع في استكمال بناء هياكل االتحاد اإلفريقي الذي انطلق بإعالن سرت في 9 - 9 – 99 ليمثل أعظم حدث في تاريخ القارة يجسد إيمان األفارقة القوي بوحدتهم. إن وحدة إفريقيا وبناء مؤسسات االتحاد اإلفريقي هي مسألة حياة أو موت، فإذا لم يتحقق ذلك فإن القارة مهددة ب عزيمة مرة أخرى باالستعمار من جديد وهو ما يتطل راسخة على بناء هياكل سياسية واقتصادية إفريقية صلبة بما في ذلك برلمان إفريقي ذا صبغة تشريعية. كما أ ن عديد النزاعات التي تنخر إفريقيا من شمالها إلى جنوبها بما في في إطار ذلك مسالة الصحراء الغربية لن تجد لها الح ل إال م بصوت واحد وطبقا للشرعية الدولية.إفريقيا مو حدة تتكل وإ ن تدعيم اإلتحاد اإلفريقي بجميع هياكله وتبادل التجارب الناجحة بين البلدان اإلفريقية واالعتماد على الذات واستغالل ما يتوف مواجهة ر في ك ل بلد إفريقي من فرص والعمل سويا ل تحديات التنمية اإلفريقية المستقبلية هو الحل األفضل للتموقع بين التكتالت اإلقليمية العالمية التي تهيمن على االقتصاد العالمي وللمضي قدما نحو التنمية والرفاه. وإ ن تحقيق هذه الغاية النبيلة تم ر حتما بمزيد العمل على إرساء الحكم الرشيد على غرار عديد البلدان اإلفريقية التي تصدرت مختلف تراتيب المنظمات الدولية والذي يتمحور حول االرتقاء بنظم الحكم وحل النزاعات وتنمية الموارد البشرية وتكوين المهارات وزيادة تنافسية االقتصاديات اإلفريقية وتنويع قواعدها اإلنتاجية والتقليل من درجة االعتماد على المساعدات الخارجية وحل مشكلة الديون وتقوية روابط التعاون مع العالم الخارج وهي مهام عظيمة وكبيرة تتطلب جهداً غير عادي من االتحاد اإلفريقي ومؤ سساته وخاصة البرلمان اإلفريقي الذي ينبغي أن يم ر إلى مرحلة جديدة نفع ل خاللها صالحياته ودوره كسلطة تشريعية إفريقية. والسالم.
7.0 – INTERVENTION DU PRÉSIDENT DU CAUCUS AFRIQUE AUSTRALE
HON. ELIZABETH CHITIKA MOLOBEKA [ZAMBIA]:Your Excellency, the President of the PAP, Dr. Idriss Ndele Moussa, Members of the Bureau here presents, Presidents of Regional Caucuses, Honorable Members, may I simply said Distinguished invited guests.On behalf of the Southern Africa Regional Caucus, I would like to state that, the Independence of South Africa in 1994 closed the chapter of the struggle for decolonization in Southern Africa. The entire region is now free from the shackles of colonial bondage and oppression. With the newly won independence, states in Southern Africa were called upon to direct their energies towards improving the living conditions of an expectant citizenry. However, for many countries in Africa, the first decade of independence was characterised by arrested development.Nepotism and intolerance of dissent threatened to destroy the institutions of governance and had detrimental effects on the attitudes and roles played by the legislature, judiciary, the public service, civil society and the press. I am however happy to report that, in the period under review, Southern African States have exuded an unmistakable desire for good governance and democracy. In the recent past, elections have been held not organized (laughter), in Angola, Zambia, South Africa, Namibia, Malawi, Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. The situation in Zimbabwe Honorable Members has vastly improved in the aftermath of the signing of the Global Political Agreement which laid to the foundation and for the formation of the inclusive government.I would want to report that without hesitation that the region is experiencing unprecedented peace and tranquility. The SADC Organ on Defence and Politics has played a crucial and vanguard role in this regard. It is my hope that the efforts by the PAP imploring states to ratify the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance will help to consolidate the institutional foundations of good governance and democracy in our region.Our region is endowed with various precious minerals and these have contributed to the economic development we are currently experiencing. I am happy to report that the economies of the region have in the period under review registered a steady improvement. However, sustainable development can only thrive in an atmosphere where citizens of the region have control over their resources. Impelled by this moral obligation to ensure that our countries derive due benefit from the exploitation of our natural resources, our governments are actively pursuing maximum implementation of empowerment initiatives for our people.In the power sector, our governments are cognizant of the projected increased demand for electricity within the region and the possibility of a regional power deficit in years to come. To guarantee self-sufficiency, programmes for the expansion of power generation capacity through the construction of new power stations as well as revamping the existing ones have been embarked upon. However, these initiatives that our governments have undertaken should be complemented by energy efficiency and conservation efforts by all the users. I am also happy to report that the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) is working towards power sector reforms as well as establishing guidelines on environmental impact assessment to ensure the supply of clean and environmentally friendly energy to the region.Ladies and gentlemen, our region has over the years been affected by severe droughts which have had serious ramifications on our food security and have led to increased incidences of poverty in our communities. Most countries in the region have been able to provide for their people through importation of maize from neighboring countries. However, gender imbalance in our societies is still a contributing factor to poverty. There is therefore need for women in the Southern African region to be educated, empowered and elevated to positions of authority if this trend is to be reversed.As we move towards full integration, it is only appropriate that we allow for free movement of people between and amongst our countries. I am happy to report that there are countries in our region that are actively pursuing this matter.It would be a remiss for me not to mention that our region hosted the world’s biggest soccer show case in June-July this year. In this regard, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Republic of South Africa for successfully hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The vuvuzelas are all over and they added funny to this important tournament. Indeed you made the region and Africa as a whole proud. (Applause)Our governments in Southern Africa continue to enjoy cordial relations with countries within Africa and outside Africa, but we have insisted on being accorded the status of an equal partner in international relations. In our dealings with other nations on the international scene, we have also insisted on being recognized as sovereign and independent countries.In respect of the United Nations, our governments support the current negotiations on the reform of the Security Council in the hope that they will break the deadlock that has for sometime now prevented us as a region from making progress in an area of strategic interest to Africa.The reform of the Security Council is not only desirable but imperative, if it is to ensure the successful implementation of its global mandate to maintain international peace and security on behalf of member states. The fact that Africa, a major geographical region, remains underrepresented and without a permanent seat on the Security Council, is a serious anomaly whose redress is long overdue.Our governments have continued to support the revitalization of the General Assembly to make it more effective and thus enable it to fulfill its mandate. As the pre-eminent deliberative and policy making body of the United Nations, the General Assembly should play a more active role in mobilizing action against the diverse challenges that the world faces today.Finally, ladies and gentlemen, the Southern African region is well equipped to confront any challenge it might face in the political, economic and social domains. We have the resources, the infrastructure and the facilities. What is needed is for the region to forge ahead in unison and cooperation to implement strategies aimed at the betterment of the lot of our people.I thank you for listening.(Applause)M. LE PRESIDENT:Je vous remercie, Honorable Elizabeth Chikita Molobeka, Présidente du Groupe régional d’Afrique australe.A présent, j’invite l’Honorable Lassane SAWADOGO, Président du Groupe régional de l’Afrique de l’Ouest à prendre la parole.
8.0 – INTERVENTION DU PRÉSIDENT DU CAUCUS AFRIQUE DE L’OUEST
HON. LASSANE SAWADOGO [BURKINA FASO]:Je vous remercie, M. le Président du PAP.Honorables collègues du PAP,C’est avec joie, honneur et considération que je prends la parole au nom du caucus de l’Afrique de l’Ouest pour dire un mot sur cet évènement important que constitue la commémoration du cinquantenaire des indépendances africaines.Je voudrais, tout d’abord, féliciter le PAP pour cette initiative de commémorer le cinquantenaire des indépendances africaines. L’Afrique de l’Ouest se sent particulièrement concernée par ce cinquantenaire pour les raisons suivantes:La première raison est que, sur les 15 Etats qui composent cette région, 8 ont accédé à l’indépendance en 1960. Il s’agit du Bénin, du Burkina Faso, de la Côte d’Ivoire, du Mali, du Niger, du Nigeria, du Sénégal et du Togo. Trois pays ont accédé à l’indépendance plutôt: le Liberia en 1847, le Ghana en 1957 et la Guinée en 1958. La Sierra Léone y a accédé en 1961 et la Gambie en 1965. Quand aux pays lusophones, à savoir le Cap -Vert et la Guinée Bissau, ils ont accédé à l’indépendance un peu plus tard en 1975.Nous sommes donc l’une des régions qui est la plus concernée par cette commémoration, au-delà de son caractère symbolique.La deuxième raison est que notre région a résisté vaillamment à l’entreprise coloniale de notre continent, qui comme nous le savons est une négation de la dignité humaine, comme l’a été avant elle le phénomène de l’esclavage.La troisième raison est que, aussitôt après les indépendances, les Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest se sont engagés dans la bataille pour l’indépendance de l’ensemble des pays africains et pour la construction du panafricanisme. Permettez-moi de rendre hommage, ici, à certains de nos leaders historiques à l’instar de Kwamé N’Krumah qui s’est particulièrement illustré dans ce combat aux côtés d’autres leaders, tant sur le continent africain que hors du continent africain. Aujourd’hui encore, il représente un modèle pour l’ensemble des générations africaines préoccupées par la volonté de construire une Afrique véritablement indépendante, véritablement souveraine et véritablement maître de sa destinée.L’indépendance est un acquis et elle a permis également d’avoir d’autres acquis. Cependant, l’indépendance n’a pas été la panacée pour trouver comme, par miracle, des solutions à l’ensemble des problèmes de notre continent. Aujourd’hui, des défis importants se dressent devant nous. Il s’agit de la construction de la vraie indépendance qui passe par un affranchissement total du néo-colonialisme et des velléités de l’impérialisme international qui pèsent encore lourdement sur nos Etats.Il faut également construire une unité véritable de notre continent, en se fondant sur nos valeurs et nos ambitions partagées. Il faut construire l’indépendance économique, culturelle et sociale de notre cher continent.Je fonde l’espoir que, au-delà de sa dimension commémorative, ce cinquantenaire sera mis à profit pour réfléchir sur les voies et moyens d’une libération véritable de notre continent qui doit occuper la place qui lui revient dans le concert des nations.Je suis convaincu que le PAP a un rôle important à jouer dans ce combat et je salue d’oresetdéjà les initiatives qui sont développées à cet effet.Je vous remercie.LE PRESIDENT:Je vous remercie, Honorable Lassane SAWADOGO, Président du Groupe régional de l’Afrique de l’Ouest.Honorables membres,Je voudrais qu’on acclame les présidents des caucus régionaux qui ont été pris de court pour certains.(Applaudissements)J’ai vu certains prendre des notes pendant la plénière, parce qu’ils n’ont été informés qu’hier.Honourable Members,Pursuant to the provision of Rule 38, 1 (h) of the Rule of Procedure, I have invited an eminent person, the Former President of the United Republic of Tanzania, His Excellency Ali Hassan Mwinyi to address us.We will now take a short break of ten minutes. Business is now suspended to allow me to meet His Excellency Ali Hassan Mwinyi. I thank you.
9.0 – ANNONCES
THE CLERK:Honourable Members! Excuse me Honourable Members, can you please lend me your ears for a short while. It is because we will not be able to make this announcement after the adjournment, and that some of you will be attending meetings this afternoon. Those people who went for election observations. The ones who went to Ethiopia will be meeting at 1430 hours in Committee Room No. 1. Those who went to Guinea will be meeting at 1430 hours in Committee Room No. 2. Those who went to Burundi will be meeting at 1430 hours in Committee Room No. 4 and those who when to Rwanda will be meeting at the same time in Committee Room No. 5.The Committee on Rules will meet at 1430 hours in Committee Room No. 3, and the Committee on Transport will also meet at 1430 hours in Committee Room No. 6 this afternoon.It is a pity that these Members will cut short their lunch, which is the third part of this activity. The second being, after we have finished in this House with His Excellency Ali Hassan Mwinyi, there is an exhibition out in the foyer, which you will officially open. This will be followed by a group photo, and then you will go for lunch.Thank you very much Honourable Members.La séance, suspendue à 10h34, est reprise à 10h59
10.0 – DISCOURS DU PRESIDENT
LE PRESIDENT:Honorables membres, je vous demande de reconnaître et d’acclamer notre invité d’honneur, son Excellence Ali Hassan MWINYI.(Applaudissements.)En cette journée du 5 octobre 2010, le Parlement panafricain célèbre, de façon symbolique, l’accession à l’indépendance de dix sept (17) pays, ainsi que celle des pays d’Afrique qui ont accédé à la souveraineté internationale.Je tiens à remercier, en votre nom, tout particulièrement, son Excellence Ali Hassan MWINYI, ancien Président de la République de Tanzanie qui a bien voulu consacrer son temps précieux, pour rehausser de sa présence la cérémonie d’accession à l’indépendance de dix sept pays africains. Je voudrais, à cet égard, vous demander, encore une fois, d’applaudir notre illustre invité.(Applaudissements.)Je tiens également à remercier toutes les éminentes personnalités venues célébrer, avec les représentants des peuples africains que nous sommes, cet évènement mémorable.Excellence M. le Président,Distingués invités,En cette année où plusieurs nations africaines célèbrent leurs cinquante ans d’indépendance, il me revient le grand honneur d’évoquer, en cette circonstance particulière, la mémoire des pères des indépendances africaines. C’est le lieu et le moment de rendre un hommage appuyé à ces mémoires immortelles que le temps ne peut effacer et qui ont facilité le jaillissement des rayons d’indépendance en allumant le flambeau de la liberté dans leur pays et en assumant la lourde responsabilité de guider les premiers pas libérés du joug de la colonisation. Ces dignes combattants qui ont marqué l’histoire de l’Afrique restent, pour nous les générations futures, des modèles. Ils se sont identifiés au destin de leur peuple et ont dédié leur combat à l’émancipation de nos pays au prix d’énormes sacrifices.A ces hommes et femmes valeureux, j’exprime toute la reconnaissance des représentants des peuples africains et m’inclinent devant la mémoire de ceux qui ne sont plus de ce monde.Excellence M. le Président,Honorables membres,Distingués invités,L’histoire récente de notre continent nous enseigne que le Traité de Berlin qui a pris fin en février 1885 a ouvert la voie à la partition de l’Afrique exacerbée, au lendemain de la première guerre mondiale, par la ruée sur les ressources de l’Afrique en général et plus particulièrement en Afrique subsaharienne.Après des décennies d’atrocité et d’actes de deshumanisation indicibles, les populations des différentes parties de l’Afrique ont manifesté, de façon diverse, leur volonté inébranlable de jouir de leurs droits inaliénables à l’autodétermination.Il y a cinquante ans dix-sept pays africains accédaient à la souveraineté internationale. Cinquante ans, c’est le temps de revisiter l’histoire, de procéder à une évaluation rétrospective approfondie de nos réussites et de nos échecs, afin d’entreprendre une étude prospective et décliner la vision du développement que nous devons imprimer à notre continent.L’Afrique contient 1/6e de la population mondiale, mais contribue seulement pour 2% des échanges commerciaux de la planète, en dépit de ses énormes ressources et de ses potentialités encore inexplorées.Il serait temps que ce continent, berceau de l’humanité, après un demi-siècle d’atermoiement, occupe, sur l’échiquier international, une place proportionnelle aux richesses dont il recèle et à la vitalité de ses populations, sans oublier les sacrifices que ses enfants ont consenti pour le développement et le bien-être des autres continents.Exiger de la communauté internationale un plan Marshall pour l’Afrique ne serait pas trop demander aux égards des affres subis par nos ancêtres de la période de l’esclavage à la colonisation et à la mondialisation dont les effets pervers se font le plus sentir sur les populations africaines. Il en est de même du Conseil de Sécurité des Nations unies où l’Afrique n’est pas sur le point d’avoir un siège permanent.Sur le plan économique, les pays africains ayant des ressources pétrolières et minières n’ont pas pu transformer les richesses provenant de ces ressources en structures productives. Les politiques économiques d’exportation ont pris le pas sur les politiques économiques de subsistance. Plus de 68 % des importations africaines sont constituées de produits manufacturés alors que le continent exporte 70% d’hydrocarbures et de minerais. L’Afrique est déficitaire en terme de produits agricoles, car le continent a une balance négative de près de -6 % dans la part du commerce mondial. Il en a résulté un système de dépendance et d’assistanat pour la plupart des pays africains sans compter que la corruption et le déficit de démocratie n’ont pas facilité les choses.Selon toute vraisemblance, la Corée du Sud avait le même niveau de développement en 1962 que beaucoup de pays africains.Le bilan de cinquante ans sur une véritable appropriation de la souveraineté africaine n’est pas reluisant, notamment sur le plan culturel, économique et social. Ces années ont été caractérisées par un système de dépendance ou de consensus mou qui ont produit des résultats en deçà de nos attentes avec les Accords de Yaoundé, de Lomé et de Cotonou. Les plans d’ajustement structurel et l’aide au développement en sont un système qui a contribué à retarder l’avènement de la démocratie des contrepouvoirs et du bonheur des populations.La mauvaise gouvernance a également contribué, dans une grande mesure, à aggraver la situation sans oublier les guerres, les rebellions et les calamités naturelles.Ce sombre tableau, loin de nous émousser devrait plutôt nous galvaniser car, cinquante ans après les indépendances, nous avons l’impérieux devoir d’effacer de la mémoire collective le poncif suranné selon lequel l’Afrique est mal partie, de confondre les Afro pessimistes et de montrer à la face du monde que le continent de Soundjata Keïta, Ousman Dan Fodio, Chaka, Samory Touré et d’autres grandes figures africaines, dont le glorieux passé semblait à jamais oublier, est désormais déterminé à faire preuve d’innovation et d’inventivité pour aller au rendez-vous du donner et du recevoir, muni d’outils suffisants pour faire entendre sa voix et se faire respecter.A l’ère de la renaissance africaine, c’est ici, pour moi, le lieu d’interpeller les populations et les dirigeants de notre continent, afin que nous puissions nous faire maîtres de notre destin, conscients de ce que seul un développement endogène pourra nous amener à valoriser notre culture ancestrale et à concevoir, nous-mêmes, le modèle de développement adapté à nos populations qui, après l’abolition de l’esclavage, continuent de mourir en mer, pas parce qu’elles sont menées de forces vers les plantations de canne à sucre, mais parce qu’elles sont forcées d’aller à la recherche d’un avenir meilleur que leur continent ne peut leur offrir.Le Sommet des Nations unies sur les Objectifs du millénaire pour le développement s’est terminé le 22 septembre 2010, avec l’adoption d’un programme d’action, pour atteindre les huit objectifs d’ici à 2015 et l’annonce de nouveaux engagements pour la santé des femmes et des enfants ainsi que d’autres initiatives pour lutter contre la pauvreté, la faim et les maladies.Il ressort des conclusions de ce sommet qu’un effort supplémentaire est nécessaire en matière d’aide, de commerce et de dette pour atteindre l’objectif anti pauvreté.« Le nouveau partenariat mondial pour le développement à la croisée des chemins » conclut à de sérieux déficits par rapport à ces engagements, alors que nous ne sommes qu’à cinq ans de la date butoir fixée pour l’atteinte de ces objectifs.Il est évident que la vie des pauvres ne s’est pas beaucoup améliorée et que certains progrès ont été affectés par les changements climatiques et les crises alimentaires, économiques et financières. L’Afrique est, une fois de plus, le continent dont les progrès en termes de réalisation des OMD sont mitigés.En dépit des 40 milliards de dollars promis par la communauté internationale, pour la mise en œuvre de la stratégie globale pour la santé maternelle et infantile, en Afrique, les statistiques relatives à la mortalité maternelle sont particulièrement alarmantes. Sur 536 000 femmes dans le monde qui meurent chaque année de complications liées à la grosse et à l’accouchement, 99 % vivent dans des pays en développement et parmi celles-ci, la moitié se trouve en Afrique subsaharienne.Les statistiques relatives à la mortalité infantile sont elles aussi préoccupantes. Sur les 10 millions d’enfant de moins de cinq ans qui meurent chaque année dans le monde, 99 % vivent dans les pays en développement.Fort de ce constat et conscient de la communauté de destin, le Parlement panafricain, en tant que plateforme d’expression de la volonté de nos populations et lieu de convergence des expertises et des compétences multiformes de notre continent, devrait être le creuset des initiatives novatrices, visant à faire du continent africain le meilleur cadre de vie pour les populations actuelles et les générations futures.Nous avons tous, individuellement et collectivement, l’impérieux devoir de contribuer de façon significative à l’atteinte des OMD, car aucun de nous ne pourra ressentir légitimement la fierté d’être africain, tant que nos populations ne pourront pas avoir accès à l’eau, à l’éducation, à l’électricité, aux denrées de première nécessité, aux soins de santé primaire et j’en passe.Autant le Parlement panafricain s’engage à obtenir les 11 ratifications nécessaires à l’entrée en vigueur de la Charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance, autant il devrait s’engager pour assurer le développement économique et social rapide de l’ensemble du continent.Toutefois, les parlementaires panafricains restent convaincus que les années à venir seront plus glorieuses que les 50 dernières.Comme l’ont fait les vaillants combattants de la liberté de nos peuples, il y a cinquante ans, nous, représentants des peuples africains ici présents, exprimons, aujourd’hui, notre espérance et notre foi inébranlable en l’avenir radieux de notre continent.Au nom de l’ensemble des membres du Parlement panafricain et en mon nom propre, je voudrais souhaiter aux pays africains, paix, sécurité et prospérité.Aux dix-sept pays qui célèbrent cette année le cinquantenaire de leur indépendance mais également, aux pays qui ont eu leur indépendance avant 1960 comme le Liberia et le Soudan, les pays qui ont eu leur indépendance après 1960 comme le Cap-Vert et la Guinée Bissau, c’est à l’endroit de tous les pays africains que nous adressons nos souhaits de paix, de sécurité et de prospérité.Vive les indépendances!Vivent les peuples africains!Vive l’Afrique!Vive le Parlement panafricain!Vive l’Union africaine.(Applaudissements.)Honorables membres,Distingués invités,J’ai, à présent, l’honneur d’inviter notre hôte, Son Excellence Ali Hassan MWINI, à apporter sa contribution.Vous avez la parole, Excellence.
11.0 – DISCOURS PRONONCÉ PAR S.E. ALI HASSAN MWINYI, ANCIEN PRSIDENT DE LA REPUBLIQUE UNIE DE TANZANIE
H.E. MR. ALI HASSAN MWINYI [FORMER PRESIDENT OF TANZANIA]:Your Excellency, Dr Moussa Idriss Ndele, President of the Pan-African Parliament;Your Excellency, Dr Jean Ping, Chairperson of the African Union Commission;Honourable ministers and deputy ministers here present;Honourable Members of the Pan-African Parliament;Honourable Members of the South African Parliament;Your Excellencies, Ambassadors, High Commissioners and heads of International and Regional organizations;Distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen,Let me begin by thanking you for the kind invitation extended to me to attend the third ordinary session of the Second Pan-African Parliament. I am grateful to the Pan-African Parliament for having organized the commemoration of 50 years of independence of some of our countries. This occasion provides me with an opportunity to reflect on where we came from, where we are now, and therefore chart our future course of action based on the experience gained so far. In the same vein, I would also like to extend my congratulations to 17 African states that are celebrating 50 years since they attained their independence.Mr. President, I have been asked to offer some insights on the independence struggle of the continent with specific reference to my country and the sub-region. As is publicly known, the path towards political independence by African countries differed. While some were granted independence after negotiations, others had to resort to the use of arms. Ghana, the first African country to get independence, did so on the basis of political negotiations. My country Tanganyika, and now Tanzania, as well as the 17 countries whose independence we are celebrating today, also attained their independence peacefully.Mr. President, unfortunately, this was not the case for all other countries. Algeria which attained its independence in 1962 had to resort to an armed struggle to get its independence. The Algerian revolution set an example for the rest of the continent in demanding independence, if need be, by armed struggle. The success of the Algerian revolution in the face of overwhelming opposition from the French colonialists provided encouragement to the nationalists that despite the heavy odds against them, they too could prevail in armed conflict. When it did gain independence, Algeria became one of the staunchest supporters of the liberation struggle on the continent, giving nationalists succor and sustenance as well as training and arms because its leadership believed in the necessity of liberating African countries. Algeria felt that without political independence, economic independence and African unity were but an illusion. I wish to pay tribute to His Excellency, Ahmed Ben Bella- (Applause) - and the Algerian people for their role in the liberation struggle of Algeria and Africa in general.Mr. President, owing to the accident of geography, Tanganyika found itself at the frontline of independent Africa and countries which were still suffering under the yoke of colonial rule and racial oppression when it attained independence on 9 December 1961. Like his peers, President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria, the Emperor Selassie I, to mention but a few, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere of Tanzania, our first president, believed that Tanzania’s independence was incomplete as long as any part of the African continent was still under colonial rule and domination.Tanzania made a commitment to assist the nationalist movements fighting against colonial rule and racial discrimination on our continent. Tanzania therefore became a home away from home for most of those fleeing from racial discrimination and colonial rule and freedom fighters from Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, among many others. During the liberation struggle of Mozambique, Tanzania became a dependable and formidable rear base for the freedom fighters of FRELIMO, waging their armed struggle against the Portuguese colonial rule.Mwalimu Nyerere and other prominent PanAfrican leaders supported the continent’s independence movements and established the Organization of African Unity in 1963. The founding fathers of the Organization of African Unity made the liquidation of colonialism and racial discrimination their main objective and established a liberation committee to pursue this goal. Possibly owing also to geographical location, Tanzania was chosen to be the headquarters of the liberation committee which galvanized international action against colonial rule and racial oppression and the occupation of the Southern Africa states.Mr. President, at the sub-regional level, by 1975 the frontiers of independent Africa had shifted southwards following the defeat of Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique, Angola, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde as well as Sao Tome and Principe. Nonetheless, colonialism, apartheid and illegal occupation remained in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia, respectively. The leaders of Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, Nigeria and Angola established the Frontline States under the chairmanship of the late Mwalimu Nyerere of Tanzania. His Excellency, Dr Kenneth Kaunda succeeded Mwalimu Nyerere as chairman of the Frontline States, while I succeeded him as the President of the United Republic of Tanzania. The Frontline States spearheaded the liberation struggle of southern Africa which aimed at establishing a majority rule in that part of the African sub-region. His Excellency, Dr Kenneth Kaunda as chairman of the Frontline States presided over the prosecution of the liberation struggle of Namibia and South Africa until the two countries were granted independence in 1990 and 1994 respectively.I wish to pay deserved tribute to His Excellency Dr Kenneth Kaunda- (Applause) - and his country for the unflinching role and support for the liberation struggles of our continent. He accepted, sometimes at great sacrifice of his own country, freedom fighters and those fleeing from their countries of origin from all over southern African states and beyond.The Frontline States formed the core of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference or SADCC, which was established to lessen dependence on the South African transport routes by the Frontline States. SADCC has since been transformed into SADC with the objective of integrating southern African states.Thanks to the sacrifices made by the national liberation movements, namely, the ANC, MPLA, FRELIMO, PAIGC, ZANU and SWAPO, the goal of the liberation of Africa is now almost complete. I say almost complete; not yet completely complete. Nevertheless we still have the challenge of resolving the issue of the occupation of Western Sahara by the Kingdom of Morocco.I wish to pay tribute to all- (Applause) - the gallant leaders that led these liberation movements as well as its fighters both present and those who passed on for their dedication, determination and commitment in ensuring that our continent was free and under majority rule.(Applause)Mr. President, the attainment of political independence by the African countries did notlead to economic independence. African countries soon realized that there were was still a long road towards attaining economic independence. The leaders of the continent decided to transform the Organization of African Unity into the African Union, with the primary objective of uniting and integrating our economies as well as socioeconomic infrastructure.Despite most of Africa having attained independence, we still have the decolonization of the Western Sahara: it remains as the unfinished business of the political emancipation of Africa. The African continent is also faced with the scourge of conflicts, ravages of HIV/AIDS, climate change and others. We also need to institute a culture of respect for democracy, good governance and human rights. These are the challenges that the African Union and other organs will have to address.Mr. President, let me conclude my remarks by reiterating my conviction that due to its mandate as a common platform for African peoples and their grass root organizations to be more involved in discussions and decision making on the problem of challenges facing the continent, the Pan-African Parliament has a special role in meeting these challenges and contributing to Africa’s renaissance or revival. I wish the PanAfrican Parliament the best in all its noble endeavors.Mr. President, I would like to end my speech by once again expressing my appreciation to the President of the Pan-African Parliament for the excellent facilities and hospitality accorded to me and my entourage. We say, thank you. (Applause) And where I come from we say, asante sana. Thank you very much. (Applause) I also wish to thank the President, the Government and the people of the Republic of South Africa for the usual friendliness and hospitality accorded to us all whenever we visit this great country.(Applause)Thank you.(Applause)LE PRESIDENT:Je vous remercie, Excellence.J’invite, à présent, l’honorable Mary MUGYENYI, 2e Vice-présidente, à donner lecture de la motion de remerciements.
12.0 – MOTION DE REMERCIEMENTS ET DE FELICITATION DE LA PRÉSIDENCE
HON. MUGYENYI MARY RUTAMWEBWA [UGANDA]:Your Excellency President Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Former President of the Republic of Tanzania; Your Excellency the President of the Pan African Parliament and Members of your bureau; Colleagues Members of Parliament; Your Excellencies the Ambassadors and High Commissioners representing African Countries in South Africa; ladies and gentlemen in your different capacities.Your Excellency President Mwinyi, it is indeed my pleasure and honour to move a vote of thanks on this very important day, on which Pan African Parliament is celebrating 50 years of independence by some of our member countries.First and foremost, I would like to move a vote of thanks to God Almighty, most gracious and most merciful, for giving us our land Africa, and for all the endeavors and endowments that he has given us. (Applause) That our land from the time of our ancestors has been able to provide for us, that quite often we have abused and mismanaged our land and its resources, but that you Almighty, you have continued to bless us with endless resources from our continent. We are, truly thankful and honour you father in heaven.We thank you for the different peoples of Africa, that in our different shades, languages and cultures, we have been inhabited this land, Africa, and that from amongst our people you created wise and brave men and women who have fought for the independence of their people, their countries and amongst whom we have one of them who is representing those wise men in the name of President Mwinyi. Congratulations indeed to all those countries that have attained independence. (Applause) Thank you lord in heaven for liberating our continent from the humiliation of slavery and colonialism, and indeed we thank you that you created Africans that were able to fight for their independence and that today we can boast, we are here celebrating that achievement.We do not forget to thank all those human beings on earth, beyond the African Continent, in Europe, America, Asia and elsewhere that supported the liberation of Africa. We honour them and can never forget them in our liberation history.We thank you master in heaven for the great leaders of Africa that have the vision of uniting Africa including President Mwinyi, and those that continue to support the unity of our continent. Maybe they will be rewarded by your truly united strong Africa that merits their efforts. That includes those who are alive and those departed.We are grateful to the present leaders of Africa for the African Union and its Organs, including the Pan African Parliament. This great organization that brings us together; we pray that the leaders of Africa are blessed with the wisdom to make right decisions for the prosperity of the people of Africa, so that independence becomes truly meaningful.We very heartedly congratulate all those countries that attained their independence 50 years ago, most of whom were former French colonies, with exception of Nigeria and Ghana who were under British colonial rule. May you truly be blessed with our virtues of democracy and good governance.Your Excellency President Mwinyi, we thank you for honouring our invitation to come all the way from Tanzania to South Africa, purposely to address the African Parliamentarians. This is a rare opportunity for you to address a congregation of African Parliamentarians and in turn we are happy to be addressed by a former President who belongs to the class of wise leaders, who not only have tried to unite Africa, but have become real models of democracy; leaders retiring voluntarily. (Applause) And I want to testify as your neighbour from Uganda that you have indeed contributed to the unity of Africa. I just wanted to give an example of how Tanzania is an example of Africa uniting. When Zanzibar, your homeland Your Excellency, was united to Tanganyika to make the Republic of Tanzania, you made it possible that different parts of Africa can actually unite and function. We congratulate you and thank you. (Applause)We applaud the contribution made by Tanzania towards the liberation of Africa. We do not underrate that and we all know that Tanzania played an important role towards the liberation of many other countries particularly in the Southern Africa, including Uganda from Idi Amini, to put that on record. We congratulate you and we thank you.I congratulate lastly, the President of the Pan African Parliament, Members of the Bureau and Members of Pan African Parliament for their decision to commemorate this day. I want particularly to single out the Committee that has been spearheading this event. We thank you so much for this wise vision and decision. May the day go well for all of us, and may there be tranquility for the seventeen (17) countries whose independence we celebrate today.I thank you all.LE PRESIDENT:Je vous remercie, Honorable Mary MUGYENYI. La parole est maintenant au Secrétaire général, pour la suite du programme.
13.0 – ANNONCES
THE CLERK:Honorable Members, I would like to make it known to you that now is the occasion for the Honorable President of the Pan-African Parliament to pass the gifts to our special guests, the former President of Tanzania, Honorable Mwinyi. Thank you.Honorable Members, I would like to make the following announcements that the Commission on Evaluation, Administration and Finance will meet today at half-past three o’clock in room seven.The last announcement is that the procession from here will proceed to the exhibition at the foyer. Thank you very much.LE PRESIDENT:Je vous remercie.Honorables membres. La séance est actuellement levée jusqu’à demain, mercredi 06 octobre 2010, à 09 heures.La séance est levée à 11heures 46 minutes.
Wednesday, 6th October 2010
LE PRESIDENT:Veuillez prendre place!M. le Secrétaire général,Donnez-nous le programme, s’il vous plaît!THE CLERK OF PARLIAMENT:Presentation and debates on the report of the President of the Pan African Parliament.(The Second Vice-president in the Chair)THE PRESIDENT:I now wish to call upon the President of the Pan African Parliament, H.E. Moussa Idriss Ndele, to make his presentation.
1.0 – PRESENTATION ET DEBAT RELATIFS AU RAPPORT DU PRESIDENT DU PARLEMENT PANAFRICAIN
HON. MOUSSA IDRISS NDELE [TCHAD]:Mesdames et Messieurs les membres du Parlement,Comme le veut le déroulement de nos activités, à chaque session ordinaire, le Bureau vous donne un aperçu des activités du Parlement durant la période d’intersession.Le présent rapport, que nous soumettons à votre bienveillante attention, trace les grandes lignes des activités entreprises par le Parlement panafricain, durant la période allant de mai à septembre 2010.Il me plaît de vous rappeler que les activités qui sont portées à votre attention restent en droite ligne avec les objectifs du Parlement, comme énoncé dans le Protocole au Traité instituant la Communauté économique africaine, relatif au Parlement panafricain;Ces activités reflètent la vision du Bureau du Parlement panafricain d’amener notre institution à s’aligner aux principes et règles édictés par l’Union africaine, et de se conformer à la révision du Protocole devant doter notre Parlement de pouvoirs législatifs.Ledit rapport aborde toutes les activités parlementaires, administratives et financières.Activités des membres du Bureau du Parlement panafricainLes membres du Bureau ont pris part durant la période précitée à plusieurs rencontres internationales qui ont eu pour objectifs, pour la plupart, à développer, à renforcer les relations entre le Parlement panafricain et les autres institutions internationales, et à faire le plaidoyer pour mieux faire connaître notre institution.Sommet de l’Union africaine à Kampala (Ouganda)La délégation du Parlement panafricain que j’ai eu l’honneur de conduire, a pris part aux réunions successives, statutaires des organes de l’Union africaine en commençant par le COREP, le Conseil Exécutif, et la Conférence des chefs d’État et de gouvernement.A cet effet, j’ai présenté l’objectif du Parlement, qui est la transformation en un organe législatif et j’ai, également, présenté les problèmes institutionnels qui minent le bon fonctionnement administratif et financier.Des consultations tenues avec les structures compétentes en charge de la révision du Protocole ont permis de redynamiser le processus de consultation entre les organes de l’Union africaine et de s’assurer que les positions du Parlement panafricain soient prises en considération dans le rapport sur la révision du Protocole qui sera soumis, nous l’espérons, aux chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement, lors du prochain Sommet de fin janvier 2011.Le Bureau a également participé au 20e Forum Economique Mondial qui s’est tenu à Dar-Es- Salaam, en Tanzanie, du 5 au 7 mai 2010.A la deuxième réunion du comité d’orientation du Forum permanent de dialogue Arabo-africain sur la démocratie et les droits humains à Paris, au siège de l’UNESCO, le Président a été invité en qualité d’observateur et a pris part aux travaux durant deux jours.Par ailleurs, la délégation a été reçue par la Directrice générale de l’UNESCO avec, en perspective, la possibilité d’un partenariat entre nos deux institutions.Lors de la première conférence parlementaire entre la Russie et l’Afrique à Moscou, à l’invitation de la Douma, le Parlement panafricain a été représenté par l’honorable El Houdery, qui a prononcé une allocution au nom dudit Parlement. Les deux parlements envisagent de développer des relations bilatérales.C’est le lieu de féliciter l’honorable El Houdery et de remercier le parlement de la Douma, qui a pris en charge les frais de transport et de séjour de l’honorable El Houdery qui était en mission pour le PAP.36e session de l’Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie à DakarLe Parlement panafricain a pris part, en qualité d’observateur, aux travaux de la 36e session de l’Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie; la délégation du Parlement panafricain était conduite par son Président.Aussi, la présidente du réseau des femmes parlementaires du PAP a pris part aux travaux du réseau des femmes de l’Agence parlementaire de la Francophonie (APF) et a adressé une communication sur la participation des femmes dans la vie politique en Afrique.En marge des travaux de la 36e session de l’APF, le Président du PAP et sa délégation ont été reçus par S.E Me Abdoulaye Wade, Président de la République du Sénégal, qui a donné son engagement à soutenir le Parlement panafricain dans son processus de transformation.Par ailleurs, une rencontre a eu lieu avec le Président du forum des parlementaires africains et arabes pour la population et le développement (FAAPPD), aux fins de renforcer la coopération autour de la réalisation des objectifs du millénaire pour le développement.Conférence de l’UNESCO sur l’éducationL’honorable Hammi Laroussi, 3e Vice-président du PAP, a représenté le Président du parlement et le PAP à la 4e session du forum arabe des parlementaires pour l’éducation, tenue à Beyrouth, au Liban, dont l’objectif consistait à renforcer le rôle des parlementaires dans la mise en œuvre des politiques nationales en matière d’éducation. C’est une initiative que le Parlement panafricain veut non seulement saluer, mais également accompagner.Mission du Parlement panafricain à Harare pour rencontrer les responsables de notre partenaire, l’ACBFL’honorable Joram Macdonald Gumbo, 4e Viceprésident, a conduit une délégation aux fins de rencontrer les responsables de l’ACBF et de rétablir le partenariat suspendu, suite à la décision de l’ACBF de geler le mémorandum existant entre nos deux institutions.A la suite de cette visite, les malentendus se sont dissipés et la coopération a été reprise.Participation à la cérémonie inaugurale du nouveau siège de l’Assemblée nationale du Malawiévénement. Cette mission était effectuée dans le cadre du renforcement des relations bilatérales et en vue d’un plaidoyer pour la participation du Président du Malawi, S.E Bingu Wa Mutharika, président en exercice de l’Union africaine, à la cérémonie d’ouverture de notre 3e session ordinaire du PAP. Ce qui était possible jusqu’au dernier jour, où le calendrier de Son Excellence a eu un changement, pour lequel on a reçu une information, qui fait que nous n’avons pas eu l’honneur d’avoir la présence du Président en exercice de l’Union africaine.Réunion du 27e Forum de l’Assemblée Parlementaire de la SADCL’honorable Joram Gumbo Macdonald, 4e Vice - président, a participé au 27e Forum de l’Assemblée Parlementaire de la SADC, qui s’est tenu à Livingstone, en Zambie, au mois de mai 2010.Conférence sur les risques et la gouvernance en Afrique, Durban, août 2010L’honorable Mary Mugyenyi, 2e Viceprésidente du Parlement panafricain, a représenté le PAP à la conférence sur les risques et la gouvernance en Afrique. Elle a eu l’opportunité de faire une communication sur le rôle du Parlement panafricain dans la bonne gouvernance en Afrique, et ce, conformément au Protocole.Activités ParlementairesLes Commissions permanentesLes commissions permanentes se sont réunies du 5 au 8 août 2010. Il ressort de cette réunion que plusieurs problèmes ont entravé la bonne marche de leurs travaux, notamment en ce qui concerne le contenu des programmes, la disponibilité de la documentation, la traduction des documents et le personnel d’appui.Ces problèmes rencontrés pendant les travaux des commissions sont dus, en partie, au manque de moyens financiers et, dans une autre mesure, ils sont liés à nos carences administratives. Il faut relever ici que la ligne budgétaire prévue pour les activités non statuaires des commissions a été retirée du budget 2010.Conformément à la décision 98 du Conseil exécutif, les Etats membres doivent prendre en charge la participation des membres aux réunions statutaires. A cet effet, nous avons constaté que le taux de participation des membres aux travaux des commissions est très faible. Il en ressort que les Etats membres ne peuvent pas prendre en charge la participation de leurs membres à toutes les réunions.A cet effet, le Bureau du Parlement panafricain a instruit le secrétariat de tout mettre en œuvre pour l’amélioration de l’organisation des prochaines réunions. Pour les réunions des commissions permanentes, en marge de notre session, ce sont les présidents des commissions permanentes qui ont eu la maîtrise de l’organisation et de leur agenda.Missions d’observation des électionsConformément à l’article 3 du Protocole au Traité instituant la communauté économique africaine relatif au Parlement panafricain, l’un des objectifs du Parlement panafricain consiste à promouvoir les principes des droits de l’homme et de la démocratie en Afrique.Conformément au Protocole, le PAP a dépêché des missions d’observation électorales dans les Etats membres de l’Union africaine (UA). Cependant, en vertu de la Décision No. Ex.CL/Dec.534(XVI), adoptée lors de la seizième session ordinaire du Conseil exécutif de l’Union africaine, en février 2010, à Addis-Abeba, les missions d’observation électorales organisées par tous les organes de l’Union africaine seront financées à partir d’un budget centralisé. En conséquence, la coordination des missions sera assurée conjointement par l’Union africaine, le PAP et les autres organes pertinents de l’Union africaine. Le PAP a participé à des missions mixtes dépêchées dans les Etats membres suivants:Ethiopie, Guinée Conakry, Burundi et Rwanda.Pour le Soudan et l’île Maurice, aucun membre du Parlement panafricain n’a pris part à ces missions au titre de ces missions conjointes.Malheureusement, on a constaté que la représentation du Parlement panafricain à ces missions était faible. Ceci est dû dans une large mesure aux conditions entourant la participation des honorables membres. Le Parlement panafricain considère que ces conditions ne conviennent pas au statut des membres d’une institution continentale. A titre d’illustration, les membres ont dû voyager en classe économique, même dans des cas où le voyage a duré plus de huit heures. En outre, les membres reçoivent des indemnités journalières de subsistance selon le taux des Nations unies, alors que le personnel de l’Union africaine bénéficie de taux plus élevés, ajustés à hauteur de 20% de celui des Nations unies, pour les mêmes missions.On a également noté que la coordination faite au niveau du Département des affaires politiques de l’Union africaine n’a pas été toujours à la hauteur, s’agissant de l’envoi des lettres d’invitation et des billets d’avion aux membres, ainsi que pour leur déploiement dans les circonscriptions électorales. Le Parlement panafricain a lancé un appel à l’endroit du COREP et du Conseil exécutif lors du Sommet de Kampala, en juillet dernier, afin d’examiner les préoccupations précitées, aux fins de permettre au Parlement panafricain de contribuer, de manière efficace, à la gouvernance démocratique en Afrique comme par le passé. Nous osons espérer, à l’issue de notre retraite avec le COREP pour le budget 2011, une amélioration et revenir à une participation séparée du Parlement panafricain pour les missions d’observation.Réunions consultatives sur la transformation du Parlement panafricain et la ratification de la charte de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernanceNous avons adopté une résolution pour accélérer la ratification de tous les traités et de tous les protocoles de l’Union africaine, en particulier celle de la Charte sur la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance par les Etats membres qui ne l’ont pas encore fait.A cet effet, nous avons entamé des dialogues consultatifs relatifs à la ratification de la charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance au niveau des régions de l’Afrique de l’Est, à Kampala, en Ouganda, en Afrique centrale, à Ndjamena, au Tchad et pour l’Afrique australe, à Victoria Falls, au Zimbabwe. Ces dialogues se poursuivront en Afrique du Nord et en Afrique de l’Ouest au mois de novembre 2010.Ces dialogues ont regroupé les membres du Parlement panafricain des régions précitées, les parlementaires et les représentants des hautes autorités des pays hôtes. L’ensemble des députés s’est engagé, à travers des communiqués, à accélérer le processus avant 2011, à travers la campagne "11 before 2011" lancée à Kampala.Par ailleurs, la question de la transformation du Parlement panafricain en un organe doté de pouvoirs législatifs a été également abordée pendant les trois réunions consultatives.Les gouvernements et les parlements nationaux des pays de ces régions se sont engagés à soutenir le processus de la révision du Protocole au Traité, aux fins de le doter de pouvoirs législatifs dans les domaines indiqués.L’objectif est de sensibiliser les gouvernements, les parlements nationaux et régionaux sur la pertinence de mettre en place un parlement continental avec des pouvoirs législatifs, en vue de la création d’un gouvernement de l’Union africaine.Il importe ici de saluer la contribution de la commission de l’Union africaine, à travers la Commissaire aux Affaires politiques et son département qui ont participé, de manière très efficace et effective, aux travaux de nos séminaires.Administration, Finance et Relations InternationalesCompte tenu du nombre réduit du personnel du Parlement panafricain, notamment au niveau des hautes responsabilités administratives, nous avons pris l’initiative de solliciter la Commission de l’Union africaine, par la mise à disposition à notre parlement de trois fonctionnaires pour une durée déterminée, à l’effet d’aider le secrétariat dans ses missions de gestion quotidienne.A ce titre, un responsable de la division des ressources humaines de la commission a été dépêché au Parlement panafricain au mois d’avril, et cette personnalité est restée jusqu’au mois de juillet 2010. Durant son séjour, elle a élaboré un rapport sur les procédures de recrutement, sur l’organigramme et elle nous a fait des recommandations.Suite au départ de l’interprète-traducteur en langue française et du responsable principal des finances, un appel à candidature a été lancé pour pourvoir à ces deux postes. Une sélection des candidats a été entreprise au mois de mai dernier et, faute de moyens financiers, la séance d’interview n’a pu être organisée. Le processus sera repris dès que les fonds seront disponibles.Aussi, il importe de vous informer que l’Union européenne a donné son accord pour financer le recrutement de personnel à des postes au niveau du département des finances principalement, pour répondre au principe de la séparation des tâches prévues dans le règlement financier de l’Union africaine.Ces postes n’ont jamais été pourvus depuis l’installation du PAP et, de ce fait, cela constitue un déficit important, ayant entrainé des faiblesses et lacunes dans le contrôle interne déjà soulignées par le comité ad hoc dans son rapport, remis à la plénière en octobre 2009.De plus, et dans le cadre de nos relations avec le Parlement de l’Afrique du Sud, ce dernier a décidé de mettre à notre disposition les fonds nécessaires pour le recrutement et la rémunération de fonctionnaires à différents postes non pourvus jusqu’ici; ce recrutement suivra bien sûr les procédures en vigueur, édictées par les règlements de l’Union africaine.En votre nom à tous, je tiens à adresser nos vifs remerciements à l’Union Européenne et au Parlement de l’Afrique du Sud pour leur soutien très appréciable.Sur un tout autre plan, l’organigramme administratif du Parlement panafricain attend toujours d’être adopté par les organes compétents de l’Union africaine; le texte a été finalisé par le groupe de travail désigné à cet effet par le souscomité des structures relevant du COREP, en collaboration avec les représentants administratifs du Parlement panafricain. Là, également, nous espérons faire une avancée à travers la retraite que nous organisons avec le COREP.Notre souhait est que ce texte soit adopté lors du prochain Sommet de l’Union africaine, fin janvier 2011, à Addis-Abeba, ce qui permettra à notre institution de procéder au recrutement du personnel nécessaire à son fonctionnement.En matière financière, notre budget demeure très limité, et ne nous permet pas d’assurer nos activités en dehors des sessions ordinaires, entravant de ce fait le nécessaire dynamisme qui permet au travail des commissions permanentes de se tenir et de donner une visibilité au Parlement panafricain.Nous faisons des démarches pour que des moyens conséquents soient octroyés au Parlement panafricain, pour lui permettre de s’impliquer davantage et pleinement dans les actions qui contribuent à la réalisation de l’intégration du continent.A cet effet, il nous incombe de convaincre les organes compétents de l’Union africaine de l’indispensable rôle que doit jouer le Parlement panafricain pour la réalisation des objectifs qui lui sont assignés et qui doivent bénéficier d’un financement conséquent du budget de l’Union, et non des partenaires au développement, car étant des objectifs statutaires.A ce sujet, il y a lieu d’indiquer que les faiblesses et les lacunes en matière de contrôle ont poussé certains de nos partenaires au développement à cesser le financement des activités convenues avec eux.Toutefois, quelques-uns de nos partenaires continuent toujours à nous apporter le soutien nécessaire en matière d’accomplissement de certaines activités, notamment celles qui ont trait à la série de séminaires que nous organisons sur la transformation du Parlement panafricain et la ratification de la Charte africaine sur la démocratie, les élections et la gouvernance. Je tiens, en votre nom, à les remercier, et en particulier, la GTZ, l’AWEPA, le PNUD.En conclusion, le Parlement panafricain est conscient de ses obligations et de son statut d’organe de l’Union africaine. A ce titre, il renouvelle son engagement d’œuvrer en étroite collaboration avec tous les autres organes de l’Union africaine, dans le respect des règles et pratiques de l’Union africaine, afin de contribuer au processus d’intégration du continent et de mise en œuvre des décisions et résolutions de l’Union africaine.En effet, pour atteindre les objectifs énoncés dans le Protocole, le Parlement panafricain doit être plus visible sur le continent et plus proche des populations qu’il représente.Pour cela, le Parlement panafricain invite les organes de l’Union africaine à faciliter le processus d’évaluation du Protocole au Traité relatif au Parlement panafricain, dans le cadre de la mise en œuvre de la décision EX/CL/459 (XIV) de l'Union africaine sur la révision du Protocole au Traité adopté en janvier 2009.Enfin, les progrès accomplis durant la période considérée, notamment dans l’avancée du processus de révision du Protocole, d’une part, et la ratification de la Charte africaine pour la démocratie, les élections et la gouvernance, fournissent la preuve de l’engagement du Parlement panafricain à œuvrer pour la prospérité de l’Afrique.Je vous remercie.THE PRESIDENT:We thank Mr. President for that elaborate and well articulated report on behalf of all of us. I want to use this opportunity of being in the Chair, to also inform the Members and confirm that under your leadership we are doing everything possible to move Pan African Parliament to a next stage, higher than it has been. We thank you very much. Hon. Members, before I open the debate, I just wanted to move a small amendment. There is one detail that was not included in the activities, I have noted; the International Criminal Court Conference of Parties that was held in Kampala in May to June, this year. I represented the President of PAN African Parliament at that Conference. It was also preceded by a Conference of Parliamentarians preceding the ICC Conference of parties. So, I thought that should be included on the list of activities that we carried out.Hon. Members, I now wish to open the floor for debate. I have a list of speakers, but if you have not seen the list and did not note down your name, just write it down and pass it on to me and you will be given the floor. Now, the time given is five minutes, and that is enough for Members to express themselves. I have a list of thirteen names and as I can see, I will be getting more, so, please try and observe the time allocated to you. The first speaker on the list is Hon. Joseph Njobvuyalema, from Malawi. Hon. Joseph, you may take the floor.HON. NJOBVUYALEMA JOSEPH [MALAWI]:Thank you very much Honourable Chair for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this report. I must say that I looked for a copy of this report yesterday when I indicated that I would like to contribute, but it was not available until late in the evening, and I have just come across it today, this morning. However, I will make quick reactions to the report as ably presented by the President.In the first place, I must commend the President for his leadership; indeed, there are a lot of changes and improvements in PAP. And since I have only five minutes to contribute, I just want to put it on record that Malawi appreciates very much his leadership. He involves everybody. Everybody is participating, and as a Member of PAP from Malawi, he involves me in most of the activities that are undertaken by PAP and we appreciate that very much.My first reaction is on page 4 of the report, which talks about the 27th Plenary Assembly of SADC Parliamentary Forum. (Noise) MadamChairperson, I am looking at the Activity Report which has been presented by the President and I am on page 4, which is talking about the 27th Assembly of SADC Parliamentary Forum. It is stated that our Vice President, Honourable Gumbo attended this Parliamentary Forum. We were looking forward to a brief about what main issues transpired in that session, because there is a general complaint that much as we are Members of PAP, we are expected to be linked to the SADC Forum as Members of the SADC Region. So, we thought we should be engaged in most of the activities that are undertaken at the SADC Parliamentary Forum because we are Members of the SADC Region, much as we are Members of PAP, but at the same time we have to be informed also of what is happening in our region.Also, for purposes of information, is there any progress on SADC PF’s efforts to become a legislative body? I thought something could be said in that connection.My other reaction is on Page 5, Item 8. That item is talking about problems, administrative shortcomings of PAP that have been encountered. This is a very serious statement. Administrative shortcomings will reflect the whole arrangement of PAP. What are these administrative shortcomings? We have people in place, we have a Clerk of Parliament, we have everybody, and we have the Bureau. What could have happened, and if these shortcomings have been noted, what has been the corrective measure?Indeed I want to agree that participation of Members for election missions is very low because time and again, we are not properly handled in terms of subsistence, travel arrangements, how we are looked after when we go out to the missions and how we are engaged in terms of giving views on the manner in which the elections have been conducted. We are generally sidelined. I am one of the Members who participated in a mission in Ethiopia. I must state that the whole arrangement was monopolized by NGO’s and, much as I had very constructive ideas, I was given a deaf ear. So, I was very concerned and I regretted having gone there. I wish there could be an improvement. I think it should be placed on record that Pan African Parliamentarians are politicians. I am an experienced politician, I am serving my third term as a Member of Parliament and I have a lot of experience, which if I am engaged in the electoral missions, I think I could come up with very constructive ideas and the whole African Union would benefit. That is my belief.My other reaction is on Page 6, where it is said that PAP or Item 15THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much, I hope there is time keeping because the five minutes to me looked so long. So time keeper, please make sure you don’t allow more than five minutes, but thank you so much Honourable Members for those constructive comments.HON. TOSKIN JOHNSON BARTILE [UGANDA]:Thank you very much Madam President for availing me this opportunity to react to the President’s very well elaborated speech.Madam President, we are happy about the report of the President because it is showing clearly that the Pan-African Parliament is fully engaged in the activities in the region. It is important, Madam President, that these regional meetings are organized regularly so that PAP can be seen to be playing its important role. PAP is supposed to be a vanguard in driving social, economic and political activities within the region and therefore, we should take every opportunity whenever there are any meetings organized in the continent and even outside the continent.Madam President, I wanted to talk a little about the review of the protocol of PAP. This is a very important undertaking for PAP and we should use every opportunity, especially at this time, so that we can be able to convince those who will be involved in taking the final decision.Madam President, I am happy with the progress so far that whenever we shall be able to make our points clear, whenever we go to these meetings, like when the President attended the summit in Kampala; that was important. I want to add that it is also necessary that the PAP Bureau organizes deliberate moves and visits to specific leaders in their countries. I am thinking of the leaders who are influential in the summit. We should be able to organize meetings; the President and his team should be able to organize these meetingsprivate meetingsmeet these leaders and try to implore upon them so that they can give us the support we need. I think that is very necessary indeed.I also want to say that we should continue to invite these very influential leaders of Africa to come to PAP functions like we have already done. I think we still need to go further and invite them so that they come and see for themselves what is happening in the Pan-African Parliament. To this effect Mr. President- I do not know, I came a bit late- I do not know whether the President explained to the House why the President of South Africa did not come yesterday. We had been expecting him up to the last minute, but I am sure by the end of the day nobody told us why the President was not able to come because this is again another opportunity when we should be engaging the African leaders in the activities of the Pan-African Parliament.About the observer missions, Mr. President, we had started these observer missions very vigorously and it was really lifting the name of the Pan-African Parliament. With the new arrangement, I think we should not play a minor position. We should really play the same position like the other organs of the AU, so that we are treated the same way. Even if it is the payment of per diems or facilitation, it should be on an equal basis. We are an important organ of the AU.Then finally I would like to use this opportunity to thank the President, the Bureau and the members of the regional caucus and all those leaders of the various committees for attending the Kampala meeting in July. We were very happy as a country, and we are very proud that the PanAfrican Parliament actually came and joined us especially at the time when we had just had a bad incident where the al-Shabaab had just bombed Kampala. We are very grateful and we still invite you. Thank you very much Madam President.HON. BABOU ABDOULAYE [SENEGAL]:Je vous remercie Madame la Vice-présidente.Monsieur le Président, je voudrais vous féliciter pour votre rapport, il est succinct, mais le plus important, c’est qu’il touche du doigt tous les problèmes qui assaillent encore notre Parlement.Monsieur le Président, je voudrais d’abord faire un constat: dès l’ouverture de cette session, nous nous sommes rendus compte qu’il y a moins de monde par rapport aux sessions antérieures.Ce problème, nous l’avions déjà dans les Commissions, mais au moins, à l’ouverture de chaque session, il y avait du monde, malheureusement aujourd’hui, nous constatons que la situation se dégrade de plus en plus. Il y a là un problème, et nous gageons qu’une fois une semaine de travaux passée, la deuxième semaine, il n’y aura plus personne. Donc, si aujourd’hui on devrait voter des résolutions ou par exemple prendre des décisions qui allaient requérir un quorum, nous serions confrontés à des difficultés. Donc, ce problème mérite d’être résolu tant au niveau de la plénière qu’au niveau des Commissions.Autre chose, Monsieur le Président. Dans votre rapport, je demande une explication qui ne m’a pas semblé claire: s’agissant de l’observation des élections le Soudan je crois, en tout cas pour l’Ile Maurice, parce que cela me concerne, vous avez dit, peut-être que je n’ai pas très bien compris, qu’aucun député du PAP n’y était allé. Parce que moi, j’étais à l’Ile Maurice, nous étions 5 députés au total, mais sous le couvert de l’Union africaine. Et même, on nous avait permis au cours de la session de déposer un rapport, et ce rapport nous l’avons déposé entre vos mains. Je voudrais, donc, avoir des explications là-dessus, sur le traitement qu’il y a lieu de faire.Ensuite, Monsieur le Président, même dans le travail effectif du Parlement, nous nous trouvons confrontés à quelques difficultés, et la question que je pose est la suivante: est-ce que c’est le Secrétaire général du PAP qui doit donner un ordre du jour à chaque Commission? Il y a un problème à ce niveau.D’après notre Règlement intérieur, la Commission a des prérogatives qui lui sont fixées. L’autre jour, dans ma Commission des droits humains et justice, le Secrétaire général nous a présenté un ordre du jour qui n’avait rien à voir avec les compétences de notre Commission. On nous demandait, en outre, de parler du MAEP, donc nous n’avons discuté du MAEP que d’une manière indirecte. Alors que la Commission des droits humains et justice a d’autres prérogatives. Donc, moi je pense que, si c’est le Règlement intérieur qui l’impose, il faudra y réfléchir. Il faut donner à une Commission la possibilité de fixer son ordre du jour, en fonction de ses propres compétences.Je pense qu’en considérant, par exemple, la Commission qui est dirigée par notre sœur Agnès qui est d’ailleurs très compétente, nous avons beaucoup de matières à régler au sein de cette Commission, notamment en ce qui concerne les droits de l’homme dans certains pays. Donc, il n’appartient pas au Secrétaire général qui est administratif de régler cela, et généralement dans d’autres pays, nos Commissions ont compétence pour pouvoir se saisir de leurs matières. Parce que là c’est le texte même du PAP qui dit que chaque Commission permanente a tel ou tel pouvoir. A mon avis, je pense qu’il faut essayer d’harmoniser cela.Pour le reste vous avez raison, en ce qui concerne l’observation des élections. Quand nous allons aux élections, nous sommes moins considérés par rapport aux membres de l’Union africaine, par exemple. Nos pays nous font voyager en classe affaires et ils nous donnent un billet d’avion. Quand nous sommes sur place, nous ne recevons pas les perdiem, nous avons plutôt la moitié de ces perdiems. Or, le travail c’est nous qui le faisons.Le PAP est un organe qui doit être législatif, je pense qu’il doit se battre pour avoir les prérogatives pour désigner ses propres membres pour observer les élections. Ce n’est même pas d’ailleurs le rôle de l’exécutif d’observer les élections. Dans d’autres pays, c’est le législatif qui le fait, et ici dans le continent africain, au moins, il faut que ce soit nous qui représentons le législatif.Donc, je me demande comment c’est arrivé, mais en aucun cas, l’exécutif de l’Union africaine ne devrait se saisir des élections, c’est une compétence naturelle du Parlement panafricain. Je crois que pour le PAP, c’est une bataille à mener. Il faut qu’on se batte pour être indépendant et organiser nos propres élections.Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.AN HONORABLE MEMBER:With regards to rule 35(1) B2, dealing with cultural information and sedition or clarification, the President’s report on the last part of paragraph 12 indicated that no party member participated in the Joint Mission to Sudan. I participated in the Joint Mission to Sudan and I can recall at least one Member from Pan African Parliament, the lady from Malawi, Jennifer, she was also there. I thought that for purposes of the debate, this point ought to be corrected, so that it is taken on board during debates.OULÉMATOU HON. TAMBOURA ASCOFARE [MALI]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.Je voudrais tout d’abord déplorer le fait que nous n’avons pas pu avoir le rapport plus tôt, cela nous aurait permis peut-être de faire une meilleure contribution.Je voudrais, également, féliciter le Bureau du PAP pour tout ce qui a été entrepris durant l’intersession, on voit effectivement que le PAP est actuellement soumis à pas mal de difficultés, mais j’espère qu’avec la clairvoyance des membres du Bureau et avec les contributions de l’ensemble des députés, on arrivera certainement à bout de ces difficultés qui entravent le bon fonctionnement du Parlement panafricain.Je voudrais enfin souligner, comme mon collègue du Mali l’a dit tout à l’heure, que le Président du PAP était récemment au Mali, et cela n’est pas ressorti dans le rapport. Je ne sais pas si c’est un oubli, mais cela a été aussi un moment très fort qu’il fallait mentionner. La délégation a été reçue par le Président de la République du Mali, par le Président de l’Assemblée nationale du Mali, et des points très importants ont également été soulignés lors de cette visite.Voilà, je voudrais m’en arrêter là. Je vous remercie beaucoup.HON. MOHAMMED ALI ALMARDI [SUDAN]:بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم.شكرا جزيال سيدتي الرئيسةنشيد بهذا التقرير الضافي الذي قدمه السيد/ رئيس البرلمان، ونحسب أن البرلمان قد وسع نشاطاته كثيرا وغطى كثيرا من المجاالت التي كان يتعين فعال أن يقوم بالعمل فيها، وأركز فقط على نقطة واحدة وهي أن لجان البرلمان هي الشرايين التي تحمل الدم إلى هذا الجسم الحديث الوالدة ونعتقد أن تنشيط عمل اللجان أمر ضروري وهام وبغيره سوف تتعطل أعمال البرلمان. فاذا كانت اللجان ال تستطيع القيام بمهامها بسبب قلة الموارد المالية أو قلة الموظفين أو عدم توفر الترجمة بالصورة المطلوبة أو كل األعمال اللوجستيه األخرى للجان، فال بد من أن نقرع جرس الخطر في هذا االمر. أعتقد إذا كانت الموارد المالية ليست كافية فبوسعنا نحن في البرلمان االفريقي أن نرفع توصية مسببة لالتحاد االفريقي ليناشد الدول ليس فقط أن تكتفي بدفع اشتراكاتها وإنما تقدم العون الالزم ونحن كممثلين لشعوب بالدنا سوف نبذل جهدنا كله مع حكوماتنا لكي تقدم الدعم حتى تستطيع هذه اللجان أن تقوم بعملها على الوجه المطلوب وشكرا جزيال.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Thank you very much Madam President for giving me the floor to also say a few words in a bid to respond to His Excellency’s report.Madam President, I would like to commend and applaud His Excellency, our President for his report. His report is quite relevant and gives us a sense of what is obtaining, or, what has obtained at Pan African Parliament for the period May to September this year. But Madam President, I am of the unwavering opinion that the issues raised in His Excellency’s report are very important and they should be taken seriously. By this I mean that, we as Members of Parliament should have been given enough time. This report should have been presented to us and we should have been given enough time to digest the report, to research on issues contained therein, and to crosscheck facts and be able to debate this report from a wellinformed research viewpoint.I know that we as Members of Parliament, we are paid to talk, but some of us want to talk from well informed and researched view points. So, for the report to be presented to us this morning, and for us to be expected to debate it, I don’t think justice is being done to us Members of Parliament. And I will suggest that in future, when we come here, His Excellency’s report should form the basis of activities that take place on day one of the Plenary, and then the debate can follow on either the second day or the third day of the plenary.So, having said that Madam President, I would like to comment on Page 6, Paragraph 13, where His Excellency says and I quote ‘unfortunately it has been noted that the representation of PAP on these missions is very low’, that is pertaining to election observer missions.I wholly agree with His Excellency’s view point. Our representation as PAP on these missions has been very low. But His Excellency continues on to say in paragraph 15, that PAP appealed to the PRC and the Executive Council during the Kampala Summit. I would want to believe that this appeal was made by word of mouth, and if that is the case, then I will request that our Bureau here should actually formalize this appeal by way of writing to the African Union or to the PRC, so that they should also put in writing and respond to our appeal as Pan African Parliament. This is a very serious issue; it is a very fundamental issue Madam President that should be tackled with much vigour.With these few remarks Madam President, I thank you very much for giving me the floor. Thank you.HON. MAKGALEMELE DIKGANG PHILLIP [BOTSWANA]:I thank you, Madam President, and I also want to congratulate His Excellency, the President on the report that he presented before this Parliament and, just like hon. Goya and hon. Joseph, to express concern that it will help us if the President’s report is made available to us in advance to allow us to research and make more informed contributions. In the context of the Botswana Parliament, for example, after the State of the Nation Address by His Excellency has been presented, we are given two clear days to internalize the report and do further research.However, having said that, Mr. President, I want to appreciate the fact that the deadlock with ACBF was resolved. But I would have expected that we should be informed in more concrete terms to saywhen the statement reads, "...after this visit the misunderstandings were cleared", it has to be explicit as to whether we now have a formally strengthened relationship with ACBF. Maybe the President should touch on that in his response.I also appreciate, Madam President, that we attended the audit risk and governance conference, but I would also wish that maybe we be given some of the major issues and resolutions coming from this very important conference because it can only serve to strengthen the way we conduct our business within PAP.I also note, Madam President, that there is what I consider to be the missing links in the President’s report. I would have expected the President to apprise us on some of the resolutions from the last PAP sitting, especially with regards to the resolutions on peace initiatives that were supposed to be undertaken. If my memory serves me well, there was some resolution on one or two countries, where we said we were worried about the political situation in those countries, and we would want some more concrete actions taken in order to have those countries resolve those issues.I also note with appreciation the regional meetings that took place since I had the benefit to attend the one in Victoria Falls. However, I was also hoping that the Bureau could have made sure that by the time we come for this Parliament, they would have completed the meetings for all the five regions, so that the recommendations coming from all the five regions would form the basis of our discussions during this session.Going forward, Madam President, I have three proposals. One is with regards to the whole issue of resources within PAP. I think we need to find ways through which we can double our efforts, and I want to propose that as we look at our staffing within PAP, we should have a staff member designated for resource mobilization and, maybe that person can be supported by a special committee on resource mobilization. I still believe that there are quite substantial opportunities which we may not be currently tapping into as PAP, but if we have somebody who is specifically looking at resource mobilization, I think we should be able to have better results.I also want us to enhance our relationship with civil society, with NGOs because I still believe that some of our responsibilities, some of our mandate as PAP can actually be executed in partnership with civil society organizations.Finally, Madam President, I want to propose that there be a team building exercise that would ensure that the working relationship within the staff of PAP is actually enhanced. I am saying this, Madam President, because during the last session, when the issue of the appointment of the Clerk was discussed, there was clear indication that there were some mumblings and disagreements here and there, but I am not sure whether following that appointment and the subsequent starting of work by the Clerk and the Deputy, there has been any team building exercise meant to consolidate the working relationship within our team.Finally Madam President, before I sit down I would want to appreciate the support that South Africa has committed with regards to personnel, and I also wish to urge other countries to do likewise. I thank you, Madam President.HON. ELIZABETH K. CHITIKA- MOLOBEKA (MRS) [ZAMBIA]:Thank you Madam President, I would like to thank the President for the elaborate report just presented. I would like to briefly comment on just a few issues. I will start with the Parliamentary activity that is item number (b) in the President’s report.Madam President, the work of the permanent Committees is key to the efficient running of this Parliament. Committees play a very important oversight role and it is the work of the various committees that feed into the system of our Parliament or indeed any Parliament. Committees bring out problems, challenges, make recommendations and most of the time they come up with solutions. However, this is not what is happening right now.Madam President, when we come for Committee work, we travel all the way from our various countries, but we fail to make any tangible decisions because of lack of quorum. This is a very serious set-back as far as the smooth operation of this Parliament is concerned. I am happy to note that the President in his speech stated that this is as a result of some of the member countries who are no longer supporting or covering the costs of non statutory committee meetings. The fact that we know that this is one of the reasons, it is a strong point for this Parliament to lobby for the reinstatement of this provision in future budgets. You need as a bureau, Madam President, to engage all the stakeholders for them to see and appreciate the importance of Committee work. It will be very difficult madam President for this Parliament to transform into a legislative organ if its Committee work or Parliamentary activities are very weak.Madam President, coming to the issue of the consultative meetings that have been going on in the regions, I would like Madam President, to thank the bureau for this timely initiative. As Members of Parliament in the regions where these meetings have taken place, I can confirm that we are at another level in terms of knowledge gained and awareness. We have been conscientised, and our role is that we shall ensure that our governments ratify this important Charter. We will take seriously the resolutions from these meetings. As appointed champions, our role now is to ensure that all the stakeholders are engaged to ensure that before the end of the year, we shall have more countries, especially from Southern African region ratifying this Convention, so that it can come into effect. I thank you.HON. JUSTIN JOSEPH MARONA [SUDAN]:Thank you, Madame Chair. It is really an opportunity for me to be among our colleagues in this important organ, one of the organs of the AU. I really appreciate and congratulate the President of Pan-African Parliament on the eloquent report that he presented and underlined all the activities that took place during the period May to September 2010.Madame Chair, this Parliament is one of the organs that need to be enhanced and strengthened so that it can air the voice of the people of Africa. Therefore, when I underline some of the issues raised by the President with regard to the activities of the PAP, especially on financial issues, it is to give us a responsibility as Members of PAP to draw a very clear road map to how we can mobilize resources in order to strengthen our activities, and in order to put us in a very concrete position, as we are having aspiration of transforming this Parliament from an Advisory to a Legislative Body. That will require us also to have some of the decisive decisions that we can correct the Executive Body of AU.Therefore, I will support the idea that came from my colleague from Malawi, that we need to form a resources mobilization panel, and we need also to engage our Regional Assemblies or Parliaments in order to know the actual challenges that we are facing here at the PAP. Because some of the Regions will look at us and think that since we are big enough, we have the hands of having strategic partners and we are the third organ in the AU hierarchy, therefore, maybe we don’t have difficulties in such areas. This issue Madame Chair is very important and Mr. President has to take note of it. Without resources, our committees will not have the ability to move even to missions, even for some of the important issues that we can embark on as a voice of the people of Africa.Lastly, Madame Chair, I would like honestly to congratulate the people of the government of South Africa on hosting this important organ that represent the African voice, and also I would like to congratulate our President who really appeared in his report that he will tirelessly work in order to promote this institution with all the barriers in regard to the meetings and activities that they have attended inside and outside the continent. Madame Chair, these are the few words that I will add my voice to our colleagues. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity.HON. MOHSNI TAÏEB [TUNISIA]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente. Je ne parlerai pas de choses positives, car cela va de soi que le Bureau, et à sa tête le Président, est là pour les réaliser. Mais, je suis déçu par certains points.1.L’absence de beaucoup de nos collègues qui, pour des raisons d’économie, leurs parlements nationaux n’ont pas jugé utile de les envoyer. Il ne faudrait pas que les réunions du PAP se limitent aux députés venant de pays aisés ou à une majorité de députés provenant d’une sous-région proche géographiquement du lieu où se situe le siège du PAP.2.Je pense que nous méritons une information sur la non venue du Président ZUMA.3.Pour le recrutement du personnel, je remercie le Parlement de l’Afrique du Sud et l’Union européenne. Mais, je voudrais souligner que le PAP doit être libre et totalement libre de recruter du personnel, en veillant à ce qu’il y ait plus de justice entre les sous-régions.4.Il faudrait revoir la possibilité de réduire la durée de la tenue des sessions, car deux semaines sont trop, surtout qu’il faut ajouter, pour certains d’entre nous, trois à quatre jours de voyage. Nous pourrions travailler plus durant une semaine.5.Je suggère l’introduction, au sein de nos travaux, d’une méthode de vote, loin des tapages sur les tables, qui ne donnent aucune indication sur le nombre de voix.6.Enfin, je suis aussi déçu par la nonapprobation de la Charte africaine sur la démocratie, les élections et la bonne gouvernance par certains Etats membres, ce qui me rend pessimiste quant à la transformation du PAP d’un organe consultatif à un organe législatif.Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.HON. KANTENGWA JULIANA [RWANDA]:Thank you Madame President for giving me the floor.Madame President, allow me to congratulate you and your Bureau on the good reports, a good range of activities well covered and the manner through which you carried us through the different activities that enabled us to understand and fully appreciate what has been covered since May.Personally, I felt as if I was part and parcel of what was happening because much as I was back home, it has really brought me to understand what has been going on and allow me to say thank you.Madame President, I also note with a strong sense of appreciation and admiration at the efforts you are putting, trying to push our institution to the required heights, and the type of heights that it deserves. Congratulations to you.And also I wish to thank and appreciate the South African Government for the huge effort it is putting in, in its presence and involvement with the Pan-African Parliament, starting from what we have observed, presence of its Ministers, they are continuing hosting us, it really makes us feel home and appreciated being in South Africa. We wish to thank them and tell them to continue, to keep it up, it is good; we feel we are at home.Having said that Madame President, I wish to come back to your report, particularly paragraph 6, 13 and 15, they remind me, for those of us who are familiar with the Bible, a Chapter called Lamentations. I call it Lamentations because it seems the Bureau is trying to do all its best, but I am not sure if the status of PAP is being taken seriously or if it is well understood within the institutional architecture of the AU organs. We need to reassert the status of PAP and its membership.When I come here, rather when I am back home in Rwanda, I feel I am a very important woman. But when I am being sent on a fact finding mission with the AU staff, with the Ambassadors who don’t come to talk to me, when I need them, I call the Foreign Affairs Minister, but here the Ambassadors are giving us instructions. And paragraph 15, PAP appeals to the PRC and the Executive Council, so as to enable the PanAfrican Parliament to contribute effectively to democratic governance in Africa as was the case in the past. This is a Lamentation. How strong can we do it Madame President for them to understand that we have an important role to play on the African Continent and that they have no right taking it from us? It is good to negotiate, it is a good quality, we need to make these appeals but I think we need to say it louder and in a more forceful manner. And they don’t have a right to take away our constitutional rights. Why should an Ambassador simply because he is seated at the AU feel more important than a whole Pan-African Parliamentarian? Parliaments are usually the beacon of hope in any country. So do we reflect that when we are being considered and pushed to the rear, like my colleague from Zambia was lamenting when he went to Addis Ababa, he couldn’t even get the audience he needed among the NGO’s.So we need to reassert Madame President the status of the Members of the Pan-African Parliament, whatever it needs and whatever it takes, we want to assure you that we are behind you onward match on and we will reassert ourselves. The process of PAP being granted legislative powers is on and you seem to be taking on the process by taking on the bull by the horns but the review process I am worried, if it is carried out with this kind of where we do not know where our status is within the architecture of the African Union, we might be granted legislative powers whereby we actually do not have powers. What would be the point of legislating, if we are going to be instructed fully on what we are going to legislate upon? If we agree and it is within the framework, within the protocols, I understand, but if behind people can come and instruct us, it doesn’t sound good.Madame President, so without taking a lot of time on what has been said by my colleagues, if we are to be what we are required to be, I think we need to assert ourselves much more than we are doing. And I once again want to congratulate you and encourage the Bureau that you continue on the track, but that we need to be more involved in a transparent manner with the AU when it comes to the inputs of PAP into the review of the protocol because we need to be given the place that we deserve. I thank you Madame President.HON. DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:Thank you Madame President. Madame President, let me start by commending the President for a very good report, I am not given to flattery but I think that the President and his Bureau are doing very well as reflected in this.But because we have a limited time, let me go straight to page five of the report on Election Observer Missions.Madame President, item twelve, it says about the decisions of the AU 534 (XVI), taken February, 2010, by EC, Sixteenth Ordinary Session in which they are imposing a joint mission with AU organs. The President has already dealt with administrative issues and all I can say is, I agree with him. But there is a more fundamental issue; the vision of the AU is to involve African peoples and grassroots in decision making. A number of declarations have made to this effect including the African Charter for Popular Participation in Development adopted in Addis Abba, Ethiopia in July, 1990 which emphasized the need to involve the African people and the grassroots. And I say without contradiction, that PAP is the closest organ of the AU to reflect that diversity of opinion at the grassroots.Protocol, Article 4(3) on the composition of PAP states as follows, "the representation of every member state must reflect the diversity of political opinions in each National Assembly or deliberative organ".So, in this House, we have diverse views reflecting our grassroots. Contrast that with the situation of Article 6 of the Constitutive Act on The Assembly, the President or Heads of Government and their representatives, no diversity of opinion. Article 6 of Protocol enhances this diversity by saying, "the African Parliamentarians shall vote in his personal and independent capacity".Madame President, therefore, we represent the grassroots, we are at the continental level the bastion of popular participation. Yes, when we become elected by universal adult suffrage that would be perfect. But for now, when the decision says we should be part of the AU, joint mission, we lose that diversity. The AU is a supreme organ and AU member would be the leader, by that decision it said that the decisions, the final report must go the AU for some approval before it comes to us. Therefore, our participation is cosmetic, it is seriously cosmetic.Madame President, we are moving towards the African Charter on Democracy, Election and Good Governance. If you look at the preamble at the first stanza, one of the things talked there is popular participation. We don’t have popular participation, where at the continental level the Executive has to swallow the Legislature, we don’t have it. We are working against separation of powers at continental level which is not good governance.So, Madame President, what we need to point out, apart from the statement made by the President, is for this House to move and send resolutions backing the President. First, the fundamental incompatibility of this issue of a joint mission which is against the vision of popular participation. And secondly, that we must be given a chance to debate it, because when we go as a team, we bring our report to the Pan-African Parliament. Pan-African Parliament then debates it including Members of the States that they have gone to observe. Now, with the AU, where do we stand? It is in a sense, an unconstitutional usurpation of the role of PAP at the continental level which must be resisted. We have one step forward two step backwards in the achievement of the vision of the African Union and we need to point to the Assembly that probably is not conscious of the issue but is a dangerous trend and we must say no to that. (Applause)Furthermore, Madame President, we as MPs have a certain protocol in our countries, we come after the Executive, Ambassadors come after the MPs, but here we are, we have a Commission made up of Ambassadors who in my country come on the protocol list, at number nine and they decide for me, what I should do. Yes, if we are poor, we are poor, but we must have principles. Let us let the AU knows that we are prepared to go out and raise funds. Let the NGOs know what we are doing, we want to play our role as the advocate of democracy and popular representation at the continental level. We have no compromise in this matter. (Applause)Madame President, let me say, that clearly you can see the administrative complications, here we are, we did not even know that, Honorable Adjaho had gone for the Sudan observation, also to whom has gone for Mauritius, that is what is happen to us. We should know that the Executive has the tendency to want to push the frontiers of its powers. Ours is to check it, we should check it. Let’s send the resolution there and let them refuse so that we see that there are the people who are working against the popular participation. We cannot compromise the interest of the people who have sent us here. Otherwise we have no need to come here at all.Madame President, in doing so, let look the EAC law that the countries must finance Parliamentarians to come here because they don’t want the Legislative to do their work of oversight, they don’t want to be checked and if you are going to have this Charter which is a blue print, Charter on Democracy, Election and Good Governance, we should go beyond our service, and beyond our service should accord PAP its rightfully place as the most popular representative organ, we should not say because budget is under them they should bully us, no, let us stand up, we are the products of the African Union; the founding fathers, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere and the rest of them. We are in South Africa where Nelson Mandela stands and gives his life for it; we should not shy away, just because of fear or love for certain things.Thank you Madame President.HON. SUAD EL FATEH EL BADAOUI (MS) [SUDAN]:Thank you very much Madam President. I also want to express my appreciation for the activities of Pan African Parliament and its President. Let me just react to a very sad situation, which PAP is now in that drove our last speaker to what he said about the service of the Members of Pan African Parliament. I think this is not the way to carry out this work and to solve our problems.If we look back, people have been saying this for the last five years, but nothing has been done about it, why? Because PAP is not doing the work that it should be doing through its Committees. The Committees are the most important organs of PAP, but because there is no funding, there is no proper work. We have got very, very, very weak Committees. Very little has been done since we started this work of PAP.I think it is not going to do us any good to lament about our position, complaining that people are looking down upon us and that we should have this and this and this; and that Ambassadors are above us in the protocol of the AU. It will not take us anywhere. I think the proper thing to do is not to ask African Union (AU) to give us the funds to enrich our budget; this is not the way. I think if we are serious about this, we should find our own funds through our own fund-raising. This was a proposal given three years ago and nothing has been done about it, and whatever was done was connected to previous corruption in this PAP, I am sorry to say this. So, I think now is the time to start this very serious job of finding our own funds. If we have funds, if we have the power of money, if we have the power to fund our Committees, then AU will respect us. They will respect us if we care about our grassroots, their education and their health. This is not going to be done by words or by anger; it is going to be done by funding programmes and implementing them. So, please let us stop this and start working. I want to say to the leaders of AU that we are able in PAP, and we are capable of doing this ourselves.It could be done; there is a lot of funding around the world waiting for us. Give them our programs and they will give us funds. I believe that this is the right way, and my proposal is that we should start fund raising for PAP. We cannot force governments to give us funds because they have a handful of problems. They are doing what they can and you cannot go on and on begging them to give you more. By having our fund raising activities, we will convince people at the grassroots that we are doing something for them. The grassroots want food, medical care, healthy water and houses. They do not want to hear speeches. They do not want to hear words, they need services. I expect that PAP should decide here and now to come up with its fund, and plan in a way that is going to be workable and successful. In this way, we will have the power of funding, and AU will respect us whether they like it or not, because we will have the power to run this Parliament and even run some of their work at the AU. Thank you very much.HON. INZOUNGOU-MASSANGA ZELY PIERRE [CONGO]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.Je voudrais, Madame la Présidente, féliciter très chaleureusement le Bureau du PAP, pour la qualité du rapport clair, concis et complet que le Président vient de présenter, parce que ce rapport ramasse toutes les activités menées par le Bureau en cette période d’intersession et ces activités ont porté fondamentalement sur les domaines de compétence du Parlement.Je félicite, particulièrement, Monsieur le Président, pour le respect des engagements qu’il avait pris au lendemain de son élection. Vous vous souviendrez, chers collègues, que le Président avait présenté un programme au moment de son élection. Et, je suis heureux de constater que, à mi-parcours, il tient fermement à la mise en œuvre de ce programme que nous avons tous salué, dans cette salle.Dans cette optique, je voudrais demander au Bureau de faire un effort supplémentaire dans le fonctionnement de l’administration du Parlement, parce qu’il y a encore beaucoup de choses à faire de ce côté-là.Je vais encore féliciter le Bureau pour avoir réussi à assainir le climat dans les relations entre le Parlement et les autres organes de l’Union africaine. Bien sûr, il reste bien des choses à faire, mais déjà, à ce niveau, on peut dire que beaucoup de choses ont été faites et la visibilité du PAP est plus ou moins grande.Monsieur le Président, vous avez eu une activité très intense durant cette période d’intersession, vous êtes allé jusqu’à rencontrer beaucoup de chefs d’Etats, je vous exhorte à poursuivre dans ce sens, parce que vous avez, ensemble, avec le Parlement, un grand plaidoyer à mener dans le cadre de la révision du Protocole.Pour ce qui est du recrutement du personnel tel qu’énoncé dans le rapport, Monsieur le Président, vous devez être vigilantle Bureau j’entendspour que le Parlement reste libre dans ses choix et ne pas faire qu’il y ait une surreprésentation d’une région au sein de l’administration du Parlement. Il faut tenir compte de toutes les régions et je suis convaincu que, dans toutes les régions, on peut trouver des compétences.Monsieur le Président, dans l’énumération des activités que vous avez menées, je n’ai pas cru entendre la participation du 1er Viceprésident, certainement que j’ai été un peu distrait, mais il m’a semblé que le 1er Vice-président n’a pas beaucoup participé à ces activités. Qu’est-ce qu’il en a été? Est-ce qu’il n’était pas disponible? Serait-il malade ou alors, est-ce moi qui ai mal entendu? Je voudrais bien que quelques explications me soient données à ce niveau.Pour ce qui est des élections, Monsieur le Président, je vous félicite pour avoir pris l’initiative d’inscrire ce point à l’ordre du jour, parce qu’il y aura un débat sur la participation des parlementaires aux missions d’observation des élections. Il y a de nombreuses choses qu’il faut dire là-dessus, mes collègues ont d’ailleurs déjà commencé à le dire, et je crois que le moment venu, un débat doit être organisé, parce que cela ne se passe certainement pas comme le Parlement panafricain l’aurait souhaité.Voilà les quelques contributions que je voulais apporter pour apprécier ce rapport qui, une fois de plus, est bon, Madame la Présidente.Je vous remercie.HON. NJUBA SAMUEL KALEGA [UGANDA]:Thank you Madam President. Well, I would like to join the Members of this House who have expressed appreciation of the report to the Chairman, through him to the President, and through him to the Bureau.I have two points to make. One is with regard to the first Parliamentary conference between Russia and Africa in Moscow. I happened to be there in my other capacity as Member of Parliament from Uganda. I represented the Speaker of Uganda.I think it was a very good conference and it was a good opportunity for the promotion of image of African states, especially in the area of commerce. More contacts were made by Members. I think this should continue even in future because it will help us in Africa and those in Russia to know each other better.The second point is with regard to observation missions. I happened to have gone to observe elections in Guinea Conakry, the first attempt. (Laughter) Madam President, in the report, the President has expressed concern at the low participation of Members to these missions. I have observed and I am concerned that the cause of these delays or low participation is the late information we get; and two, the poor facilitation given to Members. First, in my case, I had only one day’s notice and then I was told it had been send to me through the internet. I checked on my computer, on the internet and I did not find anything. I tried to call back and could not get anything from here or from Addis Ababa. So, I took a risk, I had to buy my own ticket, in fact I was told I can buy my own ticket. I had to buy my own ticket to go to Conakry and it was a risky business as you know.Secondly, the ticket given, which was the economy class; you see, that’s what we can use. But at our age to sit for 8 to 10 hours on the plane from Uganda via Nairobi to Conakry is not an easy task, it is not attractive. So this will discourage people. When you get there you are uncertain, nobody gives you information.So, I propose that in future, and we are going again I am told, we should have communication sent from one point here because I don’t know anybody in the AU who can respond quickly. But if we are sending it here from Protocol to our office, we would get the necessary assistance. So, if we want people to participate fully, we must consider both the question of travel, facilitation and the speed, the future planning so that you don’t just land an invitation in two days and you are supposed to be there. I had an invitation to go to Mauritius and the invitation arrived two days after the date of the observation. So, I am pleading with you Mr. President that in future we should get the information well in advance. We are busy people and we need to plan before we travel. We would like to serve, it is our duty, but to do it, we must have proper facilitation and information in time.Lastly, of course I would like to thank all Members who attended the AU, who came to Uganda during the very difficult time we had, and as one honorable person has indicated, we hope you will come when the atmosphere is better. Thank you very much.HON. MATLALI NTEBALENG MAVIS [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Honorable Deputy President. I would like to echo the very same sentiments made by my colleagues in congratulating the Honorable President and his Bureau, for the brilliant report presented which is very much informative. Nevertheless, I have got some points to raise that are challenges to PAP.The first matter is indicated on page five in which the President was reminding Members of the fact that the budget for the Non-statutory Committee activities at PAP was removed by AU which is the root cause of the House not making its full compliment in its seatings as well as Committees that are supposed to be fruitful and effective in deliberating upon their duties especially of countries that do have limited resources to cover the costs of their Members while attending at PAP. What we would like to find out is, since a budget is a process, what is PAP doing in preparation of the budget for 2011 that would make this item of the budget for Non-statutory Committee activities to come back into the budget of PAP as well as to find out if sponsorship has been looked for to maybe add up on the limited meager resources that we have been provided for by the AU?Another point which is really alarming, is the one that is presented on page eighty, the ones that says that, there are very critical posts at PAP that were never filled ever since its establishment and one really says it has taken rather too long. And in this matter, we congratulate the Government of South Africa, my country, for having helped by presenting the financial resource that would aid PAP to put these critical posts into action and fill them up and they are not to be vacant anymore. And we are looking forward to the hasty action in advertising as well as the interviews of these positions.I have got a third matter here to present, being the matter on the activities of PAP and I would like to say we are fully aware of the problem that PAP might be finding in putting all women at PAP together so that they can also have their Committees sitting as other Committees of the House. Nevertheless it has been a concern to notice that the program of this session does not have Women Caucus Committee Meetings except only the conference on the 8th and 9th and we are appealing to PAP that it should as well be scheduled not only on request but as other Committees so that we would be able to do the business of women. And we are also requesting that it should not be put towards the end of the session when everybody is tired and people are looking forward to rushing back home. It must be provided time in order that it does its work fruitfully.My last point, Honorable Chairperson, is the point of AU staff getting rates higher than the rates of the Honorable Members. This is highly absurd and I would like to add to the voice of other Honorable Members that AU be presented a letter of concern that the matter be straightened out. I thank you.HON. ADJAHO EDWARD KORBLY DOE [GHANA]:Thank you very much Madam President. Madam President, I add my voice today in commending the President for a very good report, which he has presented to this Honourable House. I can only wish him and his team God’s guidance as they steer the affairs of PAP. By submitting his report, he has submitted himself to the criticism of this noble house, and I think that it is a step that must be encouraged.Having said that, I keep on saying, since I entered this House about 5 years ago, one major default that I have noticed and which I attempted to correct, was the timing of the report and the debate. What I did was to submit a memo to PAP so that they look at the international best practices. And this point has been raised by those before me; you didn’t present the report earlier, and as such, we see the report the same day and we are debating it almost a few seconds after seeing the report. We cannot continue as PAP in this direction. We are not the executive; the executive takes a long process. They have their technical people, they have their people supporting them, briefing them, but we are here to talk. We get the report, and before we do research we debate it. So, invariably, the quality of our contributions on the floor is affected by when the report is made available to Honourable Members. Indeed, that is why in certain jurisdictions, the practice is that you have to lay the paper first, and after certain days before the substantive debate takes place. Members study the report and do a constructive debate on the report. I think that this is the time PAP should refer this matter to the appropriate Permanent Committee of the House to look at international best practices. This is not only with regards to the President’s report. Year in, year out, we come to this floor and we complain as to why reports are made available to us rather late. And I think that as we progress, we need to inject more transparency into the administration of PAP. That time has come for us also to open up and look at international best practices with regards to some of these. (Applause)Whatever we do today, future generations are going to look at our contributions, they are going to look at the reports that we presented. If I were not here or my sister from Malawi was not here, it would have gone into a permanent record that there was no PAP Member in Sudan or in Mauritius, and this would have been there as a permanent record. And that quickly brings me to the level of coordination between the AU Commission and PAP.When I took my flight from Ghana through Addis Ababa to Khartoum, I knew that I was representing PAP. Now, my President and the Bureau of PAP were not aware that I was in their service. What if something happened to me there? (Laughter) I have just decided that unless I get communication from PAP, I am not going to any observer mission. I will not honour any invitation from the AU Commission if I have not got any confirmation from the PAP Bureau.With regard to the economy ticket, Honourable Members should be assured; my team in Khartoum included two PRC Members and for records purposes I will mention them. The Ambassador from Sierra-leone and from South Africa, they were part of my team in Khartoum and they were also given economy ticket. They were also complaining. They were also asked to take the medicine that we were being given and they found the medicine too bitter. (Laughter) They gave me the assurance that the next PRC meeting, they will make sure that the rules are changed. (Laughter) So, this is the real situation, and as we criticize the PRC, we should also know that at times they are in the same position as we find ourselves.Madam President, we need to further engage the AUC, the African Union Commission with regard to these observer missions. Because the observer missions are only there on the day the people are voting. We should go beyond, because there is what we call the pre-election mission and PAP has never done that. The Pre-election Mission means you go to the ground and assess the situation to see whether the conditions are conducive for a free and fair election. It is when they clear the ground that the election can take place before the real election observer missions actually take place. All these years PAP has been left out with regards to that. So, if we really want to be a proper observer mission, it is important that this House takes part in the pre-election mission to make sure that the ground is good, is fertile for a free and fair election before we even go for the observer mission. They should go there, assess the situation and say it is okay, now you can go. So far we have not developed that capacity with regard to pre-elections. I know Members in this House are capable of doing that.So, I think that if we should be able to engage the AUC, or the impression that I am getting, at least from the PRC is that there are more than prepared to deal with the current Bureau than the previous one. The first time we tried to take a certain position I guess, it didn’t work. Now, we want to behave as people who want to corporate and we are having problems with resources. There is something wrong somewhere? Whichever way, we lose.We need to engage more of the MPs of PAP to talk to our Foreign Ministers, to talk to our Presidents, to talk to our Ambassadors on issues of concern. I know a lot of people in this house have influence over their respective governments; even before we go to the AUC, and I believe that they will know where we are coming from. Madam President, I thank you for the opportunity.HON. KEBZABO SALEH [TCHAD]:Je vous remercie de me donner la parole, Madame la Présidente.Je voudrais joindre ma voix à celle de mes collègues qui m’ont précédé, pour féliciter le Président, et à travers lui le Bureau, pour le travail qui a été accompli et dont le rapport nous a été soumis ce matin.Je voudrais aussi, comme l’ont fait certains collègues, souligner que le débat que nous avons aujourd’hui est celui du fonctionnement du Bureau, pratiquement à mi-chemin de son mandat. C’est, donc, un bilan partiel qu’on devrait avoir aujourd’hui et les débats devraient donc porter sur les activités que le Bureau a menées depuis sa mise en place, il y a un an et demi.Nous savons tous dans quel contexte le Bureau a été mis en place. A l’époque, avec la chaleur des élections, il convient de rappeler que le contexte le plus important qui a été évoqué, c’est celui des mauvaises relations entre le Bureau du PAP sortant, et la Commission de l’Union africaine à Addis-Abeba.Ces questions nous ont été exposées en détail, et on nous a dit que, si blocage il y avait entre Addis- Abeba et Midrand, c’est à cause du Bureau et donc, le Bureau a été renouvelé. Aujourd’hui, nous pouvons nous poser la question de savoir, Madame la Présidente, quelles sont les améliorations qui sont apportées entre Midrand et Addis-Abeba. Est-ce que tous les blocages que nous avions connus à l’époque ont été levés, et lesquels ont été levés? Nous constatons pour ce qui nous concerne, en tant que parlementaires, que certaines questions sont restées toujours en suspens. L’organigramme qui devait débloquer la question de recrutement du personnel est toujours en examen à Addis-Abeba, et donc le problème de recrutement subséquent reste toujours en cause, ce qui est dommageable au bon fonctionnement de nos activités. Je ne laisse pas de côté l’importante question des finances, notre budget qui a été pratiquement coupé en deux l’est toujours, et nous espérons qu’à partir de l’année prochaine, nous allons avoir un financement conséquent pour que les activités du PAP soient menées à bon niveau.Voilà toutes ces questions, et bien d’autres, Madame la Présidente, qui nous amènent à nous poser la question de savoir si réellement ces relations sont améliorées, et le Président est bien placé pour nous dire comment elles se sont améliorées.En ce qui concerne le fonctionnement administratif et financier, là aussi nous avons l’impression qu’il n’y a pas, à véritablement parler, de progrès. Vous avez entendu depuis ce matin, beaucoup de critiques qui ont fusé par rapport, soit à la distribution tardive des documents, au manque de traduction, et nous avons depuis plusieurs jours que nous sommes maintenant ici, constaté qu’il y a un certain flottement au niveau de l’administration, mais nous ne savons pas si cela est dû au fait que le secrétariat est mis en place depuis pas très longtemps, ou s’il s’agit de nouvelles méthodes de travail auxquelles nous ne comprenons pas grandchose. Mais, toujours est-il que nous avons vraiment l’impression qu’il y a plus qu’un flottement. Il y a, du point de vue du rendement du travail de l’administration, j’allais dire, une légère régression, et cela n’est pas bon pour notre travail, ni pour l’image du PAP et pour tout ce que nous sommes en train de faire. Je ne vais pas là- dessus entrer dans des détails que d’autres camarades ont déjà évoqués. Mais, si vous prenez, ne serait-ce que l’envoi du courrier, pour venir à cette session, là déjà il y a problème. Donc, il faut déjà qu’on fasse des efforts pour améliorer cela.Je vais évoquer en troisième lieu et en dernier, le problème de la visibilité du PAP qui a toujours été en question. Nous avons toujours insisté sur le fait qu’il n’y a pas de visibilité sur les activités du PAP, et on se demande un peu partout en Afrique à quoi sert réellement le PAP. Et s’il n’y a pas de réponse à cette question, c’est parce que les services de communication du PAP ne sont pas très compétents à mon avis. Ce matin, un interprète que je ne connais pas m’a interpellé pour me dire que depuis le début, les activités que nous menons ici ne sont même pas passées à la télévision nationale sud-africaine, même pas la séance d’ouverture. Je n’ai pas suivi la télé, et donc je ne sais pas si cette information est vraie.Même si ce n’était pas tout à fait le cas, cela voudrait quand même refléter une réalité, à savoir que la communication sur les activités du PAP ne fonctionnent pas, et cela n’est pas normal, parce que les Africains ont l’impression que nous venons ici pour ne rien faire, et c’est pour cela qu’il faudrait peut-être rappeler ce que nous avions dit auparavant par rapport à la communication du PAP.Il faut absolument que les services de la communication soient en rapport constant avec leurs collègues des médias, parce que nous sommes dans un monde où, lorsque la communication est déficitaire, vous êtes relégué pratiquement au dernier rang. Il y a donc lieu, je crois, de sortir quotidiennement des communiqués de presse, pour rendre compte de nos activités, et ces communiqués ne doivent pas être destinés seulement à la presse sud-africaine, mais à l’ensemble de la presse africaine. Il faut que tous les pays membres du PAP soient régulièrement ou quotidiennement informés de nos activités, et c’est de cette façon que nous allons améliorer l’image de notre organisation auprès de nos Gouvernements et auprès de nos opinions publiques.Je vous remercie beaucoup, Madame la Présidente.HON. HASSABO MOHAMMED ABDUL RAHMAN [SUDAN]:السادة النواب، نواب الرئيس، السادة األعضاء الكرام اسمحوا لي جميعا بأن أعبر بأنني فخور وسعيد أن أكون عضوا في البرلمان اإلفريقي في هذه المرحلة التاريخية الهامة التي تشهدها قارتنا إفريقيا، كما اسمحوا لي أن أشيد بتقرير السيد/الرئيس والذي فهمت بأن هذا التقرير من مايو حتى سبتمبر ،وكذلك نثمن عاليا المجهودات التي بذلها الرئيس، رغم الظروف والعقبات، والسادة معاونيه ومن األمانة العامة ونواب الرئيس واللجان في هذا النشاط، كما اسمحوا لي أن أشيد بطريقة الشفافية {Transparency} التى عرض بها الرئيس التقرير، حتى نتحمل معه نحن األعضاء المسئولية فنقترح بأننا كلنا نتحمل المسئولية في دولنا األعضاء وفي برلماناتنا وكلنا نحرك حملة لدعم البرلمان وال نترك المسئولية للرئيس أو النائب أو األمين العام فوحدهم ال يكفي. أيضأ اسمحوا لي أن أشيد بفكرة إرسال البرلمان اإلفريقي لبعثات مراقبة االنتخابات ألن االنتخابات هي مرحلة هامة جدا في الديمقراطية، وعليه أشيد باإلخوة من أعضاء البرلمان الذين شاركوا في انتخابات السودان، ولكن يبدو أن هناك خطأ مطبعي بأنهم لم يشاركوا في السودان، بل هم شاركوا في السودان، وأنا قابلتهم. وهذه االنتخابات في السودان كانت انتخابات هامة جدا في مرحلة تاريخية هامة من عمر السودان وكانت تشهد مرحلة التحول من الحرب الطويلة إلى مرحلة االستقرار والسالم والديمقراطية. اسمحوا لي يا سيادة الرئيس أن أشيد أيضأ، بالدعم الكبير الذي قدمه االتحاد االفريقي للسودان، من قمة االتحاد في سرت وفي كمباال وفي قمم االتحاد االفريقي ونشيد أيضأ بالدول االعضاء التي أرسلت قوات ودعم لبعثة دعم السالم في دارفور {UNMID} وكان لها أثرا كبيرا في استيعاب قضية دارفور ألنها قضية إفريقية داخلية ، وفي استيعاب العادات والتقاليد لجذور المشكلة، ونحن نثمن عاليا إرسال بعثات إفريقية لدول إفريقية ألنهم من إفريقيا يعرفون تفاصيل إفريقيا ومشاكل إفريقيا أفضل بكثير من البعثات الغربية، التي ال تفهم ثقافاتنا وال عاداتنا وال تقاليدنا. كما نشيد باللجنة العليا، لجنة الحكماء، برئاسة الرئيس امبيكي الرئيس السابق لجنوب إفريقيا التي قدمت تقريرا ممتازا ساعد السودان في رسم خريطة الحل السياسي في السودان. وهذه اللجنة برئاسة الرئيس امبيكي تلعب دورا هاما اآلن في السودان، خاصة في سالم دارفور الذي أصبح قريبا وكذلك في سالم الجنوب كما نؤكد للسيد/ الرئيس بأننا سنبذل قصارى جهدنا في دعم االتحاد البرلماني االفريقي حتى يصبح أداة تشريعية قوية محترمة، وعليه أكرر اقتراحي بأننا كلنا نتحمل المسئولية وأن نعمل {lobby} حملة. كما أقترح بتعزيز تطوير العالقات مع البرلمانات الدولية واالقليمية وشبه االقليمية وتبادل التجارب خاصة أن البرلمان االفريقي ينتقل إلى مرحلة التشريع، فنحتاج إلى الدروس والعبر من البرلمانات األخرى، كما أنتهز هذه الفرصة ألدعو السيد/ رئيس البرلمان والسادة النواب ورؤساء اللجان والسادة األعضاء لزيارة السودان في يناير القادم، ألن السودان يشهد مرحلة هامة جدا وهي مرحلة االستفتاء {The Referendum} بين الشمال والجنوب ونود للبرلمان االفريقي أن يكون شاهدا وأن يكون مراقبا وأقترح أن تكون هناك بعثة باسم البرلمان االفريقي، وليست طرفا في االتحاد أي أن تكون بعثة مباشرة، ولهذا أكرر دعوتي للسيد/ الرئيس والسادة نواب الرئيس والسادة رؤساء اللجان والسادة األعضاء لزيارة السودان، في هذه المرحلة، وأنا أشكر لهذه الفرصة وشكرا جزيال والشكر لهذا التقرير وأتمنى أن يكون التقرير لفترة أوسع حتى نطلع عليه حتى نستطيع أن نؤدي دورنا فيه وشكرا جزيال.HON. COULIBALY KADIDIATOU SAMAKE [MALI]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente. Je voudrais, à mon tour, me joindre aux collègues, pour féliciter le Bureau du rapport succinct qui nous a été présenté et surtout de la franchise avec laquelle l’exposé a été fait.Madame la Présidente, j’ai l’impression que le Parlement est en train d’avancer en reculant: un pas en avant, un pas en arrière. Pour preuve, la mission d’observation me semblait être un acquis, parce qu’on a eu à faire des missions d’observation ici même au sein du Parlement.Quant aux finances, même si on avait des problèmes, on arrivait à faire les travaux en commission. Il me semble que les finances sont encore plus faibles qu’avant.La gestion administrative, que nous avons décriée ici, est encore à l’ordre du jour. C’est pour cela que je dis que nous faisons un pas en avant et un pas en arrière.Monsieur le Président, je voudrais insister sur le rapport ente le PAP, les chefs d’Etat et les présidents des Assemblées nationales. Tout à l’heure, ma collègue a parlé de l’échange que vous avez eu au Mali avec le Président de la République et le Président de l’Assemblée nationale. Cette visite a été importante pour vous et, je pense, pour nous aussi. C’est pourquoi nous insistons. Vous avez apporté les témoignages de notre participation au sein de ce Parlement et la contribution que nous pouvons amener. Cela a été très important pour nous.C’est difficile - cela a été dit - pour les parlements d’envoyer leurs parlementaires ici au sein de l’Assemblée pour nos travaux. Il faut un plaidoyer fort, un lobbying fort pour que vraiment nos travaux puissent continuer.Le rapport qui a été présenté ce matin a montré beaucoup de difficultés. C’est pourquoi, il est important que ces plaidoyers puissent se faire. Non seulement à notre niveau, chaque parlementaire doit travailler dans ce sens mais, vous, Monsieur le Président, et le Bureau, vous avez aussi un lobbying fort à faire. Moi, je vous encourage à poursuivre le genre de rencontres que vous avez eues à faire au Mali, dans les autres pays. Je sais que les finances ne le permettent pas, mais à chaque fois qu’il y a une occasion, il faut que vous essayiez d’approcher le Président. C’est beaucoup plus intéressant quand vous parlez de vive voix à un chef d’Etat dans son pays que lors d’un forum.Aussi, les rencontres avec les Présidents d’Assemblées sont importantes. C’est dommage que l’ouverture de nos sessions coïncide avec l’ouverture des sessions de la plupart des Assemblées. Aussi, les Présidents des Assemblées ne peuvent pas à venir. Notre Président aurait bien voulu être là, mais notre ouverture, c’était le lundi où on était ici, et je crois que c’est la même chose dans la plupart des pays sahéliens, parce que nous avons le même code que la France, et leur session s’ouvre en octobre.Donc, je souhaite qu’on puisse voir comment on peut intéresser les présidents d’Assemblées à nos activités. C’est déjà bien de les inviter aux sessions, mais je crois qu’il faut faire encore plus.J’ai une idée, mais je ne sais pas si on peut prendre cette décision. Toutefois, je souhaite qu’on en parle. J’aurais souhaité qu’il y ait un roulement de sessions dans nos différents pays, comme cela se fait à l’Union Inter-Parlementaire. Certainement, dans nos textes, il est prévu que toutes les sessions se fassent ici. Il y a une question de commodité, aussi. Mais, je crois que ce serait bien si les sessions pouvaient se faire de façon tournante. Cela se fait à d’autres niveaux. J’ai parlé de l’Union Inter-Parlementaire. J’ai assisté à une session de l’Union Inter-Parlementaire au Burkina Faso. Le Burkina est comme le Mali. Ce pays n’est pas considéré comme un pays riche, mais cela a été organisé de façon parfaite. J’ai assisté à d’autres sessions dans des pays plus riches, et ce n’était pas mieux qu’au Burkina Faso. Donc, je dis que c’est faisable. Je souhaiterais qu’on réfléchisse par rapport à cela.Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.HON. LOKII ABRAHAMS PETER [UGANDA]:Thank you, Madam President. I would also like to add my voice to voices already made by the colleagues in thanking the President and the Bureau for a good job done.I however, have a few comments to make. It has already been noted by Members that there is need to get an explanation as to what happened that the President of South Africa appeared on our program but did not appear physically.And following that, I would like to propose that may be there is need for us to consider ensuring that at least in the tenure of office of the Chair of the AU, there should be an opportunity for whoever is elected to come and attend an opening ceremony so that in that process our President will be able to outline in his presentation the issues that will require the attention of the Summit. But that can only be taken by a Head of State or Chairman of the AU directly from us. I have a fear that whenever we present our issues through the Commission, we are not sure whether they really reach to the Summit because they go through a sieve and whatever is sieved we may not be sure whether our critical issues are taken care of.Secondly, on page five of the report on the Election Observer Missions, a lot of things have been said but I wanted to draw the attention of Members to the element on the objectives, paragraph No. 11, where the President says, "...one of the objectives of the Pan-African Parliament is to promote the principles of human rights and democracy in Africa." I have always found it difficult that whenever we go out for election observation missions, the issues, the concerns, the situation that occurs before the elections begin or the process of elections are put on course, always worries me because they are never ever captured during the electoral process or during the Election Day. And most of our reports focus more on what happens one week to the elections. The question is what then would the Committees be doing? Because I am beginning to get worried that sometimes what we discuss in our Committees are not really very substantive issues which concern the people of Africa. I think it is time that we began to showcase what our Committees are doing.For example, when I came to this Parliament in 2006, there was a report by a Mission that went to Ivory Coast concerning waste disposal in West Africa but I think sometime this year, I was hearing about the death of over 100 people again because of waste disposal and we as the PanAfrican Parliament have kept quiet, no Committee seems to be taking interest in this. Therefore, where is the voice of the African people? I think it is important that issues of human rights are attended to not only in situations where there are elections but also in situations where there are no elections.I am also aware that there was a report by a Mission that went to Darfur. Today we are grappling with the issue of the indictment of the President of Sudan but nobody seems to be concerned about the realities behind the indictment. Is it just unfounded or are there facts that there was genocide; there was abuse of human rights? I think it is important that we focus on this as the Pan-African Parliament. (Applause)The other comment I wanted to add on is the issue of paragraph No.8. The President in his report has said that we would like to work on 11 before 2011. A question to ask is what has been done? What is the status of the ratification as we are left with two months to enter 2011? Is there anything happening anywhere? I think it is important, Madame President, that more light is required on this whether we are having an impact in terms of building up the numbers that are required or nothing is happening at all so that we re-evaluate our strategy.And finally, I would like to also make a comment on the issue of the visibility of PAP in terms of the Missions. I definitely agree that what the Mission did in Zimbabwe, what the Mission did in Ghana and in a number of countries really put PAP on record and made our contribution and our existence very clear. (Applause)But I am beginning to worry that we seem to be getting into the ambit of the AU, the concern that Members have already raised. I am beginning to worry because a situation where a friend from Ghana says he was present in the Mission to Sudan and then the President is not in the knowledge, that makes me think that the AU seems to be picking Members of Parliament in the pretext that they represent the interests of PAP and the Bureau is not the one responsible on determining who participates in these Missions. I think that also must be defined because at the end of the day, the name of PAP will be used to write a report where PAP did not participate in determining who the participants are. So, I think it is important that is focused on.But maybe this also is a way the AU used to trying to get rid of us because a situation where you are not responsible, unaccountable on the product of what you have produced, then what kind of Mission is this one? Because I think we must stand for the voice of the people like we did in the case of Zimbabwe where the Summit had to wait for the final word from the PAP Mission and therefore that is what was taken as final in ensuring that the issues of elections in Zimbabwe were dealt with.So, I think I am not surprised that Members will be disinterested in this kind of thing because why should you go for a Mission where you are not even going to be acknowledged in terms of what you are doing as an institution? Some of us would be happy to do work for PAP where PAP is acknowledged and recognized because we are entrancing ourselves into a system where we are talking about transformation into a legislative body. How will you become legislative with feeble feet? I think it is important that whatever we are doing now are the building blocks for the legislative function that our Parliament is going to undertake.Once more, I want to thank the President for his report. Thank you. (Applause)HON. KANE BOCAR SADIKH [SENEGAL]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.Madame la Présidente, à l’instar de mes collègues qui m’ont précédé, je voudrais féliciter le Président Idriss et ses collaborateurs, pour l’excellent travail qui a été compilé dans ce rapport, entre le mois de mai et celui de septembre.Monsieur le Président, je vous encourage, comme je l’avais fait lors de la dernière session, puisque c’est au sortir de moments extrêmement difficiles que vous et votre Bureau avez été installés, sur la base d’une mission à la fois difficile et complexe, et sur la base d’une feuille de route. Et, je me rends compte, en faisant une lecture très sereine des choses, sans passion, que vous êtes en train de dérouler cette feuille de route, il est évident que ce n’est pas facile, et nous autres parlementaires devons regarder ce côté difficile pour vous aider à éviter les écueils.C’est sous ce rapport que j’invite mes collègues à toujours avoir à l’esprit, que nous sommes toujours, le troisième organe de l’Union africaine, je ne peux pas dire que nous sommes sous tutelle, au sens réel du terme, mais nous ne sommes pas loin de là, et la bataille qui vaille aujourd’hui, c’est d’accompagner les Présidents, pour faire des lobbyings au niveau des chefs d’Etats, au niveau du Conseil exécutif, au niveau de nos parlements nationaux respectifs, pour qu’on devienne un organe législatif. Et c’est à ce moment-là seulement, avec cette indépendance de prise de décision, que nous pourrons avancer. Donc, il faut que l’on se focalise le plus sur cet aspect, autrement on risque de retomber dans ces discours auxquels j’ai assisté ici depuis longtemps, des discours de va-t-en guerre contre la Commission de l’Union africaine, discours qui ne nous avancent pas du tout.Aujourd’hui, je pense, comme l’ont si bien dit les collègues Saleh du Tchad et Madame El BADAHOUI du Soudan, que nous devons mettre l’accent en tant que parlementaires sur l’efficacité du travail dans les commissions. Puisque je suis persuadé que si le travail dans les commissions marche, nous pouvons à travers ces commissions, trouver des financements pour faire beaucoup d’autres activités.Je fais une transition pour parler de l’observation des élections. Effectivement, à partir de ces commissions, on peut trouver des moyens pour financer nos interventions et notre présence lors des élections dans nos pays respectifs, au niveau de l’Afrique. Il ne sert à rien d’être présent pour être présent. Il faut quand même que nous soyons conséquents avec nous-mêmes. Pendant des années, on s’est battu ici pour l’efficacité de la dépense et on rencontre, effectivement, que ceuxlà, qui se rendent dans ces élections, perdent de l’argent mais, ils ne sont pas dans des conditions pour être efficaces. Et, moi personnellement, je l’ai dit à mon comité régional, hier. On m’a demandé d’aller au Rwanda, mais j’ai refusé, parce que je ne peux pas admettre, étant un parlementaire dans mon pays, ayant un certain rang que la loi me confère, qu’une structure parlementaire supérieure africaine me mette dans un rang inférieur, cela n’a pas de sens. C’est la raison pour laquelle, j’ai dit que, quand on ne met pas dans les conditions, je ne vais pas me déplacer. Sachant que je ne peux pas faire un bon travail, je ne vais pas prendre la responsabilité d’aller là-bas pour faire du tourisme et revenir.Ceci étant dit, je vais parler d’un seul point qui concerne la représentation du Bureau du Parlement dans certaines instances internationales. J’ai constaté que seuls les membres du Bureau y allaient, alors que pour qu’il y ait un bon relai, un bon suivi des décisions qui sont prises, il faut, dans une conférence X, que la Commission concernée soit représentée là-bas. Si, du point de vue des moyens ou matériellement cela n’est pas possible, au moins que le Bureau répercute les décisions qui sont prises au niveau des Commissions concernées pour que le suivi puisse se faire. J’ai constaté que vous avez été à l’UNESCO, pour parler d’un partenariat sur les questions de l’éducation, vous avez été à Beyrouth également, dans le cadre du travail de l’UNESCO sur les questions de l’éducation, alors que la Commission de l’Education n’a pas participé à cette mission, encore moins, elle n’a pas été ampliataire des décisions de cette mission pour le suivi.Les commissions techniques sont là pour faire ce suivi, et c’est cela qui alimente leur travail. Si tel n’est pas le cas, le Bureau va voyager, engranger des décisions de partenariat, mais cela s’arrête là. Il n’y a pas de suivi, ni de progrès. Or, ce suivi et ce progrès doivent être assurés par les Commissions techniques.Voilà ce que je voulais dire. Encore une fois, Monsieur le Président, je vous soutiens et je suis persuadé que votre calme, votre sérénité est un moyen efficace pour aller de l’avant. Ce ne sont pas des discours de va-t-en-guerre qui vont régler nos problèmes avec la Commission de l’UA. C’est dans le calme et la sérénité que nous devons avancer et ne pas oublier que le Parlement européen a été mis en place, non en 10 ans, 20 ans mais, pendant des décennies et des décennies. Il faut qu’on accepte le temps de voir les choses se mettre en place, consolider les acquis et aller en avant.Je vous remercie.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much hon. Kane for those very focused visionary contributions. I could only agree with you when you said that the solution to all these complaints we have regarding AUC, whatever, can only be solved through the transformation of the Pan-African Parliament, which we have been following and working on.Mr. President, it is now your opportunity to respond to the many issues that were raised by the members, so, I give you the Floor. Thank you.HON. NDELE MOUSSA IDRISS [TCHAD]:Je vous remercie. Je voudrais, pour commencer, remercier, au nom du Bureau du Parlement panafricain, et très sincèrement, les parlementaires, pour les contributions, les correctifs, les corrections et l’amélioration qualitative qu’ils ont apportés au rapport, ainsi que les encouragements et les félicitations à l’endroit du Bureau. Je les félicite également pour les propositions d’amélioration de notre gestion, qu’il revient à la plénière d’apprécier, pour une partie.Je voudrais apporter un certain nombre de correctifs à certaines omissions malencontreuses, dans le rapport.Premièrement, nous avons omis de citer la participation de l’honorable Mary MUGYENYI, 2e Vice-présidente du PAP, à la réunion organisée par la CPI à Kampala. L’honorable Mary a représenté le Parlement panafricain de manière efficace.Nous avons eu l’honneur d’être invité et de participer, au Mali, à la conférence des ministres en charge de l’environnement, en juin; une des conférences ministérielles phares du moment, dans le continent africain. Cette participation a également été omise dans le rapport.Nous avons, en marge de cette conférence, eu l’honneur de bénéficier d’une audience. Toute la délégation du PAP, présidée par le Président du PAP, avec le Vice-président de la commission de l’environnement, accompagné de nos frères et sœurs du Parlement panafricain du Mali, nous avons eu l’honneur d’être reçu par Son Excellence, le Président de la République du Mali, à qui nous avons transmis un message de félicitations du Parlement panafricain et demandé le soutien pour la transformation dudit Parlement.Nous avons également eu une réponse positive de Son Excellence, le Président de la République du Mali, qui nous a demandé de ne pas douter de son soutien pour la transformation du Parlement panafricain.Nous avons également, en marge d’une conférence, eu l’opportunité de tenir deux séances de travail avec le Président de l’Assemblée nationale du Mali et son Bureau. Nous l’avons félicité pour la participation régulière des parlementaires du Mali et encouragé pour que les parlementaires du Mali puissent venir à l’ensemble des sessions et des réunions des commissions permanentes. Il nous a assuré que, malgré les difficultés financières, les parlementaires du PAP ont une priorité auprès du Parlement du Mali et nous l’avons remercié, encore une fois.En marge, également, de cette importante conférence, nous avons eu deux séances de travail: l’une avec la présidente sortante de l’AMSEN, avec qui nous continuons de travaillerelle viendra pendant la session, d’ailleurs - et l’autre avec le président entrant de l’AMSEN également.Son Excellence, Jacob ZUMA, de la République d’Afrique du Sud, notre pays hôte, est le tout premier supporter du Parlement panafricain. Non seulement, son pays abrite le siège du Parlement panafricain, mais le gouvernement de l’Afrique du Sud et la province du Gauteng nous font des facilités, sur le plan politique. Dans le discours qu’il a tenu devant nous, lors de notre session d’avril, il ne cessait de faire le plaidoyer pour la transformation du Parlement panafricain. Il s’est engagé à venir à l’ouverture de la commémoration qui lui tient à cœur, parce que l’histoire de notre continent, celle des indépendances, et des indépendances tumultueuses, difficiles, notamment en Afrique australe, lui tient à cœur. La lutte des peuples africains pour l’indépendance, et la lutte du peuple sud-africain, aidé de ses frères et sœurs africains, est un sujet très important pour lui. Malheureusement, son calendrier ne le lui a pas permis de venir. A la veille de la journée de la commémoration, nous avons reçu de ses services ces regrets, parce qu’il ne pouvait pas venir ce jour-là à cause de son calendrier. Par ailleurs, nous avons eu l’information selon laquelle, il recevait le mêmejour la visite d’un chef d’Etat d’un pays membre de l’Union africaine, d’un pays de la sous-région. Ce qui peut expliquer, bien sûr, l’indisponibilité de Son Excellence, le Président Jacob ZUMA.Nous avons suivi de très près, et régulièrement, le processus qui a conduit le Kenya à avoir une nouvelle Constitution. C’est une innovation dans ce pays qui a connu des difficultés, des conflits d’après-élections et qui est dirigé, aujourd’hui, par une coalition hybride, mais qui a eu le courage de s’en sortir définitivement par l’adoption, par référendum, d’une nouvelle Constitution, je dirais, inspiré de la cinquième République française, qui honore le Kenya et l’Afrique, et qui peut résoudre, de manière définitive, les faits récurrents d’actes et de situations difficiles d’après-élections. C’est un des éléments qui a manqué également dans le rapport que nous avons présenté, parce que nous avons suivi cela de très près.Honorables Membres, chers Collègues,La première question était celle de la participation du forum parlementaire de la SADC. L’honorable Gumbo Macdonald y a participé, au nom du Parlement panafricain. Il a apporté une contribution, un message de solidarité et des encouragements du Parlement panafricain, pour que le forum continue son chemin et devienne un organe législatif. Il a profité de l’opportunité qui lui était offerte pour parler de deux sujets qui sont importants, aujourd’hui, pour le Parlement panafricain et faire le plaidoyer. S’agissant des sujets, il était question d’une part, de la transformation du Parlement panafricain et d’autre part, de la ratification de la Charte pour la démocratie, les élections et la gouvernance.Les travaux en commissions, au mois d’août, ont connu des difficultés que nous avons reconnues. Mais, un correctif est apporté, parce que pour les présentes assises des commissions, pendant la session, ce sont les Présidents des commissions permanentes qui ont été maîtres du calendrier de leurs commissions. C’est l’assurance que nous avons reçue du secrétariat. Même si le secrétariat peut faire des propositions de calendrier, c’est la commission et surtout, les Présidents des commissions qui doivent valider l’ordre du jour de leur réunion.La transformation du Parlement panafricain pour laquelle nous nous sommes engagés, à partir de la profession de foi que vous avez adoptée, est en très bonne voie. Nous reviendrons sur le débat. Le Président de la commission des règlements va nous indiquer où nous en sommes aujourd’hui, mais, croyez-moi, nous sommes en très bonne voie. Je suis de ceux qui pensent que, au sommet d’Addis-Abeba en fin janvier, sinon au plus tard au sommet de juillet, sur le plan juridique, le projet de transformation du Parlement panafricain sera posé devant le Bureau du sommet des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement.Il est regrettable de constater, effectivement, que la présence du nombre de parlementaires diminue de session en session. Les commissions permanentes connaissent, davantage, des difficultés de quorum. Nous avons eu quelques propositions, qui vont du plaidoyer à l’endroit de nos exécutifs, de nos parlements nationaux à des suggestions tendant à mettre des mécanismes de recherche de financement. Ce sont des propositions intéressantes. Ensemble, nous verrons comment les mettre en œuvre et comment faire, tout en continuant le plaidoyer timide que nous faisons, à défaut de moyens, bien sûr. Comme vous l’avez remarqué, quand nous avons l’opportunité de participer à une conférence, nous en profitons. C’est une occasion pour rencontrer les autorités des pays, notamment les chefs d’Etat, les présidents des Assemblées sœurs, afin d’essayer de plaider pour les parlementaires.Les parlementaires panafricains étaient bien présents aussi bien au Soudan qu’à l’île Maurice. Il y a une coquille dans le texte. En fait, pour le Soudan et pour l’Ile Maurice, à défaut de temps, c’est l’Union africaine qui a fait le choix des parlementaires. Elle nous a communiqué la liste et nous a demandé de vérifier si ces parlementaires sont bien en fonction; ce que nous avons fait, parce que le temps était très court. Pour toutes les autres missions, après le Soudan et l’Ile Maurice, c’est le Parlement panafricain qui a proposé des parlementaires après que les services du Commissaire aux affaires politiques lui ont donné le nombre de parlementaires par mission. Le nombre retenu, après deux réunions entre la commission de l’Union africaine et le PAP, est de 40% de parlementaires du PAP et de 60% pour les autres organes, notamment la Commission ellemême, le COREP, etc.Donc, honorables membres, nous savions bien que vous faisiez partie de la mission au Soudan, tout comme pour ce qui était de la mission à l’Ile Maurice. Ce qu’on a voulu dire, c’est, par défaut de temps, l’Union africaine vous a désignés et nous avons confirmé que vous étiez bien membre du Parlement panafricain.Evidemment, beaucoup de parlementaires, tout en appréciant le rapport, ont demandé judicieusement que celui-ci soit mis à la disposition des parlementaires quelques jours avant, de manière à ce que la qualité des propositions soit encore meilleure. Vous constaterez que, bien que vous ayez eu le rapport, pour certains d’entre vous probablement aujourd’hui, néanmoins vous avez fait de très bonnes contributions. Mais, si vous aviez ce rapport deux ou trois jours avant, je suis sûr que vous feriez, non seulement des propositions comme vous le faites actuellement, mais aussi des propositions concrètes, pour qu’on puisse avancer davantage. Je suis d’accord avec vous. Le Bureau prend note. Avec le secrétariat, nous allons corriger cela.Les relations entre le Parlement panafricain et les autres organes de l’Union africaine se sont beaucoup améliorées. Je suis d’accord avec l’honorable KANE, selon qui, au point où nous sommes en train d’atteindre les objectifs que nous nous sommes assignés, il vaut mieux finir l’année 2010 avec cette approche en douceur, pour que nous obtenions ce qui devrait nous revenir de droit.Au dernier plaidoyer que nous avons fait à Kampala, au Conseil exécutif, le Président de séance de ce Conseil a dit qu’il n’est pas normal que les parlementaires voyagent en classe économie, je dis bien le Conseil exécutif, c'est-à- dire, le conseil des ministres. Il n’est pas normal que les parlementaires aient des indemnités inférieures aux membres du staff de l’Union africaine, qui ont les indemnités des Nations unies plus 20%.La commission dit qu’elle prend bonne note. Etant en cours d’exercice, les propositions ne peuvent être prises en considération que dans le budget 2011.Avec le COREP, les relations sont très bonnes; et comme il est mentionné dans le programme, nous allons avoir une rencontre le vendredi 15 et le samedi 16 dans un complexe pas très loin de Midrand. Plus de 40 ambassadeurs viendront à cette rencontre. Une soixantaine de parlementaires du PAP y seront également et ensemble, nous allons peaufiner le plaidoyer, pour que le COREP puisse s’approprier la dernière mouture de la transformation et la mettre dans le circuit afin qu’elle arrive, au plus tôt, au sommet des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement, en passant par le Conseil exécutif.La deuxième chose que nous attendons et pour laquelle nous allons faire le plaidoyer, c’est l’adoption de l’organigramme du Parlement panafricain.La troisième chose, c’est le budget du Parlement panafricain. On peut déjà se féliciter car, pour le budget 2009, neuf organes ont leurs budgets revus à la baisse, il n’y a que deux organes: la Commission de l’Union africaine et le Parlement panafricain qui n’ont pas connu de baisse. La seule chose qui a été revue à la baisse, c’est le fonds pour l’observation d’élections du Parlement panafricain qui est sorti du budget du PAP et mis au profit budget de la Commission de l’Union africaine. Mais, nous ne nous contentons pas de stagner, nous allons faire le plaidoyer et expliquer l’opportunité de revoir à la hausse le budget du Parlement panafricain.Le dernier plaidoyer que nous devons faire, c’est expliquer, comme l’honorable Abdoulaye le faisait, tout à l’heure, si éloquemment et sur un ton conciliant, en fait, que l’observation des élections revienne aux élus. Quand on parle d’élection, cela doit revenir essentiellement aux élus. Et, pour que le Parlement panafricain puisse avoir ces missions, même si c’est de taille moyenne ou de petite taille, il lui faut une ligne budgétaire pour ses propres missions d’observation, surtout que les missions de pré-élection et d’après-élection ne sont même pas du souci de nos partenaires de l’Union africaine, alors que nous, nous savons que les missions, avant élection, sont aussi importantes que les missions post-élection. Il n’y a pas que le jour de l’élection. On fera donc le plaidoyer ensemble pour qu’une petite ligne budgétaire puisse être sortie par le Parlement panafricain dans son budget. Je dis petite, parce que dès qu’on aura la possibilité de faire nos missions à nous, on a des partenaires qui veulent bien financer les missions d’observation d’élections du Parlement panafricain , mais pas quand c’est une mission conjointe avec l’Union africaine. Cependant, je remercie bien les quelques rares partenaires qui, malgré tout, en 2009, ont voulu apporter leur contribution; ces fonds-là doivent aller à l’Union africaine pour des missions conjointes pour lesquelles, on est obligé de gérer de cette manière jusqu’à la fin de l’année.Nous avons eu beaucoup de contributions de parlementaires par rapport au financement de nos activités et plusieurs parlementaires ont proposé qu’on fasse des plaidoyers dans nos pays, auprès de nos chefs d’Etats, de nos parlements pour chercher à créer des fonds.Les réunions consultatives de dialogue ont porté sur la transformation du PAP est sur le plaidoyer pour la ratification de la Charte africaine pour la démocratie, les élections et la gouvernance.Les trois premières réunions se sont très bien tenues. Nous avons eu des engagements fermes aussi bien du côté de l’Exécutif que du côté de nos frères et sœurs parlementaires, notamment les présidents des chambres qui étaient avec nous.Trente-six (36) pays, à ce jour, ont signé la Charte et sept (07) pays l’ont ratifiée. Il nous faut huit (08) pays, avant la fin de l’année pour qu’on atteigne le chiffre de quinze (15), chiffre fatidique qui fera de cette Charte, une Charte de droit pour l’Afrique.Le thème du sommet de fin janvier 2011, c’est celui des valeurs partagées de l’Afrique. Il n’y a pas meilleure valeur partagée en Afrique que la démocratie, les élections régulières libres et transparentes et la bonne gouvernance.C’est pourquoi notre plaidoyer est porteur. Moi, je suis très optimiste, avant le sommet de janvier 2011, le chiffre de quinze doit être atteint, parce que les premiers ministres, les présidents des parlements ont publiquement pris des engagements. Et, je suis sûr que, avec les deux derniers ateliers qu’on va organiser en novembre, on atteindra le chiffre de quinze et cela sera une fierté pour l’Afrique. En s’associant sur le thème « valeurs partagées », donc on sait que la Charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance devient de droit.Nous ne féliciterons pas assez nos partenaires et nous allons encore les remercier: l’Union européenne et l’Afrique du Sud qui mettent des ressources à notre disposition. C’est dans les règles du Parlement panafricain et surtout de l’Union africaine qu’un bon nombre de nouveaux cadres vont être recrutés; malheureusement, les cadres issus des pays sous sanction seront exclus. Mais, pour une meilleure représentation des régions et surtout des pays, la priorité va être donnée aux pays qui ne sont pas représentés à un niveau supérieur au sein du Parlement panafricain. Avant la fin de la session, tous les parlementaires ici présents auront la liste de l’ensemble des vacances de postes et les quelques éléments apportés par le Bureau pour donner plus de chance pour que l’ensemble des pays africains se sentent concernés. Cela vous sera également soumis avant que vous ne partiez, parce qu’on s’est rendu compte que, en envoyant les courriers, seulement par nos circuits parfois difficiles, aux parlements nationaux, au passage, certains individus s’accaparent de ces courriers d’annonces de vacances de postes dès qu’ils les reçoivent et cela ne circule pas au sein desdits parlements. Et comme on a un site web qui n’est pas mis à jour assez régulièrement, il n’est pas très attractif et peu d’africains vont sur ce site pour voir ses offres. Donc, nous vous mettrons à contribution d’abord pour l’information pour que, également, vous apportiez ces informations au niveau de vos parlements respectifs.Notre participation aux missions conjointes a été difficile, parce que, de manière générale, on ne brille pas, au niveau de l’Union africaine, par la célérité de l’information et de la communication. Donc, il y a une lourdeur administrative au niveau de la Commission qui nous dit que, peu de semaines avant une élection, on veut aller en Côte d’Ivoire, qu’on a vingt (20) membres à désigner au niveau du Parlement panafricain. Le temps que cette information vienne chez nous, on est à parfois deux semaines, parfois dix jours. Maintenant, il faut répartir; le Bureau répartit proportionnellement sur les cinq régions et quand il y a un surplus, s’il y a dix-huit (18) et que nous attribuons deux à chaque région, les trois positions supplémentaires sont données généralement aux groupes qui ont le plus de pays, donc le plus de parlementaires. Et, comme nous avons des moyens de communication très difficile, souvent on a demandé à chaque membre du Bureau, quand c’est un, de désigner un de sa région, quand c’est deux, ce sont deux de sa région et ainsi de suite. Donc, jusqu’à aujourd’hui, la répartition et la rotation sont prises par la responsabilité de vos représentants au Bureau. Si vous pensez qu’il y a une bonne rotation, tant mieux; si vous pensez que nous ne faisons pas une bonne rotation, nous en sommes responsables et vous devez peut-être nous dire de donner la main aux présidents des caucus ou à d’autres. Mais, le nœud du problème ce sont les délais, on nous donne très peu de temps. Parfois, on vérifie si l’honorable est disposé à aller dans un pays, parfois, on n’a même pas le temps de vérifier la disponibilité, on met des noms. Il y en a qui ne sont pas disponibles, d’autres, vu les nouvelles conditions, ne peuvent pas aller, et on les comprend très bien, aussi. Mais, avec le plaidoyer que nous faisons, aujourd’hui, et que nous allons poursuivre ensemble, il y a beaucoup d’espoirs que les choses changent à compter de janvier 2011.Après la mission conduite par l’honorable Gumbo Macdonald à Hararé pour rencontrer notre partenaire ACBF et que la Délégation du PAP ait expliqué les tenants et les aboutissants de notre gestion du rapport de la Commission ad hoc qui a été pris comme prétexte et de la situation du PAP aujourd’hui, l’ACBF a dégelé sa contribution et la coopération est reprise normalement avec l’ACBF.Nous sommes, il est vrai, à mi-parcours du mandat du Bureau qui, comme l’ont rappelé les honorables ZELY et KEBZAGO, est de trois ans, et ce mandat est très particulier, parce qu’il est transitoire avec un objectif bien précis, issu de la profession de foi de votre Président qui est de conduire, sur le plan juridique, à la transformation du Parlement panafricain, comme le dit l’article 25 du Protocole, en un organe législatif. Nous sommes très proches de 2011 et, nous sommes très près d’atteindre cet objectif également, nous allons faire ce chemin-là ensemble.Tout à l’heure le Président SERPOS et son équipe vont nous expliquer où nous en sommes. Vous verrez qu’on est bien avancé. Nous aurons pendant cette session à apporter notre dernière contribution. Après cette dernière contribution, il y aura une dernière réunion, Commission de l’Union africaine/Consultants/Parlementpanafricain, les 10 et 11 novembre 2010, ici même à Midrand, pour arrêter la dernière mouture de proposition d’amendement du Protocole qui va être envoyé au COREP. Mais, ce qui est bien, c’est que, entre temps, nous puissions faire également le plaidoyer pendant la rencontre avec le COREP.La rencontre Russie-Afrique est un succès, et nous avons reçu le rapport du Président de la Commission Education, nous le remercions pour avoir fait un discours fort important, au nom du Président du PAP, et pour le rapport qu’il a pu faire. Nous remercions encore l’honorable El HOUDERI et son pays, parce qu’à défaut de ressources suffisantes, il a mis à profit son titre de transport et ses perdiems pays pour représenter le Parlement panafricain. Il ressort de cette conférence et du rapport que nous avons reçu d’El HOUDERI qu’il va y avoir, en décembre, si je ne me trompe, une conférence, cette fois-ci à Paris, organisée par la Douma, entre la Russie et l’Afrique.S’agissant du nombre de participants dans les missions d’observation des élections, les raisons sont connues.Pour les neuf (09) postes à pourvoir avec le financement de l’Union européenne, les six (06) postes sur financement de l’Afrique du Sud et les quatre (04) postes sur financement de l’Union africaine, le processus n’a pas pu finir; non parce que les traitements et les salaires de ces cadres ne sont pas dans le budget mais, on avait pris des fonds pour finir le processus de recrutement. Nous avons maintenant l’engagement de nos partenaires, pour nous aider à faire l’appel à candidature, les interviews et le recrutement sur leur financement, en respectant, scrupuleusement, les normes de l’Union africaine. Vous serez associez, parce que vous aurez aussi bien le mémorandum que la liste des postes vacants et les appels à candidature.Concernant le plaidoyer, tout le monde est conscient que nous essayons de le faire dans la mesure du possible. Les moyens nous limitent à aller dans beaucoup de pays, mais avec la proposition que chaque parlementaire, chaque délégation a la mission de faire le lobbying et le plaidoyer dans son pays, auprès de nos Chefs d’Etat, des présidents de Sénat, des présidents d’Assemblées nationales, des ministres des Affaires Etrangères, de nos Ambassadeurs, pour la transformation, ce sera une bonne opportunité.Pour la retraite, sont concernés les bureaux de toutes les commissions permanentes, les bureaux de tous les Caucus régionaux et les Caucus des femmes, le Bureau du Parlement panafricain; mais, au-delà, on a demandé au Secrétariat de vérifier. Pour tout pays non représenté, au niveau de tous ses bureaux, un parlementaire va être désigné, de manière à ce que, quand les membres du COREP vont venir, ils trouvent au moins un parlementaire de leurs pays. Le staff aussi sera avec nous; par rapport à l’organisation matérielle, nous aurons les détails par le Secrétariat. Le souci d’avoir un bon nombre de parlementaires est important, mais le souci qu’il y ait au moins un parlementaire par pays est plus important encore, pour que les membres du COREP trouvent, au moins, un représentant de leur pays dans la délégation.S’agissant du travail du COREP, cette mission est importante. On a eu, en outre, une organisation qui n’a pas été à la hauteur, des programmes qui étaient faits par le Secrétariat, cela est corrigé cette fois-ci. Mais, il reste toujours le niveau de participation. Si, à la plénière, on a peu de participants, cela influerait également sur la réunion des commissions. Ensemble, on va mettre à profit les quelques propositions qui ont été faites.On a parlé de la CPI, même si c’est de manière indirecte. En tant qu’organe de l’Union africaine, notre position officielle est la même que celle de l’Union africaine, lors du sommet de Syrte 2009, qui a été répétée au sommet de juillet 2010 à Kampala.Nous sommes ouverts aux échanges, aux débats mais, on est à la place et on a le devoir d’écouter et de parler quel que soit le sujet. Cependant, comme nous aspirons à avoir des pouvoirs réellement législatifs, aujourd’hui, on doit toujours affirmer, en tant qu’organe de l’Union africaine, la position de celle-ci, qui a été très claire aussi bien à Syrte 2009 qu’à Kampala en juillet dernier.Votre proposition d’aider au lobbying, aussi bien ici que dans nos pays, est importante, c’est déjà ce que vous êtes en train de faire. Maintenant, nous nous conscientisons davantage pour que, de manière organisée, par délégation, on puisse faire un plaidoyer dans chacun de nos pays.Honorables membres, vos contributions sont très nombreuses. J’ai essayé de ramasser les réponses mais, je voudrais, encore une fois, vous féliciter sincèrement pour la pertinence de vos contributions qui améliorent le rapport.Vous avez fait des propositions de plaidoyer de financement pour lesquelles je vais laisser à la plénière le soin d’affiner. Quand on aura écouté le rapport sur l’avancée de la transformation, on pourra maintenant continuer le plaidoyer avec le COREP.Il y a des propositions de résolutions et des recommandations à l’endroit du Conseil exécutif et à l’endroit du Sommet des chefs d’Etats qui sont très bonnes. Mais, on est à une phase critique. On est très proche du but, aussi bien pour l’amélioration de notre budget, pour une autonomie d’observation des élections que pour la transformation du PAP surtout. Puisqu’on est très proche, c’est dans un ton, dans une approche positive et conciliante qu’on fera une présentation au prochain Conseil exécutif.Honorable Présidente de séance, il se pourrait, éventuellement, que je n’aie pas répondu à certaines questions et je suis toujours à votre disposition. Sur ce, je vais m’arrêter là en attendant de probables questions ou des rappels, pour une question à laquelle je n’aurais pas répondu.Je vous remercie.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Mr. President, I was sitting in the Chair and I tried to follow what was raised and what you have answered to, I believe that you have touched almost everything that has been raised.So, I want to conclude this debate and this presentation by thanking you Mr. President for this elaborative report and also the conciseness in which you have responded to the issues that were raised by the Members. Thank you so much.And in the same venue, I would like to thank the Honorable Members who contributed to this debate, indeed, we should make Pan-African Parliament a House that is democratic, where people can raise constructive views both negative and positive and that is the way to build the institution. So, we thank you so much for your contributions.THE PRESIDENT:You see I am not used to this Chair; I have made a mistake. (Laughter)I have just been reminded by the Fourth Vice President that we have not adopted this report. I thank you so much. So, can we first of all adopt the report of the President?(Applause)So, we are adopting the report with amendments as raised by the Members. I thank you so much.(Applause)May I now request the Clerk to read the next business on the agenda, I believe it is coming to one o’clock, so we cannot have the presentation that was supposed to be done next, that will have to be postponed until tomorrow but the Clerk still has business to read for housekeeping. I thank you very much.
2.0 – ANNONCES
THE CLERK:Thank you Honorable Vice President, I would like to make the following announcements. The following Committee meetings will take place all of them at half-past-two o’clock this afternoon. Committee on Monetary and Financial Matters, Room No.1, Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolutions, Room No.2, Committee on Privileges and Discipline, Room No.3, Committee on Education, Culture, Tourism and Human Resources, Room No.4, Committee on Gender, Family, Youth and People with Disability, Room No. 5.The last announcement is that the Chairperson of the Southern African Caucus is making the following announcements that she would like to meet all the Members of the Regional Caucus immediately after the adjournment of this meeting for a brief discussion. Members are required to remain behind the Chamber. Thank you very much.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Mr. Clerk. So, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 0900 hours.La séance est levée à 12 heures 40 minutes.
Thursday, 7th October 2010
1.0 – PRESTATION DE SERMENT
LE PRESIDENT:Honorables Membres,In accordance with rule 9 of the Rule of Procedure, I call upon Honourable Agbessi Theophile Adjamgba from Togo to take his Oath.(Member sworn in)Honorables Membres,In accordance with the provision of rule 38 (1) h, I invite Dr. Khabele Matlosa from UNDP to enter the Chamber.The Clerks will read the first order of the day.THE CLERK:Presentation and debate on the promotion of the ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance.THE PRESIDENT:I call upon Honourable Joram McDonald Gumbo, Forth Vice President of PAP to present the report of the PAP Regional Meetings held in Kampala, Ndjamena and Victoria Falls on the promotion for the ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Election and Governance. Honourable Gumbo, you have the floor.
2.0 – PRÉSENTATION ET DÉBATS SUR LA CHARTE AFRICAINE DE LA DÉMOCRATIE, DES ÉLECTIONS ET DE LA GOUVERNANCE
HON. GUMBO JORAM MACDONALD [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Mr. President. Colleagues, I have been requested by the Bureau to make a presentation on the meetings that we have had so far regarding the transformation of the Pan-African Parliament to a legislative body and also the ratification of the Charter on Elections, Democracy and Governance.As it is required by Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community relating to the Pan-African Parliament it requires amongst other things that the PAP facilitates implementation of the African Union decisions, cooperation and development in Africa and to strengthen continental solidarity and build a sense of common destiny among the people of Africa.In pursuance of the protocol, the Pan-African Parliament organized consultative meetings in Kampala-Uganda; N’djamena-Chad and Victoria Falls - Zimbabwe. I would want to present the report of these meetings as follows:(Member sworn in)Honourable Members,Kampala, Uganda; the Consultative meeting in Kampala was held on 16th and 17th of July 2010 in accordance with Article 9(e) of the Protocol Establishing the Pan-African Parliament which requires the Parliament to monitor the implementation of the decisions of the African Union and Article 18 of the Protocol which requires the PAP to convene Annual Consultative Meetings with Regional and National Parliaments or other deliberative organs.The issue which the meeting sought to address is the slow pace of ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. Only 36 out of 53 countries have signed the Charter out of which a mere four countries, by the time that we attended our meeting in Kampala, had appended their signatures in the ratification column and these are: Burkina Faso; Ethiopia; Mauritania and Lesotho. This represents about 5 percent of the countries in Africa which needs to have 25 percent, or 11 more countries to deliver on promises made to consolidate strong and sustained democracies for the 1 billion peoples of Africa.The meeting which was opened by the Speaker of the Parliament of Uganda was attended by the AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, representatives of the Government of Uganda, some Members of Parliament from the East African Region, the chairs of the five Regions of our Continent and the Deputy Speaker of Ireland. The South African delegation attended the meeting as observers. In total, the meeting was attended by about 120 participants.In terms of impact, the meeting achieved the following:1.Support for transformation of the PAP into a legislative body was obtained;2.The African Charter on Democracy, Elections, Governance was popularized;3.The PAP advocacy program at Regional and National levels was sustained;4.Continental advocacy for ratification of the Charter by 11 countries was launched;5.The broader participation by the MPs in the East African Region was achieved;6.The convening power and functional abilities by PAP to effect a seismic shift in governance and democracy principles in Africa was attained;7.Impetus towards the transformation of PAP into a legislative body was increased; and8.Evidence of PAP’s abilities to take initiative and effect change for Africa’s political transformation was proven and firmly established.N’djamena, Chad; the meeting was opened, participants were Honorable Idriss Ndele, our President; His Excellency, Emmanuel Nadingar, I am sorry about the name; the pronunciation might be wrong, I think it is Nandigar, Prime Minister and Head of the Government of Chad; members of the Government, His Excellency, Asseld Gamar Assilek (MP) and Deputy President of the National Assembly; Her Excellency, Ms Julia D. Joiner, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Members of the Bureau of PAP; Honorable Members of the PAP in the region and Counselors and Members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to Chad.Deliberations; Members called on the AUC and the states whose leaders play a key role within AU policy organs such as Gabon which holds the Presidency of the AUC, Chad, which holds the Presidency of PAP, Congo which holds the Presidency of CEMAC, etc, to undertake sensitization campaigns within their states for ratification of the Charter so as to attain the required number of ratifications for its entry into force.Participants suggested that a campaign for dissemination and promotion of the Charter be also aimed at the African peoples. They recommended that appropriate means be provided at regional and national levels for the popularization of the content.In connection with the ratification of the Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, the Speaker of the National Assembly of Chad made a solemn commitment to ratify the Charter on Budget Day in October 2010.These are the outcomes of our meeting in Chad. The participants adopted the N’djamena Declaration as follows:1.Commended the considerable effort of His Excellency, Idriss Deby Itno in supporting the transformation process of the PanAfrican Parliament into a legislative organ and requested him to extend these efforts to include his peers in the Central African region;2.Undertook to sensitize their respective Parliaments to support the review process of the Protocol of the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community relating to the Pan-African Parliament so as to confer legislative powers on the institution in the agreed areas;3.Undertook to sensitize their respective governments to accelerate the ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance;4.Hailed the commitment of the Government and the National Assembly of Chad expressed during the consultative dialogue to finalize the process of ratification before the end of 2010;5.Called upon the civil society organizations and the media to contribute towards dissemination of the Charter within each member state of the region; and6.Commended the efforts of the President of PAP and the Central African Region Caucus and called upon them to follow up the consultations with the Heads of State in the Region to accelerate the transformation process of the Pan-African Parliament into a legislative organ and the ratification process of the Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance.Victoria Falls-Zimbabwe; this was also held on 27th to 28th September. The meeting was attended by 56 Pan-African Parliament Members in the Region; five Southern African Development Community Parliamentarians (SADC-PF Members of Parliament) and five Members of the Parliament of Zimbabwe. The meeting then was opened by the Governor and Resident Minister of Matebeleland on behalf of His Excellency, President Robert Gabriel Mugabe.Outcomes and outputs, the meeting achieved its objectives to a great extent. In the exchange of views, the meeting underscored its vision of achieving greater unity and integration of the African Continent. In discussing the review of the Protocol, the meeting emphasized the need for further dialogue on issues relating to the elections of PAP MPs, the finance model, the need for a gradual transition and limited legislative powers.On the issue of the ratification of the Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, the meeting underscored the need for the region to ratify the Charter since the Charter has a lot of resonance with already existing SADC Protocols. All the Parliamentary Delegations attending the meeting pledged to make appropriate follow-ups on the ratification of the Charter with more than 80 percent of the delegations promising ratifications before 2011.The meeting adopted a communiqué outlining its intentions and steps to ensure ratification by Southern African Member Parliaments of the PAP as follows:1.They congratulated the Kingdom of Lesotho for ratifying the Charter. Lesotho is the only country in Southern Africa which has ratified;2.They also noted that while some of the fundamental tenets of democracy, democratic elections and good governance are in enshrined in national constitutions, policies and programs of the various African countries, there is need for the Charter to be urgently ratified;3.They also took cognizance of the fact that Southern African Member States had adopted various governance treaties including the 2001 Protocol on Politics, Defense and Security Cooperation, the 2004 Strategic Indicative Plan of the Organ on Politics, Defense and Security Cooperation and the 2004 Principles and Guidelines governing democratic elections, whose core elements resonate with the letter and the spirit of the Charter, but this still needs to find full expression through ratification of the Charter;4.They called upon all Members of the PanAfrican Parliament to implore their Ministers of Foreign Affairs, International Relations and relevant Government Ministries and Departments to speed up the ratification of the Charter by the end of 2010;5.They also resolved that all Members of the Pan-African Parliament conscientize National Parliamentary Committees responsible for International Treaties and Protocols to bring to the attention of their Parliaments, the need to expedite the ratification process by the end of 2010;6.They also resolved that the Pan-African Parliament, in collaboration with organs of the African Union, national Parliaments and the civil society organizations, enhance the popularization of the Charter within the member states of the African Union so that African citizens own the process;7.Resolved that the Pan-African Parliament MPs urge other fellow MPs in their respective National Parliaments to bring the issue of ratification of the Charter through motions, questions and lobbying among other things; and8.That the Pan-African Parliament Members become champions in the Region to ensure speedy signing and ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance by the end of 2010 and final domestication and application of the Charter.In conclusion, Mr. President, the PAP actively encourages member states to ratify the Charter so as to obtain the required number of 50 ratifications to facilitate its entry into force. A progress report of the ratification process will be sent to the states that have not yet ratified the Charter.However, to achieve the number of 50, Mr. President, the PAP has resolved to expedite the holding of Regional Meetings and therefore meetings will be held in West Africa and North Africa next month to complete the regional cycle.This is all that I can report to the colleagues, Mr. President, about the meetings that we held in the three regions that I have already mentioned. I thank you.DR. KHABELE MATLOSA [UNDP]:Your Excellency Mr. President, let me start first of all by thanking you and your good office for inviting the United Nations Development Programme through me to come to this August House and discuss this important matter, namely the ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. We would like to thank you Sir for this good gesture because UNDP fully supports this process that the PAP has already embarked upon and we will continue to provide as much support as we can as the UNDP, we would like to thank your Sir.Your Excellency, allow me to just take the August House through my presentation. The presentation will focus mainly on promoting ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. And I am happy that I am doing this after Honorable Gumbo has already reported on the Regional Meetings, so, that I do not have to dwell in a lot of details emanating from those Regional Consultative Meetings.In order to ensure that we are on the same page Mr. President, I would like to deliver my presentation in five segments. The first segment will deal mainly on the contextual background to the Charter namely the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, its background.The second segment will deal with the main objectives of the Charter, why is it important. The third objective Mr. President will give you the scope on coverage of the Charter, what is inside the Charter, so to be more precisely, what is inside this document? Then I will come back to highlight some of the issues that Honorable Gumbo, the Fourth Vice President talked about regarding the state of ratification so far. That is the fourth, the state of ratification. And Mr. President then I will wind up with some thoughts to this August House on the way forward.Mr. President, first, background. With regard to the background to the Charter, I think it is important for this August House to recognize that the Charter is a consolidation of various Declarations, Conventions and Treaties on democracy, human rights, rule of law constitutionalism that have been adopted since the OAU up to the AU. So, it is a consolidation of all the Declarations, Conventions and Treaties that the OAU have adopted since 1963 and the AU has adopted and ratified since 2000 with the Constitutive Act of the AU. So, it is important Mr. President to capture that, the Charter should not be seen as something new but rather as a continuation of commitments by the OAU and AU towards democracy, human rights, constitutionalism, rule of law etc. So, that is the first point I think I would clarify that it is a part of a continuing commitment.Mr. President, number two on the background, is that with the transformation of the OAU into AU, there was a paradigm shift that Honorable Members should know. There was a paradigm shift away from a culture of non-interference into the internal affairs of members states to the current culture now of non-indifference, nonindifference to human rights abuses, to instability and to the disturbances of peace and security. I think that is an important point to grasp also. That paradigm shift from culture of non-interference to a current culture of non-indifference. That the AU now presently within the context of Constitutive Act, promotes democracy within our Continent and protects human rights within our Continent and has the right and power to even intervene in certain instances where human rights are violated. And the Constitute Act is very clear in terms of the categorically rejection, let me repeat that, categorically rejection of unconstitutional change of Government and that the AU is very concerned about that, the issue of unconstitutional change of Government which is a problem in our Continent and that has to be accepted. Now, this informs the background to the Charter.The third point Mr. President on the background is that in 2003, at the AU Summit in MaputoMozambique, the Executive Council took a deliberate decision that the Continent now needs a Charter on Democracy. That was followed up again by another decision of the Executive Council of the AU in Addis Ababa-Ethiopia, the following year in 2004. So the first decision of the Executive Council was in July 2003 in Maputo this was followed by another decision on the urgency to develop the Charter in May, 2004, in Addis Ababa-Ethiopia. This is the context that then led to a motion to develop the Charter over a period of three years between 2004 and 2006, working on the Charter and the Charter ultimately being presented at the AU summit in Banjul, Gambia in 2006 and now finally adopted in Addis Ababa-Ethiopia on the 30th of January 2007. That is the background Mr. President.Mr. President, the second segment is the main objective of the Charter. Having grasps the back ground now the next step is, what are the main objectives of this Charter. I will isolate Mr. President just ten of this because it has quite a number Honorable Members can go through, the documents it is available in different languages. Just ten to highlight the significant of the Charter.1.Promote adherence to universal values and principles of democracy and respect for human rights, it is fundamental. So, it is commitment to human right and democracy, it is uppermost, it is central value or significance;2.Promote rule of law, supremacy of the Constitution and culture of Constitutionalism. The emphasis here on Constitution and Constitutionalism is deliberate Mr. President, is deliberate to indicate that there can be instances where you can have a fantastic Constitution, excellent, well class Constitution in terms of democratic principles, but if that Constitution is just a document that is there, then you will fail as a state or a country to have a Constitutionalism that embraces democracy. So, the Constitution and Constitutionalism therefore are different even if are interrelated, a Constitution is a document while Constitutionalism is how the document becomes a living experience of the citizens of the country;3.Promote a culture of transfer power through democratic, credible and transparency elections because today we live in an era of democracy, an era where transfer of power is mediated through ballots no longer bullets. So, the era of transfer of power through bullets is the thing of the past that is what the Charter is saying that we promote transfer of power through elections;4.Prohibit the schedule of unconstitutional changes of Government which threatens stability, peace and security. The AU is very, very clear on this. And is very explicit even in the Constitutive Act that unconstitutional changes of governments have become a normal, as a culture, it is no longer an embraced culture in our Continent. All forms of unconstitutional change of Governments are no longer accepted. The Charter reinforces that commitment;5.Promote effectiveness of the state or public institutions in governance especially in relation to service delivery. And here Mr. President the idea is that democracies must deliver services to our people, democracies must strengthen institutions so that Governments are able to deliver services that people are able to appreciate the value of democracies beyond elections. People must be in a position to say after I have voted; ooh yes, now I know the value of my vote and that can only be through improvement of services delivery at the very very local level not only in urban areas; in urban areas yes but more important Mr. President at the local level where our poor people lives in large numbers;6.Promotes sustainable human development and human security. That is self explanatory. Democracy must promote human development and human security;7.Another clear one, combat corruption in all its forms and manifestations. This is clear combat corruption and all forms of impurity in our Continent;8.Force the people participation in governance and development. So democratic governance is not only confined to the leadership, the leadership provides the leadership, you steer the ship but people must be able to participate in the governance processes and appreciate the outcomes of the governance processes. So it emphasis on popular participation by our people in their own lives;9.Promotes gender balances, very important, gender balance and equality in governance. So, governance and development also emphasis the equality between man and women. Development and governance it is not only confined to men, it should be a men and women affair that the equality is expressed in both the benefits that emanate from a democratic governance and development; and10.Finally, promote best practices in the management of elections. I think that it is a quite a self evident that the election have to be managed in a credible, transparent and in accountable manner so that at the end of the day all contestants accepts the results because the process was transparency, was legitimate and accountable to all.Mr. President, let me move to a scope and coverage of the Charter, with the permission Sir. The Charter is a pocket size document, Honorable Members may have seen this, 40 pages, 11 Chapters, 53 Articles within the Charter. The language is very user friendly, easy to read and understand from Chapter one to last Chapter. It is now available in English, French, Portuguese and I think Arabic, you can confirm that, I think Arabic as well. So, in all the official languages of the AU, the Charter is now available for all of us to read and understand what it intends.It has 53 Articles as I have said but I am not going to dwell with the details of this because I think Honorable Members can go through this at their own leisure. Let me just highlight a few aspects, and those aspects will rotate around Mr. President, there are about six elements. The first will be on democracy, rule of law and human rights. The second will be on the culture of democracy and peace. The third will be on democratic institutions. The fourth on democratic elections. The fifth Mr. President and most importantly, sanctions in case of unconstitutional changes of Governments and final political and economic and social governance. Very briefly I will deal on those because the document already exists and we can go through each of those at our own leisure.Firstly on the democracy, rule of law and human rights, the emphasis in this Chapter is that, democracy is important and it must be promoted. By so saying then the AU very expressively is saying today in our Continent there is no other alternative to democracy, so democracy is a must according to the Charter. There is no other alternative governance arrangement besides democracy that is a starting point. And then to move forward to say in order to anchor democracy on a same foundation then you need rule of law, there is need for rule of law in order to protect and promote human rights. That is the main message on that Chapter. Democracy is only game in town, if I may use an American expression, is only game in town. And that being the case then we need to anchor it on same foundations and those foundations include among other things respect for rule of law and promotion and protection of human rights.Mr. President, then second Chapter, culture of democracy and peace, here Mr. President the point is been made very eloquently and without any equivocation that democracy requires stability, peace and security. Democracy in our Continent requires stability, peace and security and vis-à-vis. Peace and security to be sustainable in long term perspectives requires democratic regimes. So, the two are interwoven, democracy, peace and security. So, therefore, it behest on a new member states, that is what the Charter is saying, Mr. President to promote democracy and peace simultaneously because they are two sides of the same coin. Mr. President, that is the main message. And that also when we promote democracy, we must also simultaneously promote peace and this calls for civic education, this calls for peace education in our countries, this calls for promotion of national dialogue, when there are differences our people must be able to talk and resolve differences through dialogue not through the bullett.Mr. President, third Chapter is democratic institutions. On democratic institutions the emphasis is on strengthening institutional capacity of governance, that we have to strengthen deliberately the three key arms of government meaning the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary but as we strengthen the institutional capacities also be mindful deliberately that we need to inculcate a culture of separation of powers and checks and balances. So, the three arms operate optimally.Professionalized the Public Service is very important and professionalized security forces so that the Public Service and the Security Forces deliver services to our people in a nonpartisan manner, in impartial manner without them being politicized in one way or the other. Then the professionalism can be compromised. That is the message Mr. President, and which therefore, also leads to another important message that we need to ensure civilian control of security forces in our countries. That is the main message under that Chapter.The forth Charter that I would like to go through quick is democratic election. The Charter is very, very explicit Mr. President that Member States of the African Union have to commit themselves to regular transparent and credible elections in our Continent in conformity with 2002 African Union Declaration on Principles governing Democratic Elections through the following measures:1.Establishing Independent and Impartial Election Management Bodies, in other countries they are called Electoral Commissions;2.Timely and constructive management of elections related disputes. We know how election disputes in some of our countries have caused serious troubles, serious instability, mere civil wars if I put in that way. In some instances the AU had to intervene to mediate so that countries come back on track into anarchy, if I may put in that way Mr. President;3.Access to public resources by Contestants including the public media, resources for elections;4.Building a code of conduct for Electoral Contestants or Electoral Stakeholders; and finally5.Acceptance of election results and use of legal means to challenge contested outcomes. Acceptance of elections results where they are done according to the law of the country but if there is contestation of the outcomes that be done through legal means provided for within the country through its judicial system.Mr. President, the Charter also reminds AU Member States that the AU through the Democracy and Electoral Assistance Unit and Democracy Assistance Fund provides assistance to those countries that are holding elections. The AU is bound to provide assistance upon request from its Member States where such assistance is required with regard to elections. That assistance takes four main forms. Special advisory services on request, pre-election assessment missions, elections observation also upon request, post election, good offices and mediation. Those are the services that are provided for by the AU to its Member States ensure that elections are credible, transparent and legitimate and that the outcomes are accepted by all contestants in such elections.Mr. President, on unconstitutional changes of Governments, with your permission, in fact it emphasis that this Chapter on unconstitutional changes of Governments, if all the other Chapters in the Charter are the body of the Charter, this in fact is a very heart of the Charter. I am saying so because when the Charter was developed, that was the main concern because a number of countries while we were happy, what we had achieved in term of democratic transitions and advancement in our Continent but by late 2000, 2004-2005, we began to see the resurgence of unconstitutional changes military coups and in some instances changes of Constitutions to prolong tenure. So, Mr. President, this was one of the concerns and it was a major concern that is why I am calling it the heart beat of the Charter.By the way Mr. President, the Charter defines unconstitutional changes in very interesting ways. It defines unconstitutional changes in five many ways:1.A coup d'état against a democratically reelected government;2.Any intervention by mercenaries to replace a democratically elected government;3.Any replacement of a democratically elected government by armed dissidents or rebels;4.Any refusal by any incumbent government to relinquish power to the winning party or candidate after free, fair and regular elections; and5.Any amendment or revision of Constitution which is an infringement on the principle of democratic change of government.Mr. President, so, it is five definitions very comprehensive definition of how we can define unconstitutional change of government. And if any of those five instances happen, the AU through its Peace and Security Council shall intervene diplomatically. And the concerned state part in this regard is suspended immediately if diplomatic interventions do not exceed. The AU in the mean time still maintains diplomatic contract Mr. President and Member State is also expected to fulfill its AU obligations. The perpetrators of unconstitutional change of Government are not allowed to contest elections held to restore democratic order or hold any positions of responsibility in that country. That is as far as unconstitutional changes of governments is treated in the Charter and it is a very serious issue that the Charter takes with seriousness that it deserves.Mr. President, another Chapter I want to deal with is the political, economic and social governance. This Chapter is also important because it emphasizes the point that democracies must deliver services. Democracies must deliver human development, must deliver human security and must also help in eradicating poverty. So our people appreciate the value of democracy. Democracies must help us combat corruption, democracy must help us to combat social illnesses and diseases such as Malaria, TB and HIV and Aids. So that people are able to appreciate that democracies can also have a social value.And finally is achieving key objectives of NEPAD, APRM and Millennium Development Goals, should be promoted in our countries.Mr. President, let me go back now to the issue of ratification. And I will repeat some of the important message that Honorable Gumbo shared with the Honorable House. The Charter was adopted on 30th January 2007 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as I have said, and now that the Charter has been adopted, the challenge is signing, ratification, domestication and its application by Member States. And the AU is self concern with slow pace of ratification of AU Treaties and Charters. In 2010 there was an Executive Council meeting and took a clear decision on this matter. In that decision the Executive Council appeals to the Pan African Parliament to assist with the advocacy and sensitization of the AU Member States to expedite ratification. And on this point I think it is worth noting that within the Charter, the Charter itself under mechanisms of application indicates that the Pan African Parliament will be responsible for monitoring and evaluation of implementation of the Charter and therefore this Executive Council decision of 2010 or 2009 therefore reinforces that aspect of the Charter.Honorable Gumbo has already indicated to us that there are 36 AU Member States all in all we have 53 AU Member States by the way. Of the 53 Member States, only 36 have signed up to the Charter but we require 15 ratifications before the Charter comes into force. So far only 7 countries have ratified, he listed those countries to us, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Lesotho, Rwanda and Ghana. If we look at regional record, this is what we find in terms of ratification so far, in West Africa 3 has ratified, East Africa 2 has ratified, Southern Africa 1 has ratified, Central Africa, no country has ratified, North Africa 1 has ratified. That is the record and if I were to be frank, in a diplomatic way, I would say the record is not encouraging and therefore, there is need to accelerate ratification.But in order for us to locate the problem, I think there is need for me to first highlight that I see too many challenges towards ratification. One, political will on the part of AU Members State to ratify because they adopted the Charter anyway, they have adopted and some of them has signed. So, the political will to ratify the Charter is still a challenge. Second, in certain instances it is not only the political will but also prolonged procedures for ratification of the Charter. So, I think as we accelerate the process of ratification we need to be mindful of those two major challenges.Although our Constitutions differ, in some countries, ratification is the prerogative of the Executive alone and then the Executive can just inform Parliament. In other instances, the Executive has to also consult Parliament and Parliament passes the relevant legislation, so you have two processes. But all in all the process follows a similar kind of pattern. There could be slight variations, the issues is handled by the Minister of Foreign Affairs who then works with the relevant Ministries and then a Technical Committee is established to review the relevance of the Treaty to the country and then it goes to the relevant authority either the Executive or Parliament and then it passes. And then the instrument of ratification is prepared by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and submitted to the AU. When you look at it is so simple, it is straight forward but there are a lot of challenges that our countries face in this regard.Mr. President, I would like just to share with you Your Excellency my thoughts on the way forward. The AU has taken a positive step in adopting the Charter in 2007, however, it has proved that it is easier to adopt the Charter and much harder to ratify and apply it at national level. So far only 7 AU Member States have ratified the Charter. It is a serious indictment on the level of political commitment for its domestication and application. Fifteen ratification by 2011 should form a minimum programme for Pan African Parliament before 2011 campaign. The ultimate goal should be that all 53 countries should ratify the Charter beyond ratification itself the PAP should develop a programme for monitoring and evaluation of the domestication application of the Charter with this same Charter because under the Chapter on Application Mechanisms, the PAP has been dealing given those powers, to monitor and evaluate its implementation and application.The PAP Mr. President has already taken both steps in promoting the ratification of the Charter. This has taken the form of before 2011 campaign which is a very interesting campaign that we from the UNDP will support whole heartily. The campaign is aimed at securing 11 ratification before the end of 2011. This will ensure that the Charter comes into force Mr. President in 2011 in earnest. This campaign started off in Kampala as Honorable Gumbo has indicated, for East African Region in July this year and the Central African it will take place early in September in N’djamena- Chad, the Southern African Region took place in Victoria Falls-Zimbabwe, it is anticipated that the next stage of the campaign will take place in Dakar-Senegal and Alger-Algeria before end of this year. From all these regional consultations Mr. President, Members of the PAP have taken firm positions regarding the urgency for ratifications of the Charter. This includes the following:1.That all Members of the PAP implore their Government to sign, ratify, domesticate and apply the Charter;2.That PAP Regional Committees, Regional Parliamentary Bodies, popularized the Charter for African Citizens to own the process. There is need for the popularization of the Charter so that citizens themselves know the Charter not just the political leadership alone;3.That PAP to adopt a resolution imploring African Governments to speed up or expedite ratifications of the Charter;4.That PAP should identify champions in all the 5 Regions of Africa to propel the 11 before the 2011 campaign;5.That PAP should target African countries that have acceded to APRM to ratify the Charter and show leadership in African Government advancement; and6.That Members of PAP should appoint relevant National Parliamentary Committees to bring to the attention of their Parliaments the need to expedite ratification of the Charter.In conclusion Mr. President, on behalf of the UNDP, we would like to thank you heartily and I would like too also pass thank to my superior from New York in particular Dr. Getu who is the head of Regional Bureau of Africa at the UNDP.Mr. President, with those few remarks, I would like to thank you heartily, thank you very much. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Dr. Khabele Matlosa. I shall now allow debate on the promotion of the ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Election and Governance. I have a list of two speakers; the first one is Honorable Ilimi Farida.HON. ILIMI FARIDA [ALGERIE]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Monsieur le Président,Honorable assistance,Je saisis cette grande opportunité pour vous féliciter et féliciter l’Exécutif pour les efforts déployés dans l’amélioration du fonctionnement du Parlement panafricain, en si peu de temps, malgré les insuffisances déjà signalées par les collègues, hier. Je suis sûre que, avec votre engagement et votre dévouement, tous ces problèmes relevés trouveront une solution au bénéfice de notre chère institution. Soyez rassuré, Monsieur le Président, que nous relèverons ensemble, avec tous les collègues ici présents, les défis.Permettez-moi de renouveler ma confiance et ma gratitude pour l’intérêt particulier que vous accordez aux thèmes majeurs de notre auguste assemblée, à savoir:1.La transformation du Parlement panafricain consultatif en un organe législatif, et2.la ratification de la Charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance.Dans ce cadre, je félicite l’organisation et le bon déroulement des rencontres régionales organisées par notre Parlement à Kampala, à Ndjamena et à Victoria Falls, dont l’objet vient de faire sujet à débat à l’ordre du jour de nos travaux.Mes félicitations sont d’autant plus motivées, du fait de l’excellent déroulement de ces rencontres régionales au sujet de thèmes si importants, dans le cadre de la concrétisation de l’intégration politique et économique de notre continent.Il s’agit de fructueux débats et de propositions constructives en faveur de l’instauration d’une réelle démocratie dans notre continent, aboutissant sans aucun doute à une gestion régie par une bonne gouvernance, à travers l’adoption et l’application des dispositions de la Charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance.Monsieur le Président,Pour achever le cycle de ces rencontres, comme prévues avant la fin de l’année en cours, je félicite la programmation de la tenue des deux rencontres dans les deux régions restantes, à savoir l’Afrique du Nord et l’Afrique de l’Ouest.Dans ce cadre, et en tant que députée venant du parlement algérien, je tiens à signaler que notre pays a été à l’avant-garde dans le domaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance. A cet égard, je rappelle que notre pays a dépassé la crise politique depuis 1995 avec des élections présidentielles plurielles, et depuis 1997, date à partir de laquelle une importante loi cadre régit le déroulement des élections démocratiques et transparentes.En effet, depuis cette date, et à ce jour, dans le strict respect des dispositions contenues dans notre Constitution et inscrites dans ladite loi électorale, la Charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance, soumise à débat aujourd’hui, est venue réconforter notre option anticipée dans ce domaine; ainsi, et depuis cette date, il a été mis fin à toute crise politique inhérent aux élections transparentes dans le domaine de la bonne gouvernance et de la gestion des institutions à tous les niveaux, à savoir les élections locales et législatives en 1997, l’élection présidentielle en 1999 et, depuis, le processus démocratique continue jusqu’à ce jour.De ce fait, Monsieur le Président, l’on peut constater, dans ce cadre, l’excellent rapport fait par le MAEP en guise d’évaluation de la gestion politique et administrative de l’Algérie qui a été soumise à un débat général dans cet hémicycle et en présence du ministre représentant l’Etat Algérien.Je vous réitère, Monsieur le Président, mon soutien pour toutes les actions que vous entreprenez dans le sens de rehausser le prestige de notre institution.Je vous remercie de votre attention.HON. MASEBO TEMBO SYLVIA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you Mr. President. Mr. President, I just want first of all to commend the presenter on the promotion for the ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, and also to say that as a Member of the SADC, the Southern African Region, we had the privilege of getting more information on this subject matter at the Victoria falls workshop. And also to say Mr. President that this presentation has really opened us up as Members of Parliament and also just to commend the UNDP Representative who has made this presentation and to say that after the SADC workshop, a number of us who returned home did try to get in touch with our governments, in particular, our Ministers of Justice and Ministers of Foreign Affairs to begin to advocate for the ratification of this important Charter. I would like to say that Zambia is currently in the process of ratifying this Charter.Your Excellency, I also wanted to mention that whilst most of our countries in the continent and indeed in the region, have in their current laws, and are implementing some of the issues that are articulated in the Charter, I can safely say that there is still much more that needs to be done. The process of ratification is not in itself an end, but domesticating and ensuring that the application of this Charter gets down to the grassroots level is also important. I really feel that as Members of Parliament and Members of this PAP, we have a big role to ensure that the people on the ground begin to understand and appreciate what this Charter all about. To that extent, I would like to thank the presenter because he has equipped us with that knowledge, by giving us the background objectives and the scope of this Charter, so that when we get back to our countries, we can begin to articulate the issues that are in this Charter.Just as the presenter Mr. President has said that for the AU, democracy is a must. I think for us as PAP, this Charter must be a must - in terms of ensuring that it is ratified and applied in our various countries, and indeed in the whole continent. As I earlier said Mr. President, whilst in agreement that most of our countries are trying to live up to the expectations of this Charter, it would still be fair and right for me to say that we still have problems even in countries where we have Electoral Commissions that have been established, and are seen to be independent. There are still problems in terms of accepting the results of the elections that normally take place in our continent. We still have a problem in terms of gender imbalances in our continent. We still have situations where when a women is being appointed, you have phrases like; we are looking for quality women to appoint or we don’t have enough quality women to appoint, and yet when appointments are being done to our male counterparts, those adjectives are not put in place. And we see many of our countries, men in positions but cannot perform, and women being left behind. And even here at PAP sometimes we hear that it is difficult to find women, that women did not participate. I think that there is need for affirmative action to ensure that women become equal partners in national development.The issue of popular participation is still an issue, it is still a challenge and I think that there is need for us to ensure that power is decentralized or is devolved to the grassroots so that our people fully participate. There is cosmetic citizen participation in many of our countries today Mr. President; and I think that we need to learn best practices from our colleagues or from within our continent in areas of how best our people can fully participate. Not the cosmetic participation that we see, especially in the area of gender participation and of the vulnerable people.Mr. President, lastly, I just want to say that this issue is a big challenge for us and for your leadership and the Bureau. But I have confidence that with you at the helm of PAP, we shall indeed get all the necessary or the number of the countries that are required in order for the Charter to become enforceable. Because without the full ratification of the required number, then it means that we will be going many, many years backwards in our endeavour to ensure that there is equal participation, fair elections and that democracy is entrenched.I thank you Mr. President.HON. VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président. Vous voyez, je tâtonne. Heureusement qu’il y a le viceprésident qui est à mes côtés et qui m’aide.Je constate, Monsieur le Président, que c’est la journée des femmes, car ce matin, il y a déjà trois femmes qui ont pris la parole. C’est une véritable joie, pour moi.Monsieur le Président,J’ai écouté religieusement notre présentateur, parce qu’il a parlé d’or. Il n’a fait que confirmer, en ce qui me concerne, nos certitudes et nos croyances, à savoir que les prix des bottes des militaires doivent s’arracher dans les casernes. Ils doivent rester au camp. Et, les mercenaires, non plus, ne doivent plus venir s’immiscer dans les affaires d’un Gouvernement qui a été légalement et démocratiquement élu.Je voudrais dire ici, ce qu’il en est, Monsieur le Président, d’un Gouvernement ou d’un Président qui a été démocratiquement élu et qui passe son temps à menacer sa population, à la bousiller, à cogner sur les parlementaires et à vouloir mettre son pays à feu et à sang. Par rapport à cette situation, que dit la Charte? Est-ce qu’elle ne parle pas de cela? Car, mon Président qui a été élu lors du changement, à qui j’ai donné mes voix et les voix de mon parti qui est la Renaissance du Bénin, au premier tour, a eu 35%, et au second tour, 75%. C’était du jamais vu, parce que même le Président SOGLO, ni le Président Mathieu KEREKOU n’ont pas atteint ce score. Il l’a eu, parce que lors du changement, nous y avons effectivement cru. Mais, au bout de 5 ans, nous n’avons rien vu, pas de changement, nous sommes tombés de Charybde en Scylla.Monsieur le Président,Quand le monsieur a parlé de démocratie, j’ai compris que la démocratie, c’est le fait de rechercher le bien-être de sa population. Notre Président, lui, passe son temps en hélicoptère. Comme disent les militaires, « le terrain commande ». Comment peut-il savoir ce qui se passe dans le pays, Monsieur le Président, mes chers collègues, s’il ne descend pas pour voir dans quel état sont les routes, dans quel état sont les populations? Et, au Bénin aujourd’hui, il y a des gens qui n’ont plus qu’un repas par jour. Monsieur le Président, c’est la réalité et je n’invente rien, car Madame Rosine VIEYRA SOGLO est peut-être pire que la femme de Socrate, mais elle ne raconte jamais d’histoires et ne ment jamais.Si j’ai dit cela, c’est parce que le Président YAYI BONI a dit, chez moi, dans mon salon, qu’il allait tous nous bousiller, cogner sur les parlementaires et mettre le pays à feu et à sang, parce que nous parlons d’un gigantesque scandale qui s’appelle UCC qui a mis un milliard de gens par terre. ‘Les petites gens de l’économie’, voilà ce qu’il m’a répondu.Alors, est-ce que notre Charte parle de cela? Moi, si je suis venue au PAP, aujourd’hui, dans l’état où je suis, c’est pour parler de cela, pour que vous l’appreniez, pour que chacun d’entre vous, en rentrant chez lui, puisse dire: « Voilà ce qui se passe au Bénin; le Bénin, le Dahomey, le magnifique Dahomey, voilà ce qui s’y passe, aujourd’hui!Je crois qu’il faut déjà que je m’arrête, parce que je commence à m’énerver, et comme disent mes petits-enfants: « Grand-mère, tu dois pouvoir te calmer!». Alors, je vous remercie, mes chers collègues. Monsieur le Président, je vous remercie pour m’avoir donné la parole.(Applaudissements)HON. ALI BAHARI [KENYA]:Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity. I want to start by appreciating the presenter, Dr. Khabele, for his very well educative presentation. I also want to thank the Bureau of the PAP and the President for allowing Dr. Khabele to come and present to the Pan-African Parliament, which is a continental institution.Mr. President, I think the topic of today is very vital. It is also good that the Pan-African Parliament has been given the responsibility to popularize this Charter, which African countries are very reluctant to ratify as it has been confirmed. Mr. President, I think it is time that we held these countries accountable as part of our role to ensure that the role of oversight is carried out.Mr. President, if you look at any of the Republics in Africa, they are all "democratic" as it were. You will hear the Democratic Republic of A to Z, yet Mr. President, the democratic culture is absent. So the issue is not about democracy; everybody claims to be democratic. The issue is about the practice and the democratic culture that ought to be enshrined in our Constitutions and in our day to day activities.Mr. President, I am happy that the presenter mentioned the issue of professionalism in the Civil Service and in the military. We should be asking ourselves, in the first instance; at is the basis of democratic practice? And one of the strong foundations of democratic practice is the Constitution of a country when the Constitution of a country fails you, then you can be rest assured that the country has failed.I want to give an example of my own country, Kenya, where we went through an election that was not independent, and I must say that it was not independent and it actually derailed us from the democratic process that we had enjoyed for a long time. It is only recently that Kenya went through a constitutional amendment or reconstruction of a Constitution through popular participation because we inherited the Constitution that we have used until July last year from the colonial masters. It was negotiated in Lancaster and the participation of our people was hardly there. It is only through this Constitution where people participated from the grassroots - the common person - that we can now feel that actually, we now have a Constitution. Because I now do realize and most Kenyans wonder, "How did we even survive all a long, yet we comforted ourselves that we had a good Constitution?" I can assure you that 99 percent of the countries in Africa are still in that deceptive zone. We better get out of it; we better move out, involve our people in the Constitution making process and do so in a democratic manner that is not dictated by the elite. We do not want to see the Constitutions crafted by the elite of a country for themselves in order to continue staying in power. It is high time- (Applause) - that the people themselves are involved to the end. Mr. President, those are some of the signs that we need to review the constitutional dispensation before it fails us.The next one is the issue of "presidentialism", and I want to note that perhaps the presenter did not mention this and I want him to dwell on it. Where the president is ‘god-given’ that he is always referred to, where all the universities are named after the President, all the streets are named after the President, everything is the President. He is the one who gives and takes it away. Where does that kind of power come from? It is high time we got out of that and diffused these powers to the grassroots, to the regions, to the institutions.Mr. President, as Members, let us look at our own countries and then evaluate our countries along these lines? How strong is the President’s power? If everybody has to pledge loyalty to the President to survive and that is where we were, then you are in trouble, I can assure you.I remember a time when every Friday, Members of Parliament had to visit State House to be facilitated. Today in Kenya, even if you get a card to go to State House, you do not go. Nobody goes even when the cards are available because you do not need it. You have to set up your structure in such a manner that do not need that institution for life to go on.Mr. President, one of the indicators of "presidentialism" is where the term of the president is unlimited. Why should the term of anybody be unlimited? Are there no good people? And it creates a crisis where either military coups come in, detentions, and all sorts of unconstitutional seizure of power. Mr. President, I believe that in a democratic set-up, there must be a limit to the terms of the President.Mr. President, the other issue is the issue of Independent Electoral Commissions, which the presenter mentioned. How independent are the independent electoral commissions? In Kenya it is Parliament which interviews the commissioners. It is Parliament, representing its different shades of opinion which approves the Commissioners.I know in 2006, I was on a parliamentary mission in Namibia and we were discussing our Electoral Commission. I remember having a heated debate with some of our colleagues and that debate ended up where we were when we had the electoral violence because it was the President who unilaterally appointed the Electoral Commission then. We have now moved from that situation and we have an Electoral Commission affirmed by Parliament. It is properly vetted and everybody has confidence in it. You cannot expect to have a referee who is also biased and appointed by one person in the name of the President, who is also a competitor.Mr. President, I want to come to the issue of-THE PRESIDENT:Can you conclude Honorable Bahari.HON. ALI BAHARI [KENYA]:Mr. President, I want to conclude by saying that ultimately, service delivery is a must so that people can have the right to change governments at any time when services are not delivered to them. Thank you Mr. President.HON. NJIKELANA SISA JAMES [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you, Mr. President. Today is an inspiring day because I regard the fact that we are discussing and debating the African Charter as a test case for the Pan-African Parliament, the extent to which it can be effective in realizing its mandate as it has been given by the African Union Assembly. I trust and hope all of us here will ensure that we share that with our colleagues back in our various countries, this challenge of a test case, as to the effectiveness of this august House in ensuring that instruments that have been adopted by the African Union to ensure a better Africa, are truly realized.Mr. President, can I just share a few things with this august House regarding this Charter? The first one is that whilst I applaud Mr. Matlosa’s presentation, I feel strongly that he should have emphasized the cardinal importance of promoting and domestication of the Charter. Maybe because he is not an Honourable Member of Parliament, he appeared to be a bit diplomatic on that. But it is very important for us to understand that the world at large is littered with similar instruments, but the extent to which they have been implemented and realized in each country, not only in Africa, but all over, is one that is highly questionable. Yes, at times some of these instruments, the charters, treaties and protocols etc, have been implemented, but at times partially implemented and at times, as hon. Bahari has just said, have been undermined.Hence, also, it is important that I make this appeal to all Members here. If they commit themselves to take the Charter back to their countries, promote and domesticate it, it is equally important that down the line there is feedback to this August House, Mr. President. We need to share experiences in future as to the extent to which we have been able to go beyond mere ratification of the Charter, but also share to what extent have you been able to domesticate the Charter in our various countries.The same applies to the linkage with the APRM, the African Peer Review Mechanism. I maintain strongly that in our induction with the other organs of the African Union, we should make sure that the implementation, monitoring of domestication of this Charter should form, amongst other things, the link with the APRM. I think that will help a lot as well.Lastly, Chair, the significance of the role of Parliaments as well as civil society organizations has to be emphasized once again. I am aware Mr. Matlosa had raised this, but I feel that let me reemphasize it. If we want to deepen democracy and ensure that our people whom we represent are a part of the determination of their own destinies amongst other things, we should make sure that we mobilize them together with all our member parliamentarians back at home, to be part of the drive to promote this Charter. I thank you, Mr. President.HON. DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:Thank you Mr. President. Although 3 minutes is rather tight, I would like to thank the Fourth Vice President for the good presentation, and also thank the Representative from UNDP.First of all, on ratification, I want to acknowledge the good work of PAP under your leadership for organizing those seminars. But before you even get to West Africa, I want to inform you of the impact of PAP in the ratification of this Charter by Ghana.The leader of Ghana’s delegation to this Parliament is the First Deputy Speaker and when he went back to Ghana, he advocated. He was in the chair on the day when Parliament was approving and the rest of us Members of PAP helped from the Chamber. So, I want to congratulate you and say that the ratification for Ghana, part of the credit comes to your advocacy and the impact from PAP. I also want to tell you that whilst we welcome the Executive Council’s mandate that we should ensure that this Charter becomes a reality, we should send it back to the AU in respect of countries where the Executive has the exclusive power to ratify. It is our duty, to let the Heads of those countries know that we are depending on them to get the Charter ratified.It is only in the cases of those countries where Parliament should ratify that we will continue with the seminars. But let them understand that for those countries where the Executive has a control, we wish to send a message to them that they should ratify.I agree with Dr. Matlosa that there was a paradigm shift from OAU to AU in that we now look inside the countries, we don’t overemphasize sovereignty. But there was another paradigm shift which we should take note of. And that is the paradigm shift of what democracy is. What are the elements of that? You would recall that the founding fathers of OAU, most of them had one party Governments, and in fact it became the fashion after 1963. But now political pluralism is one of the paradigm shifts in this whole Charter. Indeed we have now come to what Winston Churchill once said; that multiparty democracy is the worst form of government except all forms of government which have been tried. In other words, it is the best form of government. What is democracy? What are the elements? First of all, Executive power must have limits. (Laughter) Don’t ordain presidents for life; that cannot be part of a democracy. There must be multiparty, there must be independent Judiciary, there must be an independent Electoral Commission. Sometimes I hear people talk of Electoral Commissioners as weak and easily manipulated, I wonder. In Ghana the Electoral Commissioner, you need to know him, he is as hard as rock and he doesn’t listen to anybody. So, these are the elements that we should take. What is democracy?Now, I come to a point that we are all running away from. He says that unconstitutional change is the heart. I want to say that in our representation of the majority of Africa is the heart. Now, what do I mean? Over 51 percent of the population of Africa is women. Are they represented? They are not represented. And if we don’t take care of that, you cannot have representative governments that represent less than 50 percent of the population, simple! You don’t even have to go to gender. It has to do with statistics. So, if you go ahead and say, let’s change by a free and fair election. As long as over 51 percent are not represented, there is no representation. Yes, there was 100 percent representation in the Greek city states of Athens and Sparta, but since here we have come to representive government, women must be represented. (Applause) Because of your 3 minutes, I have to wind up. (Laughter)Finally, let’s deal with unconstitutional changes of government. Yes, coups we know, but what is more dangerous is the manipulation by people in power. We saw what happened in Niger, where they organized a referendum to get approval to dissolve Parliament. Straight away, it is an illegal referendum because parliament, to represent the people is part of the essential composition of a democratic government. And that is what we should take note of. We want to take precedence, they don’t want to hand over power and they are finding ways of staying in power. So, Mr. President, well we obey your instructions and to say that Pan African Parliament has role to play and we are already showing it and that is why I want to remind you of the fact that we think that we cannot do things jointly with the Executive, the Assembly. So, we should do it independently.Thank you Mr. President. (Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Dans le cadre de la promotion du genre et pour donner la place qu’il faut à la femme, nous devons saluer la République du Sénégal qui a pris une loi qui impose la parité à l’ensemble des élections aussi bien législatives que locales. Cela mérite des applaudissements.(Applaudissements).HON. SUAD EL FATEH EL BADAOUI [SUDAN]:بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيمThank you very much Mr. President. I thank all the speakers for their valuable talks.I have five points to make very quickly. The first point is about Constitutionalism. I think this is a very important way of combating corruption in Africa because corruption is the cancer that is eating up the rights of people.My second point is that the prevalence of democracy results in equality and we need equality between people. And the criteria of equality are qualifications. May be I will be different a bit from people who are selling gender. I think qualifications are the most important criteria in putting people in important places, important responsibilities, not only the gender. So, our work and our task are to go on very zealously to train women to become qualified to take any position. Although this is my opinion, back in Sudan, they have passed a law giving women 25 percent of the seats of the Parliament, now 1/4 of the Parliament of the Sudan are women.Third, the Civil Service is one of the main problems of our Continent. So, good governance is the only practical way to establish a transparent, clean, professional service to the masses of the people. Nobody cares about the people and nobody care about the masses. People care about positions and about securing places and chairs in the Governments and in the Civil Service. I think this Charter will help us a lot to correct ourselves.My forth point is what the Minister of Foreign Affairs of South Africa earlier was talking about arranged and holding elections. And here I must point something very important and that is some of the states of Africa carry an elections under arms, if you dare to disturb their arrangements they arrest you, imprison you and even kill you backed by strong media and big powers behind them, they get away with it. What are we going to do about this? I am putting this question to the Honorable Members, to the gentlemen who are talking to us now about governance and good elections and democracy in Africa. I say this because I feel we Africans are very good planners but when it comes to implementation and action, we find ourselves powerless. We just talk and talk, plan and plan but when it comes to implementation we are very weak.My last point Mr. President is the ratification of this Charter. It is very important that this Charter should be ratified, domesticated and applied. And we must find practical and applicable ways to make it work. This is not the task of PAP and its Bureau; it is the task of PAP to arrange and to plan ways and means through its Members to go out to their Parliaments and to advocate and popularized the ratification of this Charter. Thank you.HON. ABDUL-RASHID PELPUO [GHANA]:Thank you Mr. Speaker, I also rise to contribute on this very important presentation made by Dr Matlosa and wish to say that this is a very critical moment for Africa; to define herself and prove to the whole world that when we are talking about uniting ourselves and defining for ourselves the principles that bind us, we are serious about it.Mr. President, the presenter started by talking about migration from the OAU to the AU, from the culture of non interference to the culture of non-indifference, which he called a paradigm shift. This paradigm shift he has talked about cannot be said only with our minds but without our hearts as well. Mr. President the world is looking at us. I am scandalized to think that we have set ourselves the target of uniting ourselves, the target of defining for ourselves principles and ideas that will enable Africa to move herself from one point to the other without adhering to the same principles we have set ourselves. To think that only seven countries have agreed to ratify this treaty is scandalous, it is important for us all in PAP and elsewhere to advocate and ensure that our countries do adhere to these principles and do ratify this Charter.Mr. President, in order to run a successful statecraft, we must ensure that we stay united and abide with the principles that will unite us. A successful state craft can only be successful in a community of nations if Africa is serious with herself. I sometimes wonder whether in the course of history all the pain we have come through to find unity in ourselves; from the OAU right up to the AU, from the struggle against slavery to the struggle against colonialism until we find ourselves free to work together, whether we are serious with everything we do; whether the democracy we are now practicing, we are serious with it. Because if we are serious about democracy and we advocate it as the only course of action in governance, why on earth are we not ratifying the very basic principles that define our democracy? Mr. Speaker, I want to deplore the attitudes of African people and say that we must never go back to find ourselves using coup d’états to solve our problems, when famine, civil wars and destruction define our various countries. We have to move forward and we must as a people, stop the God-like reverence to our leaders and pretend that they are people who cannot be taken away from leadership, even if it is glaringly clear that other people can do exactly what they are doing.Mr. Speaker, in order to conclude, I want to say that we have a duty, and the duty is very straight forward and simple. It is that we have to recognize and know ourselves. We have to soul search ourselves and know that Africa has one way open to her, to unite and forge ahead and to find unity in our development.Thank you very much.HON. MABILETSA ISAAC STEPHEN [BOTSWANA]:Thank you Mr. President. I think this is my second privilege to listen to a presentation by Dr. Matlosa, who is so eloquent and very thought provoking. But I want to say to him, Dr. Matlosa, the context and the principles of the Charter are clear and unambiguous and are very attractive to one’s mind. But what I really wish you to take note of is that, when you speak to Members of PAP, you are speaking to the converted. If the requirement to ratify the Charter was through PAP, I can tell you by now, the ratification could have been over-subscribed. But the problem basically is really with men at the top, the men who acceded to the Charter. Sometimes I doubt if all or some of them understood what they were acceding to, because if they did, we wouldn’t be talking about undersubscribed ratification in the way that it has been articulated to us. Therefore, I think the real challenge is with our Heads of State.The reason why I am saying you are speaking to the converted is that; really the people that understand democracy most are Members of Parliament. I think in this House there may be so many of us who have tested both sides of being a Parliamentarian. But there is first of all some who will be in the House like me, I have lost, I know the pain of losing the elections. Some in this House have won. They know the beauty of winning the elections. You know, this is really where the problem stands, and in our history, we have never heard at any stage where a Member of Parliament has staged a coup d’état or a Member of Parliament refusing to vacate his or her seat. This is very important. (Laughter)Mr. President, you know we really have a big challenge; in particular I want to acquaint my remarks with those of the Member from Kenya on the ‘presidentialism’. This is where basically the problem lies. What I have observed is that democracy and elections are just used by some leaders as a license to become oppressors and dictators themselves. We have to check on this Mr. President.I know my time is running up, but if you allow me to continue with this please. First of all the manipulation start from the political party level, where Members hope to be rewarded because they are supporting one and the same President, through and through. Now we have some Presidents in African who are life Presidents without declaring themselves as such. I thank you.HON. KANDEH MAMMA [GAMBIA]:Thank you very much, hon. President for giving me this opportunity. I also want to join my colleagues in thanking the presenter for a well presented document this morning. Anyway, many of the issues I want to raise have already been said by colleagues, and I do not want to repeat them, but, my contribution is going to be in the form of questions.The first thing is, we are talking about democracy, and the presenter mentioned that we cannot have democracy in the absence of peace and stability. But how do we achieve peace and stability in our continent?The AU position on the unconstitutional change of government, the coup d’états that are taking place in Africa; many of the times it is the very people, the AU people, who will end up negotiating with those rebels or those who launch the coup d’état. So, automatically you are encouraging somebody that you can make a coup d’état and then we will end up negotiating with you. You even go for elections and that is what the foreign minister meant when she said that there is going to be an organized election and this is happening still. What is the AU position? Are we really serious? That is number 1.Number 2, the unconstitutional change of Government and he mentioned five points. But my question is; how do we call a government that is changing their Constitution to suit their needs because they do not want to hand over power? How do we call that? What is the AU position on that?The third one is, how are we going to achieve peace and stability in our continent? When people go to elections, they make long queues to vote for their candidate of choice and at the end of the day this candidate or the winner is not known, so they end up negotiating between the two candidates? For example what happened in Kenya when hundreds of people were killed and thousands were displaced? Who won the election?Mr. President, I have a last question, please. The other issue is; we should do as much as possible to do away with the interference of the outside world when it comes to our peace and stability. The most confusing factor during the elections in Zimbabwe was the media. The media started announcing the results when the Independent Electoral Commission had not announced their results. They were giving different results from 63 percent, then 51 percent YOU name it. Where did they get those results? And these are issues that cannot bring peace and stability in our continent. I thank you Mr. President.HON. KANE BOCAR SADIKH [SENEGAL]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Monsieur le Président,Je joins ma voix à celles de mes prédécesseurs pour féliciter le représentant du PNUD et sa hiérarchie, ainsi que le 4e Vice-président, pour leurs interventions à la fois claires et brillantes.Monsieur le Président,Je vais axer mon intervention sur le chapitre 9 de la Charte. Le chapitre 9 parle de la gouvernance économique et sociale. Il y a une de mes collègues qui a évoqué tout à l’heure ce chapitre, pour parler de la décentralisation, de la lutte contre la pauvreté, pour ne pas seulement se focaliser sur les élections. On peut avoir de très beaux textes qui organisent les élections et gagner démocratiquement des élections mais, si à la pratique, on se rend compte que les pays ne décentralisent pas cette démocratie au plan économique et social, il y aura toujours des problèmes, dans les pays.L’Assemblée générale des Nations unies s’est terminée le 22 septembre. Elle a travaillé sur les OMD et force est de reconnaître aujourd’hui que l’OMD1 qui lutte contre la pauvreté est loin d’être atteint dans nos pays. Je pense que, fondamentalement, cette Charte est très bonne. Si on peut parler de valeurs partagées au niveau universel, c’est bien cette Charte-là. Mais, nous, pays africains, ne nous laissons pas entraîner par des élections tout simplement. Regardons dans la Charte les dispositions qui lutteront effectivement contre la pauvreté, des dispositions qui décentraliseront le pouvoir, des dispositions qui amèneront à décentraliser les richesses, pour qu’il y ait un partage équitable de celles-ci dans tous les pays!Fondamentalement, dans les pays africains, les peuples souffrent. Je ne suis pas d’accord avec mon collègue qui a parlé, tout à l’heure, pour faire l’éloge des députés. Les députés sont l’émanation du peuple et la plupart des députés ne s’occupent que de leurs poches et de leur réélection. En général, il y a une complicité non dite entre les chefs d’Etat qui veulent s’installer ad vitam aeternam au pouvoir et les parlements, puisque le changement des dispositions dans les Constitutions amène le pouvoir à s’éterniser. Qui les vote? Ce sont nos parlements nationaux. C’est nous qui les votons!Qu’est-ce qui se passe? Même si, au fond de nous-mêmes, nous ne sommes pas partisans de ces changements mais, la dynamique de groupe et la hantise de perdre son poste nous amène à voter! Disons les choses telles quelles!C’est la raison pour laquelle j’ai dit que, pour changer les choses, il faut qu’on soit réaliste; il ne faut pas rêver. Travaillons sur les conditions, qui feront que les Africains changent de niveau de vie!Aujourd’hui, il y a des chiffres au niveau international qui prouvent - ce sont les chiffres de 2006 - que l’Afrique transfert 501 milliards de dollars, par année, dans les banques et les multinationales du nord, alors que l’aide publique au développement n’est que de 81 milliards de dollars. Faites la différence et vous vous rendrez compte que l’Afrique travaille pour l’Europe, pour le nord et que nous ne pourrons pas nous développer, si nous ne réfléchissons pas par rapport à ces situations qui sont là et qui appauvrissent davantage l’Afrique. C’est cela la réalité.Nos matières premières ont été dévaluées et cela nous revient avec des valeurs ajoutées inqualifiable! Ce qui fait que nous plongeons toujours dans la pauvreté. Aujourd’hui, qu’on le veuille ou non, l’Afrique, globalement, a sombré davantage dans la pauvreté et c’est là où se situe le débat. Le débat ne se situe pas seulement au niveau des élections. On peut avoir des élections très bonnes, parfaites, transparentes mais qu’en est-il du Sénégalais lambda qui souffre de la pauvreté, qui ne peut même pas avoir un dollar par jour, qui ne peut pas se soigner, qui ne peut pas s’éduquer?Je vous remercie.HON. MATAMISA ERIMENZIAH EDITOR [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Mr. President, let me congratulate you and the PAP bureau on the move to popularize the African Charter on democracy elections and governance. Also I would like to congratulate Dr Matlosa on his eloquent presentation. Mr. President, the popularization of the protocol on democracy elections and governance has been done and it is continuing in the remaining regions. To those that have been lobbied by PAP, PAP expects speedy ratification followed by domestication. Worth of note is the lack of urgency to ratify in some of our African nations. Ratification, Mr. President means committing oneself to the declaration. Article 4 states clearly that: "state parties shall commit themselves to promote democracy, the principle of rule of law and human rights".Mr. President, this is the core and phrase that affects the undemocratic governments so much that they cannot ratify in time. Yes, Mr. President, Africa is independent from colonization, yet some African Nations still yearn for peace. The promotion of best practices in the conduct of elections will ensure smooth transfer of power, but Mr. President, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I note with concern that both AU and SADC have failed to deal with the Zimbabwean situation decisively. It is my only hope that ratification of the Charter will ensure true democracy in all African countries and ultimate peace in Zimbabwe. The issue of comradeship amongst African leaders poses challenges to the democratic changes that the Charter is trying to usher in. There has been quiet diplomacy from member states towards Zimbabwe’s situation resulting in total collapse of the institutions and systems of governance.Mr. President, the Constitution making process that is underway in Zimbabwe now is marred with victimization and intimidation. A few people move from one centre to another to speak on behalf of the people of that place, and giving the information that they want included in the Constitution. The resultant document will be a compromise between the main political parties and it is heavily politicized. Is that democracy? Where is the democracy Mr. President?May I say that there is need now than ever before for AU member states to ratify the Charter after which a quick implementation will be expected.I thank you Mr President.HON MBAH NDAM JOSEPH [CAMEROON]:Thank you Mr. President. I come from Cameroon and from the Central African Sub Region.Mr. President, I want to start by lauding your efforts to see to it that this Charter is ratified and I thank whole-heartedly the presenters.I will dwell on three issues because they concern my sub-region, which was quoted as one of the very few from which no country has yet ratified the Charter.Mr. President, first and foremost it is the lack of political will. I say there is lack of political will in ratifying this Charter because 36 of the 53 countries have signed and in all the methods of ratification, be it by the administration of government or by Parliament, one thing stands clear. It is the Executive that either ratifies or sends the Act to Parliament for ratification. So, whichever way the onus is on the Heads of State to cause these Acts to be ratified. Let us be clear. And most of the Heads of States do not want the Act to be ratified.The excuse by my learned, Dr. Khabele Matlosa, who presented, that there were procedural complexities. It is not true. If there is a political will, they will be ratified either by the government itself or it is actually sent to Parliament, the Parliaments, which are in the majority government oriented. The ratifications will come through because we Parliamentarians here are ready to ratify and so too in every country. So, there is lack of political will.Secondly, Mr. President, we can understand why for most of our countries in the central region, the ratification is not forthcoming. It is a fact today that most of our countries have manipulated the Constitutions in violation of the content of this Act, in order for the Heads of State to remain in the saddles. I can prove my own country as a very critical and a very recent example. Yours too, and elections are around the corner. So what do we do as Parliamentarians when we discover that towards the end of the mandate, the last mandate of a Head of State, forces through Parliament, an amendment which now gives him room to stand for the election again?Now if the Pan African Parliament was to have the powers, which we are talking about, we would perhaps be able to refuse even to send election observers. Now, we have no power even to send election observers.Well, now I jump to the AU itself, which is of course exclusively made up of the very Heads of States, I guess who were complaining. So, what do we do in that circumstance? In Chad where the elections are around the corner, the constitution has been manipulated.In the 1990’s when we surged into multipartyism, there were these very last clauses in all the Constitutions limiting the terms. And as the time went by, we have gradually wound back the clock and every President does that when his last mandate is about to come to an end. So, what are we talking about? Why are we deceiving ourselves and asking for corridor lobbying, lobbying for the Charter to be ratified when we know the facts are clear before us? As Parliament, I think we should take a common resolution in PAP Mr. President. And this also goes to those of our membership who are participating in the review of the protocol that these issues must be taken into account, otherwise our wings will be clipped.Thank you very much.HON. NJOBVUYALEMA JOSEPH [MALAWI]:Thank you very much Hon. President for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this important subject matter. In the first place, let me take advantage of this to thank our Vice President for ably organizing the seminar which was held in Victoria Falls. We would like to thank him very much. He has shown that he is one of us and that he is part of us. Our rights and traditions and liberties find their qualities in his presence as our Vice President. So, I want to thank him very much.Hon. President, the issue of the Charter, I am looking at it as a document which grants rights, privileges and ownership to citizens of the country in terms of governance or democratic elections and so forth. But, once those rights are granted what happens in times of abuse? That is my main concern? What happens if the rights are wrongfully used? What is the redress methodology? What would be the remedy? How can that be put right? For example, if someone has formed an unconstitutional government, how can that be put right? What does the Charter say, in other words?The Charter says; that particular country will be suspended as a member of AU. But what does that put right? Is that an adequate remedy in terms of governance? What this means is that, that particular person or that particular group of people who have formed an unconstitutional government will continue running their affairs in their own country much as they are not members of AU. That will not change anything at the member state level. They will continue running the country. They will continue forming a cabinet. They will continue running their parliament. They will continue exercising authority in terms of their territorial borders. So, what does that change? How does that help the people of the country? As a matter of fact, hon. President, it is the people of that country who suffer. I mean merely suspending a country from being a member of AU is not an adequate solution.My view is, why don’t we say, "Alright here is a government which has been unconstitutionally formed. What should we do?" Let the government cease operating so that AU should intervene and start all over, forming a government, giving a second chance to the people who are interested - who are aspiring to become a government in that country. Let everything else stop; let AU start everything from a scratch so that- (Interruption)- hon. President let me just finish this particular issueso that that particular country should be given an opportunity to form a constitutional government. Because issues like, as the Charter provides that, "Countries should ensure fair and equitable access to public resources by parties and candidates contesting in elections." This is not happening in our countries and the fact that it is not happening, means that most Governments have been unconstitutionally formed and that is because there is no appropriate punishment. There is no appropriate remedy.So, my view is that the punishment must be revisited. Thank you Hon. President.MHE. MUNGARO GEDEON [KENYA]:Ahsante Mheshimiwa Rais. Kwanza, napenda kuchukua fursa hii kumshukuru Dkt. Matlosa kwa hotuba yake ambayo ametoa. Hotuba yake imekuwa ni mwongozo...THE PRESIDENT:Interpretation?MHE. MUNGARO GEDEON [KENYA]:Nitapata dakika yangu moja Mheshimiwa Rais?THE PRESIDENT:Wait.MHE. MUNGARO GEDEON [KENYA]:Nashukuru kwamba kila nikiongea Bunge hili husimama, nashukuru sana. (Kicheko)THE PRESIDENT:Wait. Now it is okay, Gedeon continues.MHE. MUNGARO GEDEON [KENYA]:Mheshimiwa Rais, ahsante. Nashukuru kwamba kila tukiongea Kiswahili lazima tusimamishe Bunge hili, nasikia raha sana.Mheshimiwa Rais, kwanza, napenda kumpongeza Dkt. Matlosa. Pili, napenda kusema kwamba kitu ambacho kimebaki kwa Afrika ni kuanza kufanya kazi kwa vitendo. Kila mara naona tunapongeza mikutano tuliyofanya na umuhimu wake lakini vitendo hakuna.Mheshimiwa Rais, kwa mfano katika Bunge hili nimeona bado sisi kama Bunge la Afrika tunategemea sana Jumuiya za Ulaya kutusaidia kifedha. Afrika haitaweza kubadilika kama hatutachukua jukumu kama viongozi, hatutachukua jukumu kama Afrika la kuondoa utegemezi. Afrika tuna rasilimali ya madini na watu ambayo inatuweza sisi kuweza kujitegemea. Hatuwezi kwenda kuomba pesa katika Jumuiya ya Ulaya halafu kesho tuseme Afrika hatutaki kuingiliwa na Jumuiya za Ulaya. Kwa hiyo, katika Itifaki hii au katika taratibu hizi za kubadilisha Afrika ni lazima kuwe na kipengele cha nchi kulazimishwa kutoa ushuru katika Bunge hili la Afrika ili liweze kujisimamia na kujiendesha bila kuombaomba katika nchi za nje.Mheshimiwa Rais, vilevile kama walivyotangulia kusema wenzangu, kuna umuhimu wa kuweka mikakati ya Kikatiba ili tuwe na mwelekeo katika uchaguzi, katika kudumisha haki za binadamu na mfano mkubwa sasa ni suala la Somalia. Nchi ya Somalia imekuwa na vita toka miaka ya tisini na bado tuna Jumuiya ya Afrika, je, Jumuiya ya Afrika imeshindwa kutatua tatizo la Somalia?Mheshimiwa Rais, kwa mfano juzi juzi, Rais wa Sudan Al-Bashir alipokuja Kenya, nchi zote duniani zilikuwa zinasema akamatwe. Nchi ya Sudan leo inataka kwenda kwenye uchaguzi wa Katiba, kielelezo cha Katiba, nafikiri ni wakati mzuri waungwe mkono, walazimishwe kwamba waweke Katiba ambayo itakuwa na mikakati ya kufanya uchaguzi huru na wenye amani kuliko kulazimisha Rais huyu akamatwe kwa sababu hiyo italeta vita katika nchi ya Sudan.Mheshimiwa Rais, je, ni mpaka lini Afrika tutakuwa tukipewa amri na nchi za nje? Nafikiri wakati sasa umefika tuweze kujitegemea. Nchi za Afrika zina rasilimali nyingi, zina pesa na uwezo wa kuweza kujitawala, lakini kama hatutatoka katika mfumo wa kila siku wa kuombaomba, tatukuwa hatuna amri na na uwezo wa kujitawala.Mheshimiwa Rais, kwa hiyo, ninapenda kuhimiza Wabunge katika Mabunge yao, wahakikishe kwamba wanahimiza nchi zao kuona umuhimu wa sisi kuweza kujisimamia kama jamii ya Afrika ili tuweze kuwa na uwezo wa kujitawala bila kupewa amri kutoka nchi nyingine.Mheshimiwa Rais, nashukuru kwa nafasi hii.THE PRESIDENT:Ahsante sana.HON. TAMBOURA ASCOFARE OULÉMATOU [MALI]:Je vous remercie, M. le Président. Je voudrais dire que, véritablement, le PAP est dans son rôle en initiant le plaidoyer pour accélérer la ratification de la Charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance.Je voudrais, à l’instar de mes prédécesseurs, féliciter le Président et les membres du Bureau pour les actes posés sur ce chantier combien important et les encourage à poursuivre. Cela a été dit également par ceux qui m’ont précédé, nos pays sont de vrais champions de la ratification mais, ce qui pose problème, c’est la mise en œuvre.Nous avons des instruments juridiques internationaux très importants qui ont été ratifiés par nos pays mais, qui sont restés sans application, je veux parler de la CEDEF (Convention pour l’Elimination des formes de Discrimination à l’Egard des Femmes) et du Protocole de Maputo entre autres. Et, ces textes, s’ils avaient été vraiment mis en œuvre, allaient apporter beaucoup de changements non seulement au plan démocratique, mais particulièrement, dans la situation de la femme, son implication dans la vie politique, économique, sociale et culturelle de nos pays.Je voudrais donc inviter notre Parlement, c'est-à- dire nous tous, particulièrement le Bureau du PAP, à s’impliquer davantage dans la mise en œuvre des instruments juridiques qui ont été ratifiés pour apporter plus de bonheur à nos populations.J’ai une question qui va peut- être déranger, mais des voix s’élèvent de plus en plus pour dire que la limitation des mandats est aussi antidémocratique. La question, je la pose au représentant du PNUD. Que pense-t-il de cette affirmation? On estime que la démocratie doit être vue à l’aune de nos cultures et que le mimétisme peut, peut-être nous conduire sur des chantiers dangereux.Je vous remercie.HON. HAJAIG FATIMA [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Mr. President. First of all I would like to emphasize the fact that I think the African Charter is a very important tool for Africa. In order to report back to this august House, my colleague has already stated that this Charter has been tabled to our Parliament on the 28th of September and by year end it will be ratified.Sir, I would like to tell this House that we do not foresee a problem to implement all the provisions of the Charter because all the provisions that are in this Charter exist and are already implemented according to our Constitution, our Bill of Rights and other legislation that we enjoy in South Africa.Sir, I would also like to emphasize the importance, I think Dr. Khabele Matlosa mentioned it, but I would like to emphasize the very important aspect of governments. It says very clearly in the Charter, government theme consists of three sub themes, which are political, economic and social governments. It further says that in order to advance those themes, state parties have to commit themselves to strengthening their capacity and legally recognize political parties to perform the core functions. That means in each Parliament, all political parties must be given an equal right, not always the ruling party. By the way I belong to the ruling party in my governmentSecondly, popular participation and partnership with Civil Society Organizations and of course a number of people mentioned amongst them Honourable Dery from Ghana, the full and active participation of women. You cannot exclude the majority, 51 to 52 percent of Africa’s human resources. It further says, decentralizing power to democratically elected local authorities as provided in National Laws. I think this is an important provision, Sir, because service delivery happens at the local level. And unless our structures at local level are strong and democratic, service delivery does not happen. And further on, we talk about the strong legal and justice systems. Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public services and combating corruption. We have that one.And then we are talking about harnessing the democratic values of traditional institutions. In Africa we have very strong traditional institutions. Some of their practices are very good and others are not very good. And I think it is about time that we look at our traditional institutions, accept and propagate the ones that are good and discard those that are not good. Further on it says, we have to implement the principles and values of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, NEPAD. The declaration on democracy, political, economic and corporate governance and where applicable and not only where applicable, but I think in all respects support the African peer review mechanism. It’s a very important mechanism to actually democratize and good governance in Africa. Then of course it goes on to promote peace, security and stability in all the countries and it goes on and on.Sir, I would like to just conclude by saying that member states have the responsibilities, we member states who are in Pan African Parliament; Parliamentarians have a responsibility that has been outlined. And also the responsibility of the AU itself; it has to develop benchmarks for implementation of the Charter. It must promote favourable conditions for democratic governments. It must ensure that all AU decisions on constitutional change are implemented and therefore, other organs of the AU must play their part in making this Charter a living document.Thank you, Sir.HON. MOHSNI TAÏEB [TUNISIA]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je remercie les deux orateurs pour leur présentation. La plupart des points ont été soulevés par mes collègues. Cependant, j’ai quelques observations à faire.Nous sommes en train de dire de la plupart des chefs d’Etats qui doivent décider de la transformation du PAP, de consultatif à législatif, qu’ils sont mal élus, ou qu’ils ont pris le pouvoir et s’en sont accaparé. Posons-nous la question: est-il temps de parler de cela?Je m’étonne de voir certains pays, considérés comme ayant fait beaucoup de pas dans la démocratie, ne pas ratifier, jusqu’à présent, la Charte. Je pense notamment au Sénégal, à la République Sud-africaine, à l’Algérie et la Tunisie, pour ne citer que ceux-là.La démocratie n’est pas seulement politique, elle est aussi sociale et économique. Si j’étais pauvre, je ne voudrais pour rien au monde vivre aux Etats- Unis d’Amérique, par exemple.L’Afrique est le continent du 3e millénaire avec ses richesses humaines et ses matières premières. Méfions-nous de la mainmise des pays développés sur nos ressources, et n’essayons pas d’éviter nos traditionnels ex-colonisateurs pour tomber dans les bras de la Chine. Il y a actuellement une bataille qui se profile entre la Chine et l’Occident concernant l’Afrique.Enfin, je demande à tous nos collègues d’essayer de faire ratifier cette Charte, le plus rapidement possible et nous aurons, après, tous les loisirs de débattre sur les moyens de faire respecter l’application de ses dispositions.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much. Hon. Members, I have finished my list. You made very important contributions; very important proposals for the promotion of the Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. However, there are very few questions and I call upon Dr. Khabele Matlosa briefly to respond to the questions.DR. KHABELE MATLOSA [UNDP]:Your Excellency, most of the inputs from the Honourable Members were very useful to the discussions. There are just a few questions that I need to clarify. Your Excellency, I should have started by indicating during my presentation, and I probably forgot to tell the august House that I am an African citizen and I come from Lesotho, a SADC country that has so far ratified the Charter. I have worked in Zimbabwe; I have worked in South Africa and now I am working in Ethiopia. So, I am from Ethiopia as it is.I was the lead author of the Charter, so that is why I am passionate about the Charter. Your Excellency the President, I am really very honoured to have been part of this interesting discussion and I am going to just react briefly to some of the questions that have been posed. There was a question posed by one of the Honourable Members on democracy being a culture. Therefore, it follows that if we are to succeed to bring democracy as a culture, we should link with other countries, it is true. Democracy is not an import; it is not and imported good that you can import from one country to use in another country. It is a process that is dependent on the context of each African country. So I agree with that. So, African culture must inform African democracy and I think that this also links to the last contribution from the Honourable Member from South Africa. That being the case therefore, our own African traditional institutions must find a role to play in democracy, so that our own democratic institutions are not left out of the democratization process.Mr. President, a very interesting point was raised by Honourable Joseph. Hon Joseph presented a critic of how the Charter hopes to deal with violations, whether in fact suspension is enough, while peoples of that country suffer under conditions of an unconstitutional change of government. Is it not possible, he suggest that an AU can form an interim government in such a country and then restore democracy and then through elections, a new government can come into being? Here, I think Mr. President we need to be a little carefully because, much as we talk about a paradigm shift from non interference to non indifference, the AU still respects fully the principle of sovereignty of the member states. So sovereignty is still a big issue in our countries. The only measures that are applied in case of unconstitutional change: the first one is suspension. That will be followed by sanctions or all forms of diplomatic embargo. So those are the only forms of sanctions. There has not been a situation where the AU actually takes over the reins of government in a given country primarily Mr. President, because of the principle of sovereignty. So that it is still an issue that we need to take notice of.Mr. President there were other questions as follows; the issue of post election violence in some of our countries, where the outcome is not known and then we have a power sharing arrangement. What does the AU do in such circumstances? I think an example was made of Kenya. Mr. President, under those circumstances, the AU simply assists with the mediation where circumstances allow. Mr. President, like in Kenya, a mediation team, which was led by the former Secretary General of the UN, Mr. Koffi Anaan was an AU sanctioned mediation. If parties in those countries agree on power sharing and they are convinced that this is the best route for the country, the AU does not have any other power, but to accept what the parties agree on and support power sharing arrangements as we know for sure in the case of Kenya and Zimbabwe, for example.Now the AU stance on changes of Constitution to prolong tenure; this is the most difficult part because the Charter was adopted in 2007 and Mr. President you will not believe me if I can tell you now that I can count beyond my five fingers on my one hand of countries that have already changed the Constitution to prolong tenure even after the Charter was adopted. I do not have to mention names, you know them. So, that is a problem that is still with us, yes it is easy to deal with them, but it is still proving difficult for AU to tackle the problem of manipulations of Constitutions to prolong tenure of a sitting head of state and government.On the stance to fraud elections, I think I have answered this in part to say that the AU does intervene on instances of elections causing violence and in fact right now, the AU has established through the Peace and Security Council the panel of the wise. That is the one now that is mandated to handle post election conflicts in our countries. There was a question from honouble Budau from Sudan regarding the gape - the point he was making was that Africans seemed to be good planners and bad implementers. All that I can say is to agree with him basically. It shows why there is a gap between the number of protocols and treaties that the AU has adopted up to now compared with their applications. That is why we are talking today about the ratification of the Charter because the Charter was adopted in 2007 and it is now signed by 36 AU member states and only 7 have ratified. This goes to show that we are good at signing up treaties and conventions, but very poor in implementing.The problem of ‘presidentialism’, Hon Bali from Kenya; in fact, I would even strengthen your point further to say it is not even ‘presidentialism’. We have a problem of ‘hyper-presidentialism’, where power is too centralized in the President and the President becomes the institution and the institutions of state become the President. Everything that happens inside and outside Parliament and in the public service, the President has to rubberstamp. Now, Mr. President, the only way to answer this is that the institutions of the state should be democratized. The institutions of the state, the executive and the legislature should be democratized to avoid a problem of strong men and weak states, which is an issue that Barak Obama raised during his state visit to Accra Ghana. In Africa, we still have two strong personalities, but very weak institutions. That is the problem, and if we do not rectify the problem Mr. President our democracy still remains in parallel.I think I agree with all the points that Hon. Silvia from Zambia raised and the other Honourable members of Parliament that raised those issues. With those remarks, Mr. President, I would like to thank you and the august House for this opportunity. Thank you very much.LE PRÉSIDENT:Nous avons reçu de l’honorable Taïeb Mohsni une contribution écrite qui sera introduite dans les minutes de notre plénière.Je vous remercie.Je voudrais féliciter le docteur Matlosa Khabele, l’honorable Gumbo, mais également l’ensemble des intervenants pour la qualité de leurs propositions. Les ateliers vont se poursuivre en Afrique du Nord et en Afrique de l’Ouest. Nous allons également nous inspirer de la démarche de l’honorable Vinita pour que, au niveau de nos parlements, on interpelle l’exécutif. Je voudrais qu’on applaudisse nos deux intervenants et tous les honorables qui ont contribué ainsi que le dernier qui l’a fait par écrit.(Applaudissements)Monsieur le Secrétaire général, je vous invite à donner lecture du deuxième point inscrit à notre ordre du jour.THE CLERK:Thank you Mr. President, presentations and debates on the progress on the review of the Protocol of the Pan -African Parliament.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie. J’invite l’honorable Tidjani- Serpos Ismaël, Président de la Commission permanente des règlements, des privilèges et de la discipline, à présenter son rapport.
3.0 – RAPPORT D’ÉTAPE SUR LE PROGRÈS REALISÉS DANS LE PROCESSUS DE RÉVISION DU PROTOCOLE ET DE LA TRANSFORMATION DU PARLEMENT PANAFRICAIN EN UN ORGANE LEGISLATIF
HON. TIDJANI-SERPOS ISMAËL [BENIN]:Monsieur le Président,Chers collègues,Comme inscrit à l’ordre du jour de notre session, je vais vous présenter un rapport d’étape sur les progrès réalisés dans le processus de révision du Protocole et de transformation de notre Parlement.Comme vous le savez, notre Chambre a eu à adopter deux documents, il y a de cela un certain nombre de mois. Le premier document est un document d’auto- évaluation du PAP, exercice que nous avons effectué, et qui a montré les points faibles et les faiblesses. Et, fondant notre analyse sur ce document, il s’est agi de mettre en application l’article 25 du Protocole relatif au Parlement panafricain, qui dispose que, au bout de 5 ans de mise en œuvre de ce Protocole, une évaluation doit intervenir et permettre d’apprécier l’opportunité de procéder à la révision ou non de notre Protocole.La conclusion à laquelle nous sommes arrivés tient compte de la jeunesse de l’institution et aussi des parcours que nous avons effectués. Nous pensons que nous sommes, aujourd’hui, outillés pour prétendre à la transformation et à l’acquisition du pouvoir législatif au profit du Parlement panafricain.Le deuxième document, c’est, précisément, notre contribution à l’exercice de révision du Protocole.Depuis l’adoption du rapport d’autoévaluation du PAP et du document portant sa contribution à la révision du Protocole relatif au Parlement panafricain, réalisés suite à la décision, Assemblée/AU/DEC. 223(XII), adoptée au 12e sommet de janvier 2009 par la Conférence des chefs d’Etats, la Commission des Règlements de notre Parlement a établi un contact-suivi avec la Commission de l’Union africaine et, plus particulièrement, avec sa Direction du Conseil juridique.Ce contact a abouti le 10 mai 2010, suite à la tenue d’une réunion de consultation au siège de la Commission de l’Union africaine à Addis-Abeba, entre une délégation du Parlement panafricain, le Bureau du Conseiller juridique et la Commission de l’Union africaine.Lors de cette rencontre, la Commission des Règlements a recueilli des informations sur la mise en œuvre de la décision précitée des Chefs d’Etats.La délégation du PAP a été informée que les actions de la Commission de l’Union africaine ont porté, entre autres, sur l’élaboration des termes de référence de l’étude sur la révision du Protocole, et le recrutement d’un consultant en la personne du Pr KOFI KUMADO du Ghana.La réunion a alors convenu de la feuille de route suivante, dans la perspective de la révision du Protocole relatif au PAP:Le 25 août 2010, au plus tard, le consultant devrait avoir finalisé son étude et soumis un rapport à la Commission de l’Union africaine. Dans l’intervalle, le PAP devrait transmettre officiellement à la CUA sa contribution au processus de révision du Protocole en vue de sa mise à la disposition du Consultant pour exploitation.Du 10 au 13 août 2010, devrait se tenir la réunion de consultation sur le projet de Protocole révisé proposé par le Consultant.En septembre/octobre 2010, réunion des Experts gouvernementaux des Etats membres (Ministres de la Justice-Gardes des Sceaux) du COREP et des autres organes de l'Union.Enfin, janvier/février 2011, soumission du projet de révision du Protocole relatif au PAP et aux Organes délibérants de l’UA, ainsi que l’inscription, à l’ordre du jour du Conseil exécutif et de la Conférence, du point relatif à l’examen du projet de révision du Protocole relatif au PAP.La mise en œuvre de cette feuille de route a conduit, après la transmission du rapport du consultant à la Commission de l’Union africaine, à la tenue à Midrand au siège du PAP, du 10 au 13 août dernier, d’un atelier de validation du projet de Protocole révisé du Traité instituant la Communauté économique africaine relatif au PAP.Ont pris part aux travaux de cet atelier, outre la Commission de l’Union africaine et le PAP, des personnes ressources provenant des diverses communautés régionales d’Afrique et autres experts. La délégation du PAP à cet atelier comprenait les membres du Bureau de la Commission des Règlements appuyés par l’honorable Mahlangu Mnimwa de l’Afrique du Sud, lui-même membre de la Commission des Règlements, et du consultant de la Commission des Règlements, le Pr Larba Yarga. Ont pris également part aux travaux des membres du staff du PAP.A l’issue des travaux de cet atelier, les principales orientations suivantes peuvent être retenues:Sur le nombre des membres du PAP, leur mode de désignation, la durée de leur mandat.Le consultant, allant dans le même sens que la contribution du PAP, a proposé que les parlementaires provenant de chaque pays soient au nombre de cinq (05) et soient élus par les parlements nationaux érigés en collèges électoraux.La formule proposée par le PAP pour assurer un meilleur équilibre du genre, a été entérinée, à savoir « au moins deux de l’un ou l’autre sexe ». La délégation du PAP a toutefois émis des réserves sur les modalités proposées par le Consultant pour la mise en œuvre de cette formule. En effet, il a énoncé - c’est-à-dire le consultant - que « les cinq candidats qui ont obtenu le plus grand nombre de voix soient considérés comme élus ». La délégation du PAP a fait observer que les 5 premiers, sur la base des élections, pouvant ne pas refléter l’équilibre genre souhaité, une formulation plus appropriée devrait être alors recherchée par le consultant.En effet, les cinq premiers, s’il y a élection, peuvent être des femmes ou des hommes uniquement. Donc, il faut trouver une formule pour faire en sorte que les élections permettent d’assurer au moins deux (02) de chaque sexe dans la délégation.Par ailleurs, la délégation du PAP a insisté sur la diversité des opinions politiques (majorité/opposition) ou là où il n’y a pas d’opposition, et qu’il y a diversité d’opinions, que cette diversité des opinions politiques soit assurée parmi les élus de chaque pays devant siéger au PAP.Nous avons donc demandé au consultant de faire en sorte que ce paramètre entre en ligne de compte dans le choix des députés de chaque pays qui auront à siéger dans le futur PAP.L’accord est établi pour que les parlementaires du PAP ne soient plus, nécessairement, des parlementaires nationaux et s’ils l’étaient, qu’ils démissionnent de leurs parlements nationaux avant de prendre fonction au PAP, parce que les parlementaires panafricains doivent, dans le cadre d’un Parlement doté de pouvoirs législatifs, pouvoir se consacrer exclusivement à cette tâche.En outre, un consensus est établi, pour que la durée du mandat des parlementaires panafricains soit de cinq ans renouvelable.Enfin, la question de la diaspora africaine, considérée par l’UA comme la sixième région, a été abordée lors des travaux en atelier, et devrait faire l’objet de proposition dans la nouvelle version du Protocole révisé, à élaborer par le consultant.Sur la durée d’une législature du PAP et la durée du mandat de ses organesLe Consultant, suivant les propositions contenues dans la contribution du PAP, a proposé que la durée d’une législature du PAP soit de cinq (05) ans, et celle du bureau du parlement et des bureaux des autres organes soient de deux ans et demi renouvelable une fois.Sur les attributions et les pouvoirs du PAPSi, sur le principe d’accorder des pouvoirs législatifs au PAP, l’accord semble établi, il demeure que l’étendue des domaines de ces pouvoirs n’est pas également partagée, alors que la contribution du PAP a identifié 17 domaines de législation qui peuvent être conférés au PAP. Avec la révision actuelle du Protocole, le consultant a proposé la formule suivante visant quatre domaines:al’harmonisation des législations en Afrique;bla citoyenneté de l'UA et la libre circulation des personnes;cl'adoption des traités et accords de l'UA;dle Règlement intérieur.Ces domaines législatifs proposés par le Consultant, nous sont apparus à la fois restrictifs et imprécis. En effet, l’harmonisation tout azimut des législations africaines implique que les domaines législatifs sont illimités. L’harmonisation des législations ne peut être en réalité considérée comme un domaine de législation, mais plutôt comme un objectif ou une technique. Les études antérieurement effectuées par la Commission des Règlements en rapport avec l’Université de Pretoria, ont indiqué trois techniques d’harmonisation des législations: les lois-types, les traités et les lois supranationales. Et, dans cette étude qui a été effectuée par la Commission des Règlements avec l’Université de Pretoria, l’harmonisation passe par ces trois techniques. Donc, l’harmonisation, en réalité, n’est qu’une technique pour permettre d’atteindre seulement un objectif de législation en Afrique.S’agissant du Règlement intérieur que la proposition du consultant a visé, il n’est pas à proprement parler, un domaine de législation, puisque le PAP, dans ses limites actuelles, en matière de législation, est habilité à se doter d’un Règlement intérieur. La Conférence des Chefs d’Etat a également un Règlement intérieur, le COREP a un Règlement intérieur, le Conseil a un Règlement intérieur, pourtant ils ne disposent pas d’un pouvoir législatif. Donc, on ne peut pas considérer en soi le Règlement intérieur comme faisant partie d’un domaine législatif.En ce qui concerne les traités et accords, le consultant a proposé la formulation suivante comme rôle devant être joué par le PAP, je cite:« Adoption des traités et des accords de l’Union africaine1- Le projet d'un Traité ou d’un Accord, après approbation par la Conférence, doit être soumis au Parlement pour examen et adoption.2- Le Parlement n’a pas le pouvoir de modifier le texte du projet tel qu'approuvé par la Conférence, mais peut renvoyer le projet à la Conférence avec les motifs de réexamen.3- Lorsque, à la suite d’un réexamen, le projet est soumis à nouveau, qu’il soit modifié ou pas, le Parlement doit l’adopter.4- Un Traité ou un Accord adopté par le Parlement doit être transmis au Président de la Commission. Le Président informe la Conférence et le Traité ou l’Accord sera ouvert à la signature et à la ratification, conformément aux procéduresconstitutionnelles en vigueur dans les États membres.5- L'instrument de ratification ou d'adhésion est déposé auprès du Président de la Commission qui informe les États membres ».Le rôle du PAP dans les Traités et les Accords de l’UA, exprimé en termes d’adoption de ces instruments juridiques par le PAP, ne peut de toute évidence pas résoudre les problèmes cruciaux qui se posent dans ce domaine, puisque, selon cette approche, la ratification par les Etats demeure toujours. Les discussions au cours de l’Atelier ont été dans le sens qu’il y aurait peu de chance de voir l’approche du PAP tendant à lui conférer un véritable pouvoir de ratification prospérer, en raison du fait que la ratification serait le domaine par excellence de la souveraineté des Etats.Enfin, la délégation du PAP a noté qu’aucun progrès notable n’a été enregistré dans la procédure d’adoption du budget de l’Union africaine.Sur l’initiative législativeL’initiative législative dans la proposition du consultant a été étendue à plusieurs entités, allant jusqu’aux comités techniques de l’UA, en passant par le COREP. La délégation du PAP a demandé si on ne devrait pas plutôt la limiter au niveau de l’Exécutif, au Conseil exécutif et à la Conférence qui doivent saisir le PAP par la Commission qui en assure le suivi. Nous attendons la réponse du consultant par rapport à ces observations.ConclusionEn conclusion du présent rapport intérimaire, nous pouvons retenir que, sur un certain nombre de points, le consultant a suivi la contribution du PAP à la révision du Protocole. Toutefois, il demeure des aspects importants de divergence sur lesquels la délégation du PAP a produit, sur le champ, un document mis à la disposition des participants à l’atelier afin que le consultant puisse parfaire son étude et ses propositions.Conformément à la feuille de route arrêtée le 10 mai 2010 à Addis-Abeba, une réunion des experts gouvernementaux des Etats membres (Ministres de la Justice-Gardes des Sceaux et du COREP et des autres organes de l'UA) est prévue, en début novembre, pour l’adoption du dernier état du Protocole révisé, avant sa soumission à la Conférence des chefs d’Etats.Voilà, chers collègues, les points que la Commission et moi, en tant que président de la Commission des Règlements, ont l’honneur de vous présenter en ce qui concerne les progrès connus par le processus de révision du protocole relatif au PAP.Je vous remercie.(Applaudissements)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, honorable TIDJANI-SERPOS Ismaël, président de la Commission permanente des Règlements, des privilèges et de la discipline pour la qualité de votre rapport intérimaire sur les progrès réalisés par le processus de révision du Protocole.Ce sujet est un des thèmes phares de notre Parlement continental. C’est pourquoi j’ai un bon nombre d’inscrits qui vont apporter leur contribution.Les débats sont actuellement ouverts sur le rapport relatif à l’avancement de la révision du Protocole du Parlement panafricain.HON. OBAMA NVE JUSTINO [GUINÉE ÉQUATORIALE]:Muchas gracias Señor Presidente,Desafortunadamente yo estaba preparado para intervenir...creí que iban a presentar las dos ponencias a la vez.Sí, decía que yo pretendía intervenir para la segunda ponencia pero que yo.THE PRESIDENT:English are you ready? They are ready. French? Portuguese?-HON. OBAMA NVE JUSTINO [GUINÉE ÉQUATORIALE]:Muchas gracias Señor Presidente,Yo tenía un comentario que realizar que no sé si es el...THE PRESIDENT:English are you ready? No feedback? English are you ready?HON. OBAMA NVE JUSTINO [GUINÉE ÉQUATORIALE]:S’il y a des difficultés en espagnol, je peux parler en français.LE PRÉSIDENT:Si vous pouvez parler en français, cela peut nous faire gagner du temps, ne serait-ce que pour aujourd’hui.HON. OBAMA NVE JUSTINO [GUINÉE ÉQUATORIALE]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je ne sais pas si c’est le moment opportun, mais mon commentaire a rapport à l’examen des amendements qui devaient être présentés, parce que j’ai compris qu’il allait y avoir deux présentations. Je ne sais pas si cela a été résolu.De toute façon, je vais avancer pour gagner du temps. Le 19 avril 2010, j’ai envoyé une lettre au Président, avec comme objectif une proposition d’introduction d’amendement à l’article 20 du Règlement intérieur. J’ai eu l’opportunité de contacter les membres de la Commission des règlements qui m’ont confirmé qu’ils n’ont eu aucune communication par rapport à la lettre envoyée ce jour-là. C’est pour cela que je voulais soulever ce point, parce que je sais qu’ils vont présenter les amendements déjà. Je ne vois aucun amendement qui fait référence à la lettre envoyée le 19 avril 2010. C’est la question que je voulais poser. Je ne sais pas si c’est le moment opportun, ou s’il faut attendre le deuxième exposé de ce sujet.Je vous remercie.HON. ABDUL-RASHID PELPUO [GHANA]:Thank you Mr. President. Mr. President the protocol is a very important part of the definition of PAP and what we want it to look like and so the participation of PAP in trying to help give it a face. It is so critical and important that we all encourage the Committee to keep working hard with the Consultant to ensure that eventually they come out with something very concrete and acceptable to all of us.In particular, it is going to spell out the procedure in which business is going to be conducted here. Again this is something we need to be very anxious about because I have talked to a number of people, and the impression I get is that we are short of some procedure, some basic etiquette and procedures of this House, which are yet to be concretized. I believe that it is important that we take that seriously and work on it because as we know, everywhere Parliament is often the master of its own business, so it is always the master of its own procedures. Our inclusion in getting PAP to contribute to the final definition of the protocol is very important. But I do not agree fully with the report on page 4 where we talk about harmonization.Mr. President, the Consultants proposed as one of the functions and powers of PAP, the harmonization of laws in Africa. The committee looked at it differently and they eventually came to a conclusion that harmonization, even though it is one of the basic concepts in law making, they see it not to be a crucial part of it and downplay it by saying that it is something that is objective and only a technique. Yes, but law making is a technique, it has an objective, and so it is the basic part of law making to harmonize laws. I think that, that is something we need not to downplay at all, but to take it very seriously because as we know, one of the very fundamental functions of PAP will be finally to be making laws. To have that legislative power, you need to understand laws of various Parliaments and various countries so as to bring them together to give the face of Africa.Finally Mr. Chairman, I think that Treaties and Agreements are legal instruments and being so, you need a legal body like Parliaments such as PAP to work on them. So, I believe very strongly that we need to re-look at that conclusion and come to agree that, that point is a fundamental part in our law making.Thank you very much.HON. KHEMAKHEM JAMELEDDINE[TUNISIA]:شكرا سيدي الرئيس. العفو لقد طلبت الكلمة بالنسبة للتقرير المتعلق بتنقيح القانون الداخلي للبرلمان. شكرا والعفو.HON. MABILETSA ISAAC STEPHEN [BOTSWANA]:Thank you Mr. President, I have looked at the report presented by the Chairman on the Committee of Rules. While I agree with a number of points, on the report, I only have problems with two areas, that is page 3, third paragraph from the bottom in the English version which says and I wish to quote with your permission, "it was agreed that the PAP Parliamentarians would not necessary have to be members in their own countries and if they were, they should resign from their national Parliaments before taking up duties at PAP". It says that PAP Parliamentarians should be able to dedicate their time explicitly to this assignment, a PAP with legislative powers.Mr. President Sir, when people elect you as an MP, at a national level, they are expressing confidence in you and when immediately after you are elected you resign, those peoples’ confidence is doomed because you have not even started rendering any service to them. That is the first point. The second point Mr. Speaker is, when you are an MP, you are not a freelance MP, you are an MP because people elected you and you are accountable to them. When you resign and you start becoming - you get elected through an Electoral College of Members of MP, those are a group of people with too many positions whose interest is more than anything else to look after the affairs of their electorate and not so much of one person elected here. Therefore, Mr. President, I disagree totally with this provision. I think the status quo suffices. This is the first point that I disagree with.The second point is on page 4, at the top of the page where it says "following proposals contained in contribution of PAP, the consultant proposed the duration of Parliament of PAP should be five years", agreed on that one, while that of the bureaux of the other organs should be two and half years. This is where I disagree because after two and half years that is when you are beginning to gain experience and become productive to PAP. I believe the status quo when you are elected for the duration of your five years, whatever capacity in the PAP organs you get elected into, you should continue to carry on along those lines without trying to water down your position. I think it is good that we should retain the status quo otherwise you will not be doing any justice to the Parliament. II thank you.HON. DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:Thank you Mr. President. First of all let me thank brother Serpos for his good report. A few comments. I would, Mr. President, restrict myself to this report even where I disagree, if I want to, three minutes is not enough.First has to do with the membership, to ensure that the gender issue is handled. If we are going to have an election within Parliament there should be two lists: there should be a list of women as candidates alone to be voted on and a list of men alone to be voted on. Then you can make the combinations. But if we go by what he has said that let the first five with the highest votes- I mean you are not going to be sure of what you are doing.The other point you need to take into consideration is that you also want various shades of opinion represented. So, in Parliament you can say each sidemajority side and minority sideshould present a list of men and a list of women exclusively. You vote on them and then you permute. You make sure that the combination is such that you have sufficientat least two women elected. That is the first comment I want to make on that.Secondly, talking about legislation, Mr. President, I agree with what Serpos said for PAP that we should restrict the areas, we should consider is model laws. We have just dealt with the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. We need to work on model laws which are going to make us realize the targets that we set in this so that we can have standards by which we judge domestic legislation. They can then internalize that.And let us face it. We cannot do all the legislation. Let us restrict ourselves to areas such as environmental issues and issues like the Chemical Weapons Convention; issues that we know that national governments are not likely to have time for. They are dealing with the economy and dealing with poverty and the rest of them. So, let us start and we can add to that toxic waste issues where we have no problem.Also in the presentation, I am afraid I am not in favour of people being elected outside Parliament because what level of delegation are you talking about? You are elected in Parliament to go, so to elect people among yourselves yes, but when you now go outside your domain to elect others, I think that we are losing touch with the grass roots and it becomes superficial.Finally- (Interruption) - I have heard my warning. Finally I think that we should make sure that we own the review that is coming up. So, in November when we meet, only what we think is in consonance with our philosophy and the spirit and the vision behind PAP is what we should take. We should not just take any theoretical position that is being imposed on us by a consultant. We should be very careful on that.Mr. President, I am constrained to stop at this stage. Thank you.HON. ADJAHO EDWARD KORBLY DOE [GHANA]:Mr. President I support the report presented by the Chair of the Committee on Rules. There is this issue that crop up right from the beginning of the protocol which is the subject matter of the current review ten years ago. I had the privilege of sitting in that meeting in Addis Ababa, in April 2000, before the protocol was signed in May of the same year. And that is with regards to the number of people each country should present. The number of five that was agreed was a compromised figure at that time because smaller countries were not there, but Mr. President, Parliament is about people, the executives of our countries. So when we bring the concept of sovereignty again into the representation of Parliament, then there is a problem.Mr President, if you look at Article 2 of the protocol itself, it says that the Pan African Parliamentarians shall represent all the people of Africa. It is disturbing me, ten years down the line you still want Ghana five MPS, Ghana with about 20 million people, and Nigeria with over 100 million people represented by the same number of 5 MPs. I think that the time has come. The same argument you made for women, the same principle should apply here. The majority ought to be represented. I think it is a controversial issue. That is the matter that we should take a second look at again and move away - if you want to make a Pan African Parliament representing the people of Africa. Otherwise the concept of sovereignty and of five people each is business as usual. I am raising this point so that we think seriously about it, if we really want to represent the peoples’ of Africa and we want to make PAP relevant to the peoples’ of Africa. Then I think that we may have to take a second look at the number of people that represent their countries. ECOWAS, I am told has a principle where Africans were given the basic minimum and then depending on your population, additional representation is given to you. If ECOWAS has that principle and it has not caused problems, I don’t see the reason why we should not do it also. I think the number of people representing a country should take into consideration the population of that country. I am raising this issue so that we re-examine it again. Mr. Speaker, this is my only point I want to make towards this contribution. Thank very much.HON. SIRMA MUSA [KENYA]:Thank you Mr. President. First and foremost, is to congratulate the Committee for having done a good work. The only part, Mr. President, is where it talks about the highest number of votes should be deemed elected. First, you should know that in every country there is political parties representation and therefore we cannot go by the number elected by the House because you may find that they will bring, if there is a party which is minority and it is the opposition, they might not get a chance. So, the principle of equitable distribution of those seats to the Members who have been sent here must apply.Secondly, is where it is said it was agreed that PAP Parliamentarians did not necessarily have to be MPs in their own countries. I think it should say, "...must not be MPs..." because if you look at the East African Legislative Assembly as an example, we in Parliament do elect from the various political parties based on the strength of the parties within Parliament and those people have really given all their energies and time to do legislative work in the East African Legislative Assembly. We should take a cue from that because it is one of the success stories of the Regional Parliaments.I also want to say I think my earlier friend who was speaking, talked about that we should base our numbers in the House based on the population. I do not agree because even with a very big numbers you still have one President sitting in AUC; you do not have two Presidents. So, just go and change first to have two Presidents or more based on regulation so that you come. We have to respect the sovereignty of even the small states because they have a right and have only one seat in AUC. When they will have two seats we shall consider that.I also want to say the issue of relegating this Parliament to be a stamping authority, I will not agree with it because it says in the adoption of African Union Treaties there was an agreements that Parliament does not have the powers to modify the text of the draft as approved by Assembly but may send a draft back to the Assembly explaining why it should be reconsidered. And if it is brought back without being reconsidered we come here and approve. We are not a stamping authority; we represent the peoples of the countries we come from. That area must be amended, Mr. President, (applause) so that we have teeth to bite or we have legislative power and authority over all the African nations because they have sent us here on their behalf.Thank you, Mr. President. (Applause)HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Thank you very much, Mr. President for giving me the Floor. I would like to firstly thank the Chairperson of the Rules Committee and the entire committee indeed for the good work that they have done. And I also want to encourage them to continue doing the good work. Indeed they have embarked on a journey that is full of obstacles. There are still some insurmountable tasks that lie ahead and I think they should continue what they have started and make sure that at the end of the day, we achieve what we want to achieve as Pan-African Parliament.But Mr. President, I am diametrically opposed to the idea that whenever there is something that needs to be accomplished, a consultant has to be engaged to do that accomplishment. Our governments have abundant experts that could have been brought together to work on the review of the Protocol. This Parliament is pregnant with diversity. There are so many professors around here. There are doctorates and experts here; economists to name but a few and these people could have been used to look into the review of the Protocol rather than engaging a consultant.Mr. President, I am saying so because consultants charge exorbitant prices and I want to believe that the money that they have charged, the same amount if it could have been sent to PAP to perform the activities of the committees, that money could have been enough. We could have utilized that money for something else.The same consultants that we engage, Mr. President, do not use their brains only. They also use the brains of the very people that have employed them. For instance if we go to page 2 of this report under (a) it says, "In the meantime, Pan-African Parliament should officially transmit its contribution to the Protocol Review Process to the AUC for the benefit of the consultant." Look at this, "...for the benefit of the consultant." This consultant is going to use the same information that has been provided by the person who has engaged him and put it in a report and submit it to the person who has employed him, and the employer is going to pay him for his brains; for his contributions as well. This is one thing that Mr. President does not augur well with me: for us to keep hiring consultants when we have our own people here who are experts in various fields that we could be using to work on some of these things.I think, Mr. President, these are some of the things that once we fully become a legislative organ, we need to play an oversight role on.And Mr. President, a Member of Parliament is a representative of the people and Parliament is an institution which expresses the will of the people. But I have failed to understand why in some of these pages it is mentioned that those people who come to Parliament do not necessarily have to be Members of Parliament. Who will they be representing? We need to send parliamentarians here who are elected by people. I am totally against the agreement that it is not necessary for these people to be Members of Parliament. Thank you MR President.HON. HAKAYE HAIKELLA [NAMIBIA]:Thank you very much Mr. President. I also rise to make my contribution and congratulate the Committee that has come up with a very important report and also to register my observation on certain elements raised in this report. Mr. President, Honourable Members, the Member who has spoken before me has indicated what will happen to this august House if we came at the ticket of our national Parliaments and when we become members of PAP we ceased to be members of our national Parliaments back home. This will make Honourable Members create vacancies and lose touch with the electorates they represent. And there is the word ‘One Africa, One Voice’ how will be the voice of the African people be heard if we do not represent them at national Parliament? How are we going to speak their voice? That question is hanging above our heads and it will not be workable if we employ it here.Mr. President, equally the vacancy that we are creating in our own national Parliaments, one has a constituency. There will be a by-election to come to our national Parliament and a new member from the same constituency will be elected to represent those people at national Parliament or those people will not be represented since I would have picked up a position at PAP.Another serious concern Mr. President is that we have to take a second look on the representation of equal members from given member African states. Mr. President, this is not going to work at all. If we can see practically, what are we doing right now in Parliament? What will become of this Parliament if a given country with the majority or more millions will be over-represented? You will end up having one country constituting even a Committee. A permanent Committee is represented by one country because of the majority that the country is commanding in this august House and that will not augur well and will not be practical democracy.So, let each and every country have equal members before the Pan African Parliament. Whatever the number it may come up with, if then we are going to work towards the unification and creation of the united states of Africa, I think will make us to believe that at the end of the day we will be one African and One Voice and one united states of Africa. With this observationHonourable President, I thank the Honourable Members who proposed some of these recommendations and proposed that this report will be honoured by every one of us with all those changes. I thank you.SR. DEPUTADO LUÍS REIS PAULO CUANGA (ANGOLA):Muito obrigado, Senhor Presidente. Depois da discussao que tivemos no ponto anterior, reforgou-me a ideia de que devemos avangar tao devagar quanto a prudencia aconselha. Ou seja, quer dizer que os países africanos nao tem todos a mesma base de partida; uns estao mais avangados que outros e, acho que devemos ter todos uma mesma base de partida para podermos avangar seguramente.Quanto à questao do número de membros do Parlamento Pan-Africano e o seu modo de designagao, eu queria propor que, de facto, se respeitasse a representagao proporcional, tendo como base o número de assentos no Parlamento. Significa dizer que, estou de acordo com dois para um ou outro sexo, e, para que os partidos possam estar representados no Parlamento Pan-Africano, que se respeite o princípio da representagao proporcional.Quanto à questao da renúncia dos assentos nos Parlamentos nacionais nao estou de acordo porque, senhor Presidente, a nossa permanencia aqui no Parlamento Pan-Africano depende dos nossos parlamentos nacionais. E nós sabemos que a Uniao Africana tem problemas de recursos, para financiar quer a Comissao, quer o próprio Parlamento Pan-Africano. Portanto, ao desvincularmo-nos dos nossos assentos nos nossos parlamentos, teremos o problema da nao representado, porque todos representamos um círculo eleitoral, e teremos também o problema do financiamento da nossa permanencia ou nao na África do Sul, já que estaremos em exclusividade de fungoes no Parlamento Pan-Africano.Mas permita-me, Senhor Presidente, dizer o seguinte: Se o Parlamento Pan-Africano, de acordo com as áreas que poderao ter atribuigoes para os seus poderes, sao áreas ínfimas, e também o Parlamento Pan-Africano nao tem iniciativa legislativa, valerá a pena, de facto, profissionalizar os deputados? Creio que a nossa fungao nao justifica que os deputados estejam em efectividade de fungoes no Parlamento PanAfricano.Senhor Presidente, para concluir, queria dizer que nao sei se o roteiro definido será cumprido na íntegra, tendo em conta que a reuniao de peritos devia acontecer em Setembro e Outubro e, nós estamos a prever para Novembro. Significa dizer que este processo vai levar ainda muito tempo para que possamos de facto, concluir o mesmo.Senhor Presidente, com estas palavras, termino a minha intervengao. Muito obrigado.HON. MATAMISA ERIMENZIAH EDITOR [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Mr. President. I will be very brief. Let me first thank the Rules Committee for their presentation.Mr. President, after looking at the report, I really get concerned by the method that will be used to ensure gender balance. Ideally, proportional representation should be considered otherwise one gender will dominate.Secondly, the fact that Pan-African Parliamentarians do not have to be MPs in their own countries; if they are, they should resign from their National Parliaments; I really fear this will create more problems than solutions. Where does a Pan-African Parliamentarian report to and how do they become part of their National Parliaments? We are bemoaning visibility of PAP and yet we are trying to take away PAP from the people. This issue also entails constitutional changes in our National Parliaments without which it will be impossible. Mr. President, I feel this is a divorce from the grassroots. We are voted in by the electorate and as such we owe everything to them and our Governments.Mr. President, what platform will be created for the PAP Parliamentarians to communicate both effectively and efficiently with National Parliaments? Currently, I see none. The existing financial problems at PAP as I see it will have no solution as Governments will prioritize budgets towards National Parliaments than towards an independent PAP which may create challenges to National Governments.One would also like to know what happens to a PAP Member after five years. According to the statement, it says, "It will be renewable." By who? And renewable for how many times? This scenario, Mr. President, removes the Honorable Members permanently from their country politics and we cannot encourage this because we are here because we are politicians in our own countries.On No. 4 on legislative initiative, Mr. President, I was thinking extending this to AU Technical Committees through the PRC who are Political appointees- (Interruption by the House bell), Mr. President just allow me to finish this one, who are simply political appointees would be stripping PAP of its relevance and will add confusion and chaos to PAP’s activities.I thank you, Mr. President. (Applause)HON. MASEBO TEMBO SYLVIA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you very much Sir. I have few comments to make. Firstly I would like to commend the Committee for the good work. I know that it is a very difficult exercise, but very important. So I just want to say that I support the idea of the duration of PAP and its membership, but also that I agree with the Committees view that the mode of electing members in terms of the gender component should not be accepted as proposed by the consultant. I think the proposal by one of the members earlier here who said that it is better to have a female list and the male list would actually guarantee at least two from either gender. Then of course, the issue of the component of the opposition is also important, but let me say this Mr. President; the issue as to whether we should be from within Parliament or outside really should not be an issue because in the final analysis my understanding is that PAP members will be elected by the citizens at large. At that stage, then we can talk about members coming from outside as they will also be politicians because they will be elected through adult suffrage. As such, they will be representing the communities that we are representing as Members of Parliament. But, I think that in the interim, we need to take into account the fact that our governments do not have enough resources and we should not therefore come up with ideas like; Members be elected to Parliament and then from within Parliament, and after they are elected to come to PAP there must be by-elections. We have enough problems as Africans in terms of finances, so let us not come up with issues that complicate our lives by costing our Governments monies that are not available.The other point is on the issue of functions and powers of PAP. I want to say that yes, it is important for us to have a lot of powers, but I think that we need to trade very carefully. We should not complicate our process of becoming a legislative body because we know that even now we have difficulties. So, if we start asking for too much at the beginning, this process may take long in terms of ratifications by our member states. The best way is to start slowly and I would like to support the proposal by the consultant that we have few legislative powers. The first one on harmonization of laws in Africa, in my humble understanding, is a very important function because we are different. Even when we talk about elections by Parliament, some of our nations do not even have Parliamentary democratic systems to talk about. We are very different as a Continent in many ways. So this aspect of harmonization is very important. The adoption of the AU Treaties as a function is also important. Even now, currently in some of our countries Parliaments are not adopting the Treaties - it is a function of the Executive. There is a saying in some African languages, which says when you want something, move slowly and then once you are inside there, that is when you can start asking for too much. Let’s adopt that principle if we really want quickly to become a legislative body. I thank you.AN HONORABLE:Thank you Mr. President. I want to add something concerning the Mission Observer. That was my request, Sir.THE PRESIDENT:That will be the next item, thank you Honorable.HON. NJIKELANA SISA JAMES [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you, Mr. President. My input in this regard is that once addressing the Protocol, which obviously will embody the character and form of a transformed Pan-African Parliament, what I would like us to consider quite seriously is that there is more to just rearranging or amending or bringing new things to the Protocol per se. When transforming an institution, we have to look at organizational culture as well, and it is on that basis that we will be able to measure our effectiveness as a legislative power ideally. Of course I do support very strongly the gradual approach and obviously we need to tread carefully as the hon. from Zambia has just said. It would even be helpful that as we move along, we also look at or rearrange benchmarks whereby we could be able to assess our effectiveness for any legislative powers that we attain and be able to move to more legislative powers on the basis of successes and challenges that we face for each and every level of power that we attain.That is my humble input. I thank you.شكرا سيدي الرئيس. اريد ان الفت نظركم الى اننا تجاوزنا الوقت القانوني وعشرين دقيقة. شكرا.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, pour ce rappel. J’ai encore sur ma liste douze (12) inscrits. Nous allons suspendre la séance jusqu’à demain vendredi, 08 octobre 2010, à 09 heures. Les 12 inscrits passeront en premier; ensuite, le président de la Commission apportera ses réponses.Allez-y!HON VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Monsieur le Président, vous voyez, comme je suis aveugle, je n’arrive même pas à me servir correctement de mon micro. Alors, je suis obligée de hurler pour me faire entendre.Monsieur le Président,Tout à l’heure, vous avez appelé mon nom, je me suis levée, comme on le dit chez moi, pendant la révolution; mais, je ne suis pas allée très loin, Monsieur le Président. Alors, je voudrais que vous remettiez mon nom avec les douze (12), c’est-à- dire que vous aurez treize (13) intervenants demain matin. Je vous remercie.LE PRÉSIDENT:C’est entendu.
4.0 – ANNONCES
THE CLERK:Thank you Honourable President, we have to make the following announcements to make Honourable Members Committee meetings. Committee on Rural Economic, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment, Half past Two in Room No. 1. Committee on Health. Labour and Social Affairs, Half past Two, Room No. 2, Committee on Transport, Industry, Communications, Energy and Technology, Half past Two, Room No. 3, Committee on Justice and Human Rights, Half past Two, Room No. 4. Committee on Trade, Customs and Immigration, Half past -two in Room No 5, Committe on Education, Culture, Tourism and Human Resources, Half past Two, Room No 6. Women’s Caucus in the Chamber between 1 o’clock and 2 o’clck. Thank you.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie.La séance est suspendue jusqu’à demain vendredi, neuf heures.La séance est levée à 12 h 50 mn.
Friday, 8th October 2010
1.0 – SUITE DU DÉBAT RELATIF AU RAPPORT D’ÉTAPE SUR LES PROGRÈS REALISÉS DANS LE PROCESSUS DE RÉVISION DU PROTOCOLE ET DE LA TRANSFORMATION DU PARLEMENT PANAFRICAIN EN UN ORGANE LEGISLATIF
THE PRESIDENT:Honourable Members, today we continue with debate on the Review of the Protocol, and I have 13 more names. Mr. Clerk, will you please read the first order of the day!THE CLERK:Adjourned debate on the progress made on the Review of the Protocol of the Pan African Parliament.THE PRESIDENT:Honourable Members, I have a list of 15 more names. This is a continuation of yesterday’s debate. After the 15 names, and as agreed yesterday, there will not be any more additions. Hopefully, the subject matter will have been exhaustively dealt with. The first speaker on my list is Honourable Catarina Domingos of Angola. You may take the floor.DEPUTADA CATARINA PEDRO DOMINGOS [ANGOLA]:Muito obrigada, Senhora Vice-Presidente e Presidente do Plenário.Gostaria de juntar a minha voz aos Colegas que já ontem, intervieram, sobretudo, no relatório apresentado pelo Presidente da Comissao de Regras, Privilégios e Disciplina, no parágrafo 4 da página 3, sobre a renúncia dos assentos nos Parlamentos Nacionais.Senhora Presidente, devemos reflectir com muita frieza esta questao, porquanto nao estou de acordo com este procedimento ou com estas linhas de pensamento. Porque a voz de África tem como ligagao os círculos eleitorais que nós representamos e, porquanto, nós fomos eleitos para o Parlamento Pan-Africano. Nao podemos desvincularmo-nos assim de ànimo leve porque ao agirmos em contrário pergunto: que África representaremos ao procedermos dessa maneira? E também fago a seguinte pergunta: será que estamos cientes que, se procedermos assim, que o Parlamento Pan-Africano terá capacidade e autonomia financeira para custear todas as despesas, incluindo os encargos salariais dos Deputados?Estou plenamente de acordo que no futuro, possamos ter um Parlamento com o poder legislativo, mas tenhamos em conta que os nossos parlamentos nacionais assumem-nos de maneiras diferentes, ao estarmos aqui representados, e acredito que com as dificuldades financeiras que a nossa organizagao atravessa, nao será tao fácil termos a nossa autonomia financeira.Outro aspecto: findo o mandato no Parlamento Pan-Africano, qual será o futuro reservado para a acomodagao dentro ou fora do Parlamento, dos Deputados do Parlamento Pan-Africano?Por fim, gostaria de propor, uma vez que se preve a reuniao dos peritos em Novembro - conforme consta das conclusoes na página 6 - que seja levado em consideragao que o número de membros do Parlamento Pan-Africano, o seu modelo de designagao e a duragao do seu mandato, nao devam ser motivos de renúncia dos assentos nos Parlamentos Nacionais.Muito Obrigada.HON. SUAD EL FATEH AL BADAWI [SUDAN]:Thank you Madam President. Actually I have a proposal to make about the subject. We all know that we have very competent, very experienced and very learned Members of PAP who left us since 2005 to date. My proposal and this I need to share with the Committees and with my colleagues whether it will be feasible and useful for PAP to make use of some of these Members whom we lost through elections by the plenary here. May be we need to limit these Members to two or three, men and women. In this case, I think we will not lose track of the efficiency and competence of the Members of our Parliament. This is one point.The other point is as raised by the last speaker, the Honourable friend; I think she is right that we should not be detached from our Parliaments when we came here to become members of PAP. Number two, we will lose track of the contacts between PAP and the National Parliaments and this is very important. If we are not Members in our National Parliaments, we will not be effective in carrying all the problems of Africa to our states and to our national Parliaments.Number three, how are we going to conduct elections for the PAP if we do not do this through our National Parliaments how are we going to do it? The proposal was silent about it. If we are going to make it generally in the whole country, it is going to be a very expensive task. May be we are going to lose a lot of people who are able, who can serve PAP more than the people who come for the elections. I think it is not a good idea and I am against it. I think we should go on with our previous policy of electing Members to PAP from our national Parliaments. We should include women and we should have diversity of ideas, and parties, what we said previously about...THE PRESIDENT:Hon El Badaoui, half a minute.HON. SUAF EL FATEH EL BADAOUI [SUDAN]I am closing now, this is the end. I am not for this, and I move that Members of PAP should be members of their National Parliaments. Thank you.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much. I now give the opportunity to Honourable Steven Obeegadoo of Mauritius, and this will be his maiden speech. We welcome you.HON. STEVEN OBEEGADOO [ILE MAURICE]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente de me donner la parole. Je remercie aussi, Monsieur Tidjani Serpos, pour le rapport excellent qu’il nous a présenté hier.Madame la Présidente,Comme vous le disiez, je suis nouveau dans cette auguste assemblée. Je n’ai, donc, pas la prétention de formuler des critiques à l’encontre de ce rapport. Mon propos consiste, plutôt, à rechercher un certain éclairage par rapport à quelques éléments mentionnés dans le rapport.Je m’excuse, donc, en avance, auprès de mes pairs, au cas où les éclaircissements recherchés seraient déjà du domaine public, c'est-à-dire, connus des honorables députés ici, d’autant plus que je crois comprendre que les propositions du PAP ont été discutées au sein de la Chambre, ici, avant d’être soumises au consultant.Bref, Madame la Présidente, j’ai trois questions. La première concerne la procédure. Je me posais la question de savoir quelle est la marge de manœuvre dont nous disposons toujours. Il y a eu des remarques justes de la part de nos collègues, des propositions très pertinentes. Mais, quelle sera l’importance accordée, au cours de cette réunion des experts, aux représentants du PAP? Est-ce que nos représentants vont se cantonner aux propositions déjà soumises au consultant, ou pourront-ils bénéficier d’une synthèse des débats présentement menés au sein de la Chambre?J’ouvrirai ici, Madame la Présidente, une parenthèse pour faire référence au fait que les nouveaux membres du Parlement - nous sommes une bonne douzaine; donc, il semblerait qu’à chaque session, il y ait 5% du Parlement qui se renouvellent - n’ont pas eu accès à ces propositions du PAP. Je vous demanderai, donc, d’intervenir auprès du Secrétariat, afin que désormais les documents clés de la session précédente soient mis à la disposition des nouveaux membres arrivant pour la première fois au PAP. Ainsi, je serais intéressé de savoir, par rapport au pouvoir législatif, quelles ont été les propositions du PAP quant aux pouvoirs législatifs à être accordé au parlement dans le cadre de la révision du Protocole.Deuxième point: le mode de désignation des membres de cette Chambre. Je suis très inquiet par rapport à la proposition que les parlements nationaux se constituent en collèges électoraux et que les cinq candidats arrivés en premier soient désignés. Je rappellerai que - si je ne me trompe - les concepteurs, les pères du PAP avaient envisagé qu’il viendrait un jour où les représentants seraient désignés au suffrage direct et, dès lors, le PAP aurait des pouvoirs décisionnels.En attendant d’arriver à ce stade, Madame la Présidente, pourquoi ne pas maintenir tout simplement le mécanisme existant qui a donné satisfaction et qui n’est nulle part critiqué, plutôt que de s’aventurer sur de nouveaux terrains, très dangereux, où l’équilibre genre, l’équilibre hommes/femmes risque de ne pas être respecté, mais, plus encore, la représentativité des délégations nationales qui, actuellement, fait la part à l’opposition, que cela ne soit plus garantie? Ce serait là quelque chose d’extrêmement grave, et qui remettrait en cause la légitimité même de cette instance comme représentant des peuples africains.Voilà, Madame la Présidente, j’en ai terminé.Je vous remercie.(Applaudissements)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much. I also realize that this summary does not give the full detail, I think it would have been better if the document was circulated that reflects Article by Article in terms of what we intend to do. But I leave that to the Chair of the Rules Committee to respond.I now give the opportunity to Honorable Isaac Stephen Mabiletsa of Botswana.HON. MABILETSA ISAAC STEPHEN [BOTSWANA]:Madame President, thank you very much. I think I had an opportunity to speak yesterday. Can I let the opportunity pass to the next Member? Thank you.HON. MATLALI NTEBALENG MAVIS [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you hon. Deputy President. I also looked into the protocol revision and considered the following, after looking into the amendment. I am in agreement with most of the issues that are presented. Nevertheless, this point on page 3 that most of the Members of Parliament have talked about, the one that says, "Members of Parliament at PAP do not necessarily have to be MPs in their own countries and if they were, they should resign from their national Parliaments before taking up their duties in order to perform their legislative powers of PAP in a very good manner," is the one that is a thorn in the shoe.I have got the following reasons why I do not agree with it: one, if they are not Members of Parliament in their countries, where will they report to? I believe whatever issues and the laws that they would have debated and adopted in PAP have to go back to their member state parliaments in order that they go through the right procedure before the countries can implement them. So, if these Members are not Members of Parliament, I would like to find out from the report, where they will be reporting and then the procedure that would be followed in order to adopt the laws that have to be implemented.The second point that convinces me that this matter is not going to serve us well is about the finances themselves. Who will foot the bill looking into the meager budget that we are given as PAP? This pertains to the salaries of those Members, their travelling costs, and per diems. Presently, it is our national parliaments that are responsible for most of the finances of Members when they are working at PAP.My third reason is to look into the issue of gender. How will we make sure that women will be fully represented at PAP, instead of only men that are normally voted by the majority of the communities or citizens in every country? The men would be the ones that would take the top five and come to Parliament, leaving the women behind.The fourth one is about minority parties. If minority parties get very limited votes in their constituencies, obviously only members of the governing party will be those that will come and represent the country at PAP.So, if these issues could be looked into, I believe that the answer that is positive would be the one that would convince me.I would like to also say, when Members are sworn in and later on they are expected to resign, it is going to be cumbersome to member states. It will also be very chaotic that in every five years they come, they swear in and they are lost to PAP, and then new Members have to come in whereby the process has to go back to the constituencies to vote for the other five Members. I felt that this is a matter that we really need not burden our member states’ with. With these remarks Honourable Deputy President, I believe that this matter should be revisited, and PAP should look into an alternative of this agreement. I thank you, Madam.HON. HYACINTA CHIKAONDA [MALAWI]:Thank you very much Madame President for giving me this opportunity to speak in this August House. In fact I have got two issues on the report. But firstly, let me commend the Chairperson for the Rules Committee for presenting this report to this House.I had two issues, but most of these issues have already been discussed or said by previous speakers. The first one was or is on the composition of those that will be coming to PAP. It has been said in the report that they will be five people. I just wanted to emphasize, as a woman myself, as some people have already spoken that they should consider the gender issue. Because in most cases people do forget that women also need a big representation. And if I were to suggest, I would say, may be amongst those five, three should be women and two men, because we have got a lot of issues as women in Africa that we need to tackle and previously we have been left behind.So, if I were to suggest Madam President, I would say three to two, that would do us good.Then the second one was on the same paragraph that my previous speaker has already said on the fact that, once you are elected to PAP, you shouldn’t be MP’s in your own countries. I will just add my voice on two things; one, somebody already said it yesterday that it will be expensive on the part of our Governments because in the first place you have been elected by your people, they have trusted you then after that they say, you are no longer an MP there. So, that means you have created a gap where they have to do by-elections and you know how expensive these by-elections are.Secondly, the people that trusted you with that responsibility in your Constituency, I don’t think they can be ready within that short period of time to vote for somebody else again, especially maybe considering the parties from which we are coming from. So, the trust is lost in that party because they will think, once they also vote somebody from that party, he or she will also be elected somewhere, she or he will be taken away from them again. So, I feel that is also a problem.Again on the reporting thing, what mechanism is PAP going to put in place to make sure that these people report whatever matters transpire here at PAP. Because as we are also MPs there, it’s really easy for us to pass on the messages to our different countries through the National Assembly.There is also an issue that has been put here in the report that the tenure of office is renewable. I wonder how you can be renewed because, one, you are no longer a Member of Parliament in the National Assembly and the way they choose these people is from the National Assembly. So, how are they going to renew their tenure in that way, because they are going to choose somebody else! That means you lose out.Those are my contributions that I wanted to make and you should know Madame President that this is my maiden speech. Thank you. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Yes, thank you so much. That was a very literate maiden speech, congratulations.HON. LASSANE SAVADOGO [BURKINA FASO]:Je vous remercie, Madame la présidente.Comme ceux qui m’ont précédé, je voudrais d’abord adresser mes félicitations au Bureau du PAP pour l’efficacité avec laquelle il conduit ce dossier et remercier aussi la Commission des règlements pour la qualité du travail et la qualité de la présentation faite par son président, hier.Mon intervention porte sur quelques points. D’abord, pour ce qui concerne le mode de choix des représentants, je pense que c’est une bonne chose, parce que nous nous inscrivons dans une approche Sénat. Donc, ce sont les Etats qui sont représentés; il faut respecter, alors, l’égalité entre les Etats. Plus tard, cela peut évoluer comme c’est le cas en Europe. On peut également créer une Chambre des représentants où ce sont les peuples qui vont désigner directement leurs représentants. Donc, je ne vais pas trop insister, compte tenu du fait que je n’ai pas beaucoup de temps.Deuxième point ce sont les domaines. Je partage à ce niveau la proposition du consultant parce qu’elle est plus dynamique. Cela veut dire que le Parlement aurait une compétence de principe. Et, cette compétence peut couvrir de nombreux domaines, donc la formulation me paraît très appropriée.Troisièmement, je voudrais dire, pour ce qui concerne le Traité, que la proposition faite par le consultant me paraît inutile, dans la mesure où elle ne fait qu’allonger la procédure. Et, je ne vois pas l’utilité que le traité soit adopté pour, par la suite, être soumis à la ratification des Etats. L’argument qui est avancé, comme quoi, la ratification est l’expression de la souveraineté des Etats, me semble inopérant, dans la mesure où ce sont les Etats qui ont procédé à un transfert de leur souveraineté au profit des institutions panafricaines.Donc, à défaut de pouvoir conférer un pouvoir de ratification au Parlement panafricain, il ne me semble pas utile qu’on accepte le rôle qu’on lui confie dans la procédure d’adoption des Conventions. Mais, je crois qu’il y a une incompréhension, parce que le Parlement panafricain ne serait pas compétent pour l’ensemble des traités mais uniquement, pour un certain nombre de traités. Et, il appartient à la Conférence des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement, au Conseil des ministres, à la Commission, aux autorités investies de pouvoirs d’initiative en matière législative, de déterminer quelles sont les conventions qui vont être soumises à la ratification du Parlement panafricain. Cela ne remet pas en cause le principe de souveraineté des Etats, comme cela a été évoqué par le consultant.Au total, je voudrais proposer que la Commission recense les différents points de divergences qui existent entre nous et le consultant et que ces points de divergences soient mis en relief à l’occasion de la rencontre avec le COREP, parce que quand il y a des plaidoyers, il faut que nous arrivions à convaincre nos différents partenaires dans le processus d’adoption de ce Protocole. Il faut que nous arrivions à les convaincre par rapport à nos positions et que nous arrivions à aboutir vraiment à l’adoption d’un document efficace et consensuel capable, vraiment, de permettre au PAP de jouer son rôle en matière d’intégration de notre continent.Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.HON. TEMBO RAISI FORRIE [ZAMBIA]:Thank you Madame President for giving me this rare opportunity to add my word on the debate on the floor.Madame President, from the onset, I fully support the report on the progress of the review process of the protocol and of the transformation of the PAP.Madame President, I do not agree with a Committee with their proposal that the elected PAP Members from our Parliaments should relinquish their seats in their Parliaments. This is a retrogressive idea to me in the sense that it will create unnecessary by-elections.Madame President, if you look at the House right now, you will see that there are a lot of vacancy seats within. This simply shows that our states now, they are facing a lot of problems in terms of financial constraints. Now, if we agree to take up this proposal on board it will simply create unnecessary by-elections.Madame President, I will give you one example, in my country, for last hold one by-election, it costs us more than two billion Kwacha. If you multiply by five by-elections, you go up to twelve or thirteen billion Kwacha of which this sum of money can be returned back into the community.Madame President, we have been struggling in this Parliament that we have to meet certain achievements in the health sector. We advocating that we have to contribute about fifteen percent of our national budgets to the health sector. But how do we come with such ideas when we are struggling with resources in our own states? This will also have the Constitutional repercussions in our states.Madame President, also we have to bear in mind that our Parliaments consist of different political parties. If at all, we have to carry this decision on board that means we have to look at the Electoral College in our Parliaments. I will give you an example in our Parliament we use the arrogance of numbers meaning that the political parties represented in Parliament will not have any chance to have their representatives at PAP.Madam President, I just wanted to shade light on this. Thank you.HON. KANDEH MAMMA [GAMBIA]:Thank you very much Madame President for giving me this opportunity.First, I want to congratulate the Committee on Rules for this important interim report on the progress of the review process of the Protocol and transformation of the Pan-African Parliament.Madame President, I am in support of this document except in page five, where it says; Madame President I quote, "The Parliament does not have the powers to modify the text of draft as approved by the Assembly but may send the draft back to the Assembly explaining why it should be reconsidered". After doing that, number three: "When following a reconsideration the draft is once submitted to the Parliament, the Parliament must adopt it whether it is modified or not". So with this portion, I am not in support of that because what is the essence of the partnership? What is the importance of having the Parliament as a Legislative Body?On the other side Madame President, I believe I have a different view of Members who are to be elected or to come and represent the African Continent in this Parliament. I am in support that Members to come from outside National Parliaments. If you look at the Chambers now, how many Members if you want to pass or move anything that need to be adopted? Do we have a quorum? It is not that the Members they don’t want come but they have other businesses back home to their National Parliaments. But if you have Members attached only to the Pan-African Parliament, the election of the Members of the Pan-African Parliament, we can do that at our National level that is at the National Assembly level because they are no funds now to conduct election countrywide for five Members but we can use our National Parliaments. Candidates will be applying to our National Parliaments and it is National Parliament that should vote for those candidates that will make them to report back to those National Parliaments. But if we want to link with the National Parliaments and the PanAfrican Parliament, I don’t think if that will work.Madame President, we are here laying the foundation of this Pan-African Parliament. With this number of Members here in this Chamber, I don’t think if we continue like that we will achieve our goals and at the end of the day we are talking about representing the people of Africa.Thank you Madame President.HON. VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.Si vous permettez, je voudrais que vous ajoutiez que je m’appelle Rosine VIEYRA SOGLO. Je tiens absolument à VIEYRA car c’est le nom de mon père, et SOGLO c’est le nom de mon mari. Vous savez tous qu’un mari, on peut le perdre, comme il peut s’en aller, mais votre père jamais, Madame la Présidente. Et avocate de métier, je m’appelle Rosine VIEYRA SOGLO. Je vous remercie beaucoup, Madame la Présidente.Madame la Présidente,Je voudrais si vous permettez, remercier également le président TIDJANI SERPOS et toute sa Commission pour le travail précis, concis et clair qu’il nous a présenté, comme d’habitude. Nous avons l’habitude de ce genre de travail de la Commission du règlement dirigé par le président TIDJANI SERPOS.Alors, Monsieur le président, vous savez, quelqu’un a dit ingratement que la vieillesse était un naufrage, et comme je suis très vieille, je crois que je suis en train de me noyer totalement.Cela dit, Madame la Présidente, je crois que tout a été dit, et bien dit, et je ne voudrais pas enfoncer des portes ouvertes. Je constate simplement que c’est un gigantesque panier à crabes et que Dieu seul trouvera les siens.J’ajoute, pour terminer, Madame la Présidente, que nous voulons avoir le beurre et l’argent du beurre, et nous voulons être dotés du don d’ubiquité. Je ne sais pas où nous allons aller avec cela. Alors, je ne veux pas être plus royaliste que le roi. Je vous souhaite bon vent et bonne chance.J’en ai terminé, Madame la Présidente. Je vous remercie infiniment.HON. TIDJANI-SERPOS ISMAËL [BENIN]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.Je voudrais, également, remercier tous les collègues qui sont intervenus, d’abord pour féliciter la Commission à travers son président et ensuite pour apporter leur contribution. Je considère que tout ce qui a été dit depuis hier, ce sont des contributions que les collègues ont apportées en ce qui concerne, non pas le rapport en soi, mais le travail que nous devons faire en direction de la Commission de l’Union africaine, et à travers les différentes instances auxquelles nous devons participer.Ceci étant dit, je voudrais, Madame la Présidente, rappeler que c’est un travail décisif que nous faisons au niveau du Parlement panafricain. Nous avons dit, dans le rapport, que ce n’est pas aujourd’hui que le processus a commencé. C’est un processus qui a commencé depuis 2006. Nous avons reçu mandat au niveau de la Commission des règlements de faire, d’abord, une enquête au niveau des parlements régionaux. Ainsi, nous avons été en Afrique du Nord, en Afrique centrale, à la SADC, à l’EALA, à la CEDEAO, à ces différents parlements, pour voir le fruit de leur expérience.Seul le parlement de l’EALA en Afrique de l’Est a des pouvoirs législatifs. Et, tenez-vous bien, au niveau de ce parlement, le collège électoral, c’est le parlement, mais ceux qui sont élus ne sont pas des parlementaires. Parce que, pour faire le travail parlementaire, vous ne pouvez pas être assis entre deux chaises, pris par le travail législatif de votre pays, et courir au Parlement panafricain pour faire un autre travail parlementaire. Il faudrait qu’on soit conséquent vis-à-vis de nous-mêmes. Mais, l’expérience vécue en Afrique et qui marche, c’est l’expérience de l’EALA. Les personnalités qui sont élues, à raison de cinquante par pays, de façon égalitaire, ces députés de l’EALA ne sont pas des parlementaires de leur pays, mais ils sont élus par les parlements nationaux de chez eux.Voilà une expérience que nous avons vécue. Même en Europe, par le passé, il y avait cette double casquette, mais les parlementaires européens sont élus exclusivement pour le parlement européen. Quitte à eux de trouver la formule pour rendre compte non seulement à leurs électeurs qui constituent le collège électoral, ou quand c’est au suffrage universel, rendre compte aussi à leurs électeurs d’une manière globale de ce qu’ils font au niveau de ce parlement.C’est fort de ce travail d’investigation que notre Parlement s’est déjà prononcé sur le fait que, pour le prochain Parlement panafricain, ceux qui vont siéger ici n’auront plus une double casquette. On n’aura pas besoin d’être parlementaire, comme cela se fait à l’EALA, chez soi, pour être élu parlementaire du PAP. C’est déjà un acquis, à notre niveau.L’un des maux dont souffre précisément notre Parlement, c’est qu’il n’y a pas de permanence ici. A toutes les sessions, cela se renouvelle. Ceux qui n’ont pas participé à ces travaux, je les comprends parfaitement, alors que c’est un acquis au niveau du PAP. Par rapport à cela, je suis d’accord avec mon collègue qui a proposé qu’on mette de nouveau à la disposition de tous les nouveaux parlementaires, les documents que nous avons intitulé autoévaluation du Parlement panafricain, le rapport sur l’autoévaluation.J’avais déjà demandé que l’administration envoie, dans toutes les boîtes électroniques des députés du PAP, ce document, accompagné également de notre contribution à la révision du Protocole. Je ne sais pas si cela a été fait. Si cela n’a pas été fait, il est toujours temps de le faire; aussi bien, pour les anciens que pour les nouveaux. Qu’on envoie ce document à tous les parlementaires. Je suppose qu’on a la boîte électronique de tous les parlementaires. Si ce n’est pas le cas, les dispositions doivent être prises pour qu’on puisse l’envoyer à tous les parlementaires dans leurs langues de travail.Madame la Présidente,La question a été posée de savoir pourquoi on va chercher un consultant. Ce n’est pas nous qui avons été chercher un consultant. En janvier/février 2009, la Conférence des chefs d’Etat au 2e Sommet de l’UA a pris la décision, notamment la décision 223, de procéder à une étude. La formule arrêtée au niveau de la Commission de l’UA, c’est de désigner un consultant.De façon proactive, nous avions déjà commencé notre travail ici, et ce travail nous l’avons soumis à la Commission de l’Union africaine. Car, précisément, la décision des chefs d’Etat a dit que, pour arrêter les termes de référence de l’étude, il faut prendre en compte le point de vue du PAP. Et l’étude, elle-même, doit prendre en compte le point de vue du PAP. Si le PAP ne s’est pas prononcé, il est difficile que nous puissions donner son point de vue, aussi bien pour les termes de référence que pour l’étude à proprement parlé. Nous avons répondu à tout cela après avoir fait adopter le rapport d’autoévaluation du PAP et la contribution du PAP à la révision du Protocole.Pour répondre aux collègues qui s’inquiètent du fait qu’on va chercher des compétences en dehors du PAP, je dis que le consultant n’est pas désigné par le PAP. Mais, nous avons contribué, conformément à la décision 223 des chefs d’Etat, en déterminant les termes de référence du travail du consultant.La question nous a été posée de savoir de quelle marge de manœuvre nous disposons. Ce n’est pas le PAP qui a décidé de réviser le Protocole. La question de la révision du Protocole est contenue dans le Protocole lui-même. C’est l’article 25 du Protocole qui dit que, cinq (05) ans après l’entrée en vigueur du Protocole actuellement en vigueur, il sera procédé à une évaluation de l’efficacité du Protocole, ainsi qu’aux modalités de désignation des membres, si besoin était. C’est ce processus qui est en cours. Et, c’est dans le cadre de ce processus que nous n’avons pas voulu nous croiser les bras, pour qu’on nous envoie un bébé tout fait dans les mains. Nous avons voulu donner notre point de vue et être actifs, pour que, une fois les choses réalisées, nous ne récoltions la situation.Ce que nous avons constaté, en ce qui concerne le travail du consultant, c’est que si nous n’avions pas fait le travail d’étude à notre propre niveau de contribution, je pense que les 50 à 60% des points convergents que nous avons retenus, aujourd’hui, ne seraient pas ainsi. C’est une autre situation qu’on nous aurait refilé. Même pour ce qui est des 40% qui posent problème, nous continuons d’appuyer le même point de vue qui a été exprimé par le PAP.L’une des questions essentielles posées par un collègue est la suivante: pourquoi devrait-on déconnecter les membres du Parlement panafricain de leurs parlements d’origine? Je crois que cette option a été faite ici; si nous voulons avoir un pouvoir législatif, il faut que les membres du Parlement panafricain se consacrent exclusivement au travail parlementaire du PAP et ne plus être astreints à courir à droite et à gauche, et à être finalement inefficace.Moi qui suis ici, j’ai le reproche constant de mes électeurs: "On ne te voit plus!", et cela malgré le secrétariat que j’ai mis en place. C’est pareil pour toute la délégation de mon pays. Nous pensons que nous ne pouvons pas continuer à vouloir exercer des pouvoirs législatifs ici et être, à la fois, parlementaires chez nous. C’est peut-être facile pour ceux qui sont en Afrique du sud, puisse que dès que nous finissons ici, ils peuvent retourner chez eux. Mais, je suis à des milliers de kilomètres d’ici. On ne peut pas continuer! Et, cette option a été faite dans cette Chambre, de faire en sorte que ce soit des parlementaires à temps plein.Le Protocole dit que, à terme, nous devons avoir le pouvoir législatif avec des parlementaires élus au suffrage universel. Nous avons retenu, dans cette Chambre, que c’est un processus. Ce n’est pas du jour au lendemain que cela va se réaliser et que, à l’étape actuelle, nous options pour l’élection des membres du Parlement panafricain à travers un collège électoral. Ce serait toujours le parlement; là où il y a bicaméralisme. Ils se réuniraient en congrès pour élire leurs représentants venant de chaque pays, pour venir siéger au Parlement panafricain.Comment assurer l’équilibre Genre? Nous avions fait une proposition dans cette Chambre. Je me souviens que c’était le président Sawadogo qui avait proposé qu’on mette les deux sexes sur le même pied d’égalité. Au lieu que ce soit un seul siège consacré aux femmes, on donne la possibilité aux femmes d’aller plus loin, et de façon légale. Soit les hommes sont deux et les femmes sont trois, soit les femmes sont deux et les hommes sont trois. C’est cette formule qui a été retenue et entérinée par l’étude du consultant. Je crois que c’est important de rappeler tout ce que nous avons échangé au niveau de ce parlement, et que c’est la proposition qui avait été retenue.Sur les cinq (05) à désigner par pays, certains collègues ont dit que leurs pays n’ont pas la même démographie. Nous avons dit oui. Et, c’est vrai que c’est après les explications que cela a été arrêté. Prenez le Nigéria, l’Egypte, l’Algérie et même l’Afrique du Sud, un certain nombre de pays qui sont démographiquement bien dotés! Mais, nous avons rencontré des problèmes.Il y a des pays qui sont moins dotés mais, qui ont dit qu’ils payent 15% de contributions au niveau de l’UA et qu’ils ont à peine deux ou trois millions d’habitants. Nous avons rencontré cette difficulté au niveau des études. Si vous prenez le critère démographique, moi, je mets sur la table le critère du financement des activités.Pour couper la poire en deux, à l’étape actuelle, en attendant de faire le suffrage universel, nous avons dit "On continue avec les statistiques arrêtées: cinq (05) par pays; on verra avec le temps." Nous devons éviter, actuellement, tout ce qui peut diviser au sein même du PAP, afin que nous fassions front par rapport à ceux avec qui nous devons dialoguer. Cette formule nous a amené à maintenir le chiffre cinq (05) et de faire en sorte que l’équilibre genre, la diversité des opinions politiques soient considérés comme des critères irréfragables.Concernant le pouvoir législatif, je vous ai donné, hier, le point de vue de la Commission dans la lecture du rapport. Nous estimons que la stratégie qui a été suivie jusqu’à l’adoption de notre contribution, c’est d’éviter tout ce qui peut toucher, trop fortement, la souveraineté des Etats.A l’étape actuelle, l’objectif primordial est le développement économique de l’Afrique.Plusieurs points ont été soulevées concernant l’environnement, la santé, le transport et autres, vous trouverez la liste dans le document initial. Nous avons été jusqu’à 17 points que nous avons considérés comme des points qui ne devraient pas poser des problèmes.Est-ce qu’il ne serait pas bon de déterminer l’écartement des rails au niveau de l’Afrique une bonne fois pour toutes, que le Parlement arrête l’écartement des rails pour assurer l’interconnexion au niveau de tous nos systèmes ferroviaires? Je ne crois pas que cela puisse porter atteinte à la souveraineté des Etats.Ce qui est proposé ici, et que le président Sawadogo semble appuyer, c’est la notion d’harmonisation de législation. C’est une notion vague; on peut harmoniser dans le domaine sécuritaire; on peut harmoniser dans le domaine militaire; ce sont des domaines qui risquent de toucher à la susceptibilité. Il faudrait qu’on détermine, avec plus de précision, ces domaines. C’est le combat que nous essayons de mener dans la délégation du PAP au niveau de la Commission de l’Union africaine, pour qu’on puisse les identifier. Sinon le flou risque de bloquer le travail du Parlement panafricain. Comme nous l’avons, aujourd’hui, dans le Protocole en vigueur, quand le flou règne, on n’arrive pas à l’appliquer et on risque de mettre sur le dos du futur PAP l’inaction.Madame la Présidente,Je vais finir en disant à notre collègue, Mamma Kandeh que ce qui est dit à la page 5, ce n’est pas la gestion du vote des lois. Non! Ici, il s’agit des traités et, en principe, on ne modifie pas le contenu d’un traité. On peut émettre des réserves, mais on ne peut pas modifier le contenu d’un traité. C’est ce qui est dit ici. Notre divergence, par rapport au consultant, c’est qu’il propose que nous adoptions le traité; ce qui va allonger inutilement la procédure et une fois que nous l’aurons adopté, on l’envoie dans le circuit de la ratification, comme ce que nous vivons aujourd’hui, alors que nous aurions voulu essayer de raccourcir la procédure de mise en œuvre de certains traités sur le continent. Mais, il y a de la résistance. C’est ce que nous avons voulu surtout vous dire. Il y a de la résistance par rapport à cette approche-là.Madame la Présidente,Je présente mes excuses aux collègues, en ce qui concerne les points qu’ils auraient abordés et que je n’aurais pas pris en compte. Mais, nous avons tout recensé et nous allons intégrer cela dans notre approche et le confier à la délégation du PAP qui va continuer à travailler avec la Commission de l’Union africaine.Notre prochaine réunion qui, je crois, doit avoir lieu ici, entre le 8 et le 9 novembre, va prendre en compte toutes ces considérations, d’autant plus que c’est à cette occasion que nous allons examiner article par article, les propositions de révision du Protocole.Madame la Présidente,Chers Collègues,Je vous remercie.(Applaudissement).THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Serpos for that clarity that you have given to the issues that were raised by Members and I want to say that most of the issues that were raised have been covered. So, there is no need of apologizing. I can see a hand up, very quickly, is that point of information or point of order, what is it?AN HONORABLE:Madame President, I know we have to vote for this but I thought that I would seek your indulgence to move an amendment on this report on that particular point of electability of Members of PAP, if you allow me Madame President.THE PRESIDENT:I think that this is not the final version and it is very difficult for you to move any amendment without having a document that deals with Article by Article. I think we will dealt with that in the last session were we went Article by Article and the House adopted a document, now it is just a report, it was a summary of what has been going on rather than giving you an opportunity to move an amendment on a particular Article. But I think that the report should be passed with amendment as given by the views of different Members, right?AN HONORABLE:Madame President, I do not want to see a situation where we do not adopt this report because there is a lot of controversy on the electability. I found that if we move anamendment on one paragraph, the whole report can actually be adopted.THE PRESIDENT:That is an area where you have moved your concerns but there are so many other Members who raised issues on different areas. So, how do we deal with that? I think we should adopt the report having taken into consideration the issues that have been raised, the concerns of the Members?AN HONORABLE:Point of order. I do not think we could adopt this report. I think this House could note the report because the work is in progress as I understand it. So, I would move that the House note the report and leave it like that.THE PRESIDENT:I think that is an acceptable position because this is the end of the work, so we can note the report. Is that agreeable? (Applause)AN HONORABLE:Yes.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you South Africa, that is very good, thank you very much. (Applause)I can still see a hand up.AN HONORABLE:Thank you. Do we have Spanish translation? Can I speak in Spanish? Gracias Señora Presidenta. Ya español.THE PRESIDENT:Excuse me; I do not hear any interpretation. Now it is okay.AN HONORABLE:Si, señora tengo una pregunta antes de que se acabe esta cuestión que ayer expuse.Es una aclaración lo que quisiera, porque el otro día en el orden del día del Miércoles, se nos presentó un orden del día sobre este tema donde iban haber dos exposiciones, uno del informe del presidente del; bueno los haría dos el presidente, pero uno era presentación del progreso de la adhesión del protocolo y otra presentación era sobre el examen de las enmiendas que no se han presentado, yo expuso aquí una cuestión que no se me ha resuelto, no se me ha dado la respuesta, y hoy tampoco aparece; no sé los programas consiguientes; pues, quiero saber ¿ qué es lo que ha pasado? Si se ha tomado en consideración o se ha clausurado, o ya no se va a presentar el documento de examen de las enmiendas, porque yo tengo una enmienda que presente. Muchas.THE PRESIDENT:Honorable Member, for this particular report, there has been a suggestion by South Africa that we note the report because the work is in progress. So, I would like to move on this report but for the amendments that were made before, the Clerk should have the answer, do you want to reply to that because we passed some reports with amendments. So the Honorable Member is concerned about when these amendments are going to be visible by the Members, like other past day they passed with those amendments. Am I getting you clear, is that your concern, yes. So I would like the Clerk to answer to that, when do we get the final version of the report when the amendments are included, do we get that before we leave?Okay, just for the sake of not delaying us in terms of time, we will give you that answer later but let us move on. We have noted this report and because the work is in progress we have not passed the report but we have noted it as presented by the Chair on Rules. Thank you very much. I now want to call the Clerk to read the second order.THE CLERK:Presentation in debate on the report of the Committee on Military and Financial Affairs and the Budget of the Pan-African Parliament for 2011. Thank you.THE PRESIDENT:Honorable Members, I now call upon Honorable Jingum Muusa Mbutoh the Chairperson of theCommittee on Monitoring and Financial Affairs, to present the report of the Committee. Honourable Musa has one leg so we will exercise patients and wait for him to arrive. He actually has three legs, I am reminded, it is right. (Laughter)
2.0 – RAPPORT DE LA COMMISSION PERMANENTE DES AFFAIRES MONÉTAIRES ET FINANCIÈRES SUR LE BUDGET 2011 DU PAP السالم عليكم:
HON. NJINGUM MUSA MBUTOH [CAMEROON]:السالم عليكم:Good morning to Madam President and hon. Members.Madam President, today, the 8th of October 2010, is another day for the budget of the Pan-African Parliament, which I am presenting for the Third Ordinary Session of the Second Parliament.Your Excellency, Madam Vice President of the Pan-African Parliament, honorable colleagues, Members of the Pan-African Parliament, it is of great honour that I stand before you to present to you the PAP budget of 2011. I know we are all inspired by the noble idea which guided the founding fathers of our continental organization and generations of Pan-Africanists.I will first of all wish to thank all the African MPs that make up PAP for their determination to promote unity, solidarity, cohesion and cooperation among the people of Africa and African states. I would particularly wish to thank Members of the Committee on Monetary and Financial Affairs for their intelligent and determined spirit to make the financial affairs of the Pan-African Parliament move smoothly for the good of the African Union, Members of the Pan-African Parliament and African states as a whole.It is thanks to their intelligent debating attitude in the committee that this good piece of work (that is the 2011 budget), is now presented to the whole House for consideration.We took recognition of all the guiding decisions taken by the AU’s Assembly to work on this budget. The operational and program budgets have been well built up to enable the well functioning of Pan-African Parliament, in carrying out its objectives, in accordance with Article 3 of the Protocol of the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community relating to the Pan-African Parliament, with all the committee activities focusing especially towards the transformation of PAP into a legislative parliament of Africa. As such the PAP will usher as an important instrument to be used to make completely One Africa, One Voice.Hon. Members, the Rules of Procedure of the PanAfrican Parliament stipulate, under Section 26(2) that, the Committee on Monetary and Financial Affairs is mandated to, among others:a)Examine the draft estimate of the parliamentary budget and submit to Parliament;b)Discuss the budget of the Union and make appropriate recommendation;c)Examine and report to Parliament on the problems involved in the implementation of the annual budget; andd)Assist Parliament to execute its role of establishing sound economic, monetary and investment policies.Pursuant to the aforesaid mandate under the Rules of Procedure, therefore, the committee was convened to a statutory meeting held at the precincts of the Pan-African Parliament from 2nd to 6th August 2010, to consider the Pan-African Parliament draft budget for the year 2011, among other statutory activities.In execution of its mandate, the committee was guided by the prevailing statutory and legal regime governing the PAP budget formulation processes as enunciated in the AU Financial Rules and Regulations, the Executive Council decisions (Ex.CL/DEC.98 (v)) as revised by Executive Council No. 407(xii) together with decision No.455 (xiv) and the PAP Protocol and other administrative directives that were brought to the attention of the committee.On the other hand, the committee’s deliberations took into consideration the overall administrative and political needs of the Pan-African Parliament in its bid to transform into an organ of African Union with full legislative powers. This is in tandem with what is stipulated in Article 2(3) of the Pan-African Parliament Protocol, that is:"The ultimate aim of the Pan-African Parliament shall be to evolve into an institution with full legislative powers, whose members are elected by universal adult suffrage."It is further imperative to report that the committee made its projected expenditure considerations based on the PAP 2010 Mid-Term Performance Report as provided by the Secretariat.Having concluded its initial work on the 2011 PAP draft budget, the committee hence reports its findings, observations and recommendations for the hon. Members’ debate, consideration and subsequent adoption.Methodology of WorkThe committee was guided and adopted the following work methodology in the execution of its function during the said five-day statutory sitting:a)The presentation of the budget was officially done by the Bureau, which was represented by the Fourth Vice President, Hon. Joram Macdonald Gumbo, MP from Zimbabwe, who presented the budget with some seriousness.b)Presentation to the PAP was also accompanied by the PAP Secretariat Head of Departments’ presentationsc)Consideration of PAP budget documents and AU financial rules and regulationsd)Examination of the core activities of the Parliament vis-a-vis the transformation of PAP into an AU Organ with full legislative powerse)Examination of the Parliament, Bureau and permanent committees and the Secretariat/institutional operational budgetf)Individual members’ contributions and debate on draft budget items were heavily considered.As a result of the thorough exercise elaborated above, the committee proposes to this august Assembly, a 2011 PAP budget of USD 13,624,851.As Members will recall, upon adoption of the PAP 2010 budget, the PAP Bureau constituted a delegation that proceeded to present the same to the PRC and subsequently to the January AU Summit in Addis Ababa for approval. At the end of the approval process, PAP was granted a total budget of USD 9,249,735, which has been operational for the current financial year.It is the committee’s conviction that the financial proposals for which your consideration and adoption is sought, shall ensure that the PAP achieves resounding success in the following areas:a)Affirmation of the status and visibility of the Pan-African Parliament in Africa and beyond;b)Capacity building of parliamentarians to equip them with necessary skills for appropriate and effective discharge of the roles, functions and objectives assigned to the Parliament;c)Expansion of space of engagement of the people of Africa in their governance and attainment of priorities and critical issues of the continent;d)Creation of strong cooperation among national parliaments, regional economic communities and Regional Parliamentary Fora (RPF);e)Substantive participation of the PAP in the overall fulfillment and accomplishment of the objectives of the African Union;f)Development of capacity to transform PAP from a consultative status into a legislative organ of the African Union; andg)The general implementation of the objectives of PAP.PAP could not go without challenges. The committee wishes to highlight the following challenges that the PAP continues to be faced with, in the execution of its budget and core activities:The committee took note of the challenges that bedeviled the budgetary performance in the financial year 2010. Among others, the committee noted the following:The continuous failure to fund key functions of PAP’s mandate. For example, despite requests in the 2009/10 budget for provision to be made for non statutory activities for PAP committees, this budget line was completely scraped. This has undermined PAP in executing its mandate, a situation that should not be allowed to happen to it.The allocation of budgets for some budget lines was not adequate and hence heavily affected the operation of the Parliament. For example, in the 2010 budget, out of the proposed budget of USD 2,235,890 for Statutory Parliamentary Sessions, only USD 2, 000,000 was allowed by the AfricanUnion. Similarly, out of the initial proposed budget of USD 120,000 for AU support to the PAP program budget, no allocation was approved by the AU. This is the consequence of our reduction of the period of our session and also the period for our Committee meetings which we could not actually give an input of PAP.The continued failure to fundLack of staff, both in terms of numbers and capacity in its key operational areas. For example, to date, despite critical need for the proper staff compliment to augment the proper function of the Pan-African Parliament, no budgetary provisions were allowed for PAP recruitments in the year 2010. Out of 190 requested by the PAP, only 150 were provisionally approved and out of these, only 44 have been brought on board. Currently, the Finance Department lacks critical staff at a senior level and PAP is unable to recruit due to financial limitation and constraints.There is also lack of a compatible financial management system because of no funds to reinforce our new system.Non-provision of budgetary allocations to facilitate an independent PAP Election Observation Mission despite the need and the continual request for the same.Parliamentary Operational Activities, 2011Those are the challenges we faced in 2010. Now, 2011. The 2011 budget has been drafted to facilitate the execution of the core operational activities with the following focus:Statutory meetingsUnder this head, the Parliament plans to hold the two ordinary sessions of PAP, Bureau and statutory sittings for the 10 permanent committees on time and normal duration of the Parliament.Non-statutory sittings of the BureauUnder this head, provision is proposed for the holding of four ordinary meetings of the Bureau and the rotational function of the Bureau’s members.Member’s allowanceThe committee has lamented so much on this particular budget head and continues being worried because of Members’ preoccupation about this according to Article 10 of our Protocol.The committee still recommends that a team be constituted to make a case in support of this allowance so that it could enable us to include it in our budget. Thus for now, a zero provision is recommended as a strategy move pending the outcome of the lobby process because we do not want to be heady first, but when time comes for us to be heady we shall be heady.Other activities of ParliamentIt has been further proposed that the following activities be provided for in accordance with the mandate, objectives and functions of the PanAfrican Parliament, pursuant to the Protocol:(i)Election Observation Missions in member states of the AU;(ii)Fact finding missions to conflict and other areas;(iii)Visit to National Parliaments of member states and Regional Parliamentary fora to enhance working relations and develop joint programmes;(iv)Cooperation, information exchange and advocacy missions to non-African parliaments;(v)Participation of PAP in African Union meetings(vi)Non-statutory activities of PAP Committees must be accepted. PAP cannot function well without non-statutory activities.Parliamentary programsIn addition to the Sessions and Sittings of Committees, provision is made for various activities drawn from the Strategic Plan for the Bureau and the ten Committees as stipulated in their work plans. Some of the activities provided for include: organizing capacity building and exposure programs for MPs and staff; public education and sensitization of the people of Africa; exchange visits to Regional and other Parliaments and each Permanent Committee of the PAP to undertake at least one consultative and planning Session with the relevant Commissioners and Directorate at the African Union Commission.These activities are included in the program budget and will be implemented with support from development partners and are in line with the objectives of PAP as stated in the PAP Protocol.The committee made the following observations in the course of discharging its mandate:The administration of the Secretariat needed to improve performance in terms of management and administration. Issues of budget deadlines and presentations and document production still curtail the proper functioning of the committee. Unless these are addressed, of which I think they are trying to address now; PAP will continue to perform at less than optimal levels.Communication and coordination in the Secretariat’s function still remain a major concern for the Committee. Information vital to the functioning of the Committee in certain cases was not provided in time. An example was with the ceiling on the budgetary increment from the AU and the forwarding of the budget to the AU without prior communication with the Committee. This almost rendered the work of the Committee redundant. So, AU has to blame the African Union Commission for sending us information late. This reminds me of the period in which we have to study the budget before sending it to the AUC.The Pan-African Parliament continues to suffer from staffing and capacity problems. Whereas the office of the Clerk and the Deputy Clerk Legislative Business have been filled, things are moving on well, but other vacancies still remain as such thereby adversely affecting PAP’s effectiveness. In that regard, some proposals have been made for further recruitment as will be noted in the Finance Department budget. A further proposal for recruiting staff from the South African Parliament and EU has been mooted by the Bureau for consideration of the Hon. Members.The committee observes that the Pan-African Parliament organizational structure is yet to be approved by the AU. This has contributed to the staffing problem continuously experienced in PAP. It should be hoped that this will be resolved in time to allow the Parliament transformation process to take off on a sound staffing structure.To conclude and briefly, the committee urges this honorable august Assembly to seriously consider the proposals carried in the 2011 PAP budget and the objectives highlighted therein, in arriving at the decision to adopt the PAP budget.The committee notes with appreciation the PAP Bureau’s commitment to transform PAP into an AU Organ with full legislative powers by 2011. This is a timely undertaking and the proposals included in the 2011 budget will go a long way in ensuring that some concrete strides are made towards that noble objective.And before I move for the House to consider this budget, I would like to give you some bit of analysis on the annex.While we got the guiding from the AU, we gave some analysis and variance on why we cannot go on that. So, the budget of 2010 was 9,249,725 but if you add 5 percent of this amount you will realize that you have 9,712,232 which can do nothing to help PAP.So, we had to make it very clear to the African Union to understand that this variance is major and very important for the Pan-African Parliament. That is why we made some major items of variance as explained here:PAP non-statutory activities from AU, 2,145,000Committee work and Parliamentary Session; of which if we must have our normal session, we must add this amount to that of last year’s figure, which is 1,067,760.Insurance of members is non-disputable.Seconded and transfer staff which must come to strengthen capacity is nondisputable.Installation Allowance is non-disputable. We have just recruited new staff and more staff will be recruited and we must give them Installation Allowance.Staff medical cost is non-disputable.The Media and Communication Department has been a problem for the Pan-African Parliament. Most of our issues are never known or publicized.So, these are variants that we have insisted with the AU that we cannot go only on the 5 percent increase. So, the budget must go up and we have tried to respond to them to get us out of the 5 percent threshold and to make sure that this budget is approved. We need to lobby our ambassadors because these ambassadors are our problems.The committee thus recommends the adoption of this proposed 2011 PAP budget with your kind consideration. I beg to move. Thank you very much for your attention. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much, Mr. President for that well presented and well written report. And in the same breath I would like to thank the members of the Finance Committee for the commitment that you have shown over time to support the work of the Pan-African Parliament.I now want to open the Floor for debate and I have 14 names on the list. And given the fact that we are lagging behind in terms of time, I will not be able to accept more names to be added. So, the first speaker on the list is hon. AscofareOulematou Tamboura of Mali. Well if a Member is not here, we will miss the contribution but we will gain time. So, we move on. So, I now give the opportunity to the hon. Member from the Saharawi Republic. Hon. Salem. Is he here? He is not here also.HON. MASEPO TEMBO SYLVIA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you Madame President. First I want to join you in commending the Finance Committee for a very well articulated report and from the onset; I want to support the proposals therein. In supporting the budget proposal Madame President, I just want to say that it is unfortunate and sad considering that we are moving towards a Legislative PAP and this is the time at which the budget for 2010 has not been fully funded. I would have expected that since the AU supports the transformation of the PAP into a full Legislative Body, they would have been more supportive in financing the activities of PAP. I want to support the proposal by the Committee to form a special committee that will go and put our case before the African Union Commission, the AUC.Madame President, I also want to just say that what forms the core function of the Parliament is the work of the Committees. But, if the Committees are not seen to be functioning, then it means that the whole Parliament is not functioning. I am surprised that the people that are expected to understand that can under-fund a budget for such an activity, which is the core of a Body like Parliament. Yes, I know that sometimes resources may not be enough, but surely activities of Committee work should never be underfunded. Madame President, I also think that it would be important for the Committee on Finance to also consider - I don’t know whether they did consider - areas for cutting costs. I am sure that in all other activities that have been under taken in the 2010 annual budget, they may be some activities that we could scale down and ensure that core activities like the work of the Bureau and the work of the Committee are not hampered.Another point, Madame President that I think I should indicate is that; sometimes I have a feeling that there is work of some Committees that seem to be more important than other Committees. I am not sure about that, but it is just a feeling that I get because, even as a new member and as a member of trade, when I looked at past papers, there seemed to be a problem of work, the work of the Trade Committee. I got the feeling that may be there are some Committees that are considered more important to the survival of this Parliament than others. I would like to state that in my humble understanding, all Committees of Parliament should get equal support in terms of their work.Yes, I know that there could be some Committees that form the heart of the Parliament e.g. Finance Committee itself, but I think that there should be efforts to ensure that all other Committees are seen to be working. I thank you Madame President.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Masepo. Now I give the opportunity to Honorable Isaac Steven Mabiletsa of Botswana.HON. ISAAC STEVEN MABILETSA [BOTSWANA]:Madame Speaker, let the opportunity be passed, thank you.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much. Thank you. Now I give the opportunity to Honorable Mohamed Farhat of Libya.HON. FARHAT LUTFI MOHAMED [LIBYA]:السيدة الرئيسة،أريد أن أوضح، كعضو في اللجنة المالية، أن ميزانية السنة القادمة قد تم إعدادها وفقا لنص المادة }82 }من قواعد االجراءات في وقت حرج، مع مراعاة الحد األدنى الضروري الحتياجات البرلمان حتى يستطيع القيام بالمهمة التي أوكلت إليه، وحتى يستطيع القيام بدوره وتنفيذ البرامج والنشاطات الضرورية لتحقيق أهدافه، وقد اقترحنا إعادة وضع بعض بنود الميزانية التي رأيناها ضرورية لعمل البرلمان، خاصة فيما يتعلق باالجتماعات غير النظامية التي يصعب تمويلها من قبل الدول األعضاء، ولكن النقطة التي أريد أن أؤكد عليها، خاصة ونحن نتحول تدريجيا إلى برلمان تشريعي، هي ضرورة وضع برنامج محدد العداد ميزانية البرلمان وميزانية االتحاد االفريقي، مع ضرورة مشاركة اللجنة المالية في جميع مراحل إعداد هذه الميزانية حتى نصل إلى مراحلها النهائية واعتمادها من قبل مؤتمر الرؤساء.لقد الحظنا في السابق تغييب البرلمان في كل هذه المراحل، حيث كان دور البرلمان يقتصر على إعداد ميزانيته فقط، وتقديمها عن طريق المفوضية إلى لجنة الممثلين الدائمين {PRC {التي، بدورها، تحدد متى وكيف تناقش هذه الميزانية وحيث يقتصر دور البرلمان على الدفاع عن ميزانيته فقط، والتى تجرى عليها استقطاعات، بطريقة تعسفية، أرى أن يعاد النظر في هذا األاسلوب غير الديمقراطي، وأن تتحول عملية إعداد الميزانية إلى عمل ديمقراطي، ينتهي بمصادقة البرلمان حسب البروتوكول وتقديم توصيته إلى مؤتمر الرؤساء، التخاذ القرار وأقترح، في هذا الصدد، أن يتم التنسيق مع جميع الجهات ذات العالقة، حسب النظام االساسي لالتحاد، لالتفاق على خطة عمل إعداد ميزانية االتحاد، في السنوات القادمة، ووضع جدول زمني لكل المراحل الالزمة العداد ميزانية البرلمان واالتحاد، مع االلتزام بهذا الجدول الزمني، حيث الحظنا في السابق عدم مشاركة البرلمان في وضع هذا الجدول الزمني، كما أن الجدول الزمني الموضوع ال يتم االلتزام به وال يخفى ما فى ذلك من تضييع للوقت وزيادة في النفقات التى نحن أحوج إلى توفيرها فى ظل االمكانيات المالية المتاحة.HON. MUKABARANGA AGNÈS [RWANDA]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente. Je voudrais, aussi, joindre ma voix à celles de ceux qui ont apprécié la présentation du rapport.J’ai quelques commentaires à émettre à propos de ce budget qui, il est vrai, tient compte de la vision et des objectifs du PAP, dans un contexte de contrainte que nous connaissons.Mais, je voudrais néanmoins, Madame la Présidente de séance, attirer l’attention sur le fait que nous ne soyons informés de ce projet de budget qu’en plénière. Ma Commission, en tout cas, n’a pas été informée de ce qu’on envisage de budgétiser comme activités de la Commission. Je trouve, en cela, une lacune, et je voudrais que, Madame la Présidente, l’implication des Commissions dans la préparation du budget ne soit pas abandonnée, parce qu’elle est vraiment importante.Madame la Présidente, pour ce qui concerne le recrutement du personnel, moi j’apprécie la transparence: des noms nous sont donnés, ainsi que les salaires qui vont être alloués au personnel, y compris leurs émoluments, leurs allocations familiales, leurs pensions, etc. Mais, je constate que pour le remplacement du personnel, on ne nous informe qu’en partie seulement. Et, je voudrais émettre une recommandation, Madame la Présidente. Même si cela est lié à des contraintes de budget et qu’on ne peut remplacer que le personnel qui est parti, dans l’objectif, il faut permettre aux Commissions d’être performantes.Il nous a été informé qu’il y a des partenaires qui sont prêts à financer le recrutement de certains employés; donc, qu’il soit donné priorité aux appuis aux Commissions. Comme vous le savez, cela reste vraiment une préoccupation d’assurer le suivi des activités que nous planifions et des fois, il est très amer de constater que le bilan d’une année n’a été vraiment que sous ce qu’on avait planifié.A part cela, Madame la Présidente, je pense qu’on va continuer le lobbying avec la réunion du COREP, afin que notre budget soit dans le cadre de ce qu’on veut atteindre à la fin de ce mandat. Je vous remercie.HON. NJOBVUYALEMA JOSEPH [MALAWI]:Thank you Madam Chair for giving me this opportunity to contribute to the debate on this particular budget.Madam Second Vice President, let me commend the Chairperson of Budget and Finance for ably presenting the budget. I have some specific comments and I will be referring to pages in my English version. I hope the Chairman will be following what I will be saying.For example, on Page 5 of the main budget, the Chairman is talking about challenges for the budget year 2010. And he is citing one of the challenges as lack of zero growth increase in the budget and he says, only certain essentials and Committee meetings were carried out by PAP. This could not help the institution to be more active and visible. What does that mean? By being more active and visible, I thought he would cite a particular activity in that statement, because being more active and visible are too general. We were holding meetings, we were holding Committee meetings, and that is being active. May be he needs to elaborate a little more. What is it that was not done so that PAP is seen to be more active? Probably he should come up with a specific activity so that it is incorporated into the 2011 draft budget.The other thing is on the same page, it is talking about lack of staff, both in terms of numbers and capacity. Capacity is a very serious situation and I was looking at the draft 2011 budget. He doesn’t seem to have captured this. I looked at the details in monetary terms, the details in figures and activities for 2011 budget. He has not shown that he intends to develop the capacity of staff. But in the 2010 budget, he has cited that as a challenge. So, usually when you come across a challenge, you tend to make the necessary measures to meet that challenge.The other thing I want to talk about is on page 9, Madam President, of the English version. There is an activity there which is item 6, it says; Development of Capacity to Transform PAP from consultative status into a legislative organ of the AU. Whose capacity? He is just saying developing capacity. Whose? Is it the members of staff? Is it Members of Parliament? Whose capacity? May be we should come up with a more elaborate language on that particular issue.Madam Chair, I thought I should also talk about, sorry, I will have to go back. In the diagrams, there are no page numbers, so I will treat them as annexes. And in these annexes, there are details of existing vacancies. The vacancies Madam Vice President are: Finance Officer, Procurement Officer, Travel Officer, Interpreter, Senior Finance Officer and 11 Systems Administrators. We are not given a reason why there are these vacancies. I thought he may want to say something on that because I know the position of Finance Officer is a long standing positing, which we should have filled a long time ago. Why were we unable to fill the vacancies?Let me move on to the last item. Madam Chairperson, Article 10 of the Constitutive Act stipulates that, and with your permission I would like to read it; "The Pan African Parliamentarians shall be paid an allowance to meet expenses in the discharge of their duties." This Article has not been amended. This Article has not been quashed. Whatever arrangements, I don’t see any legal documents in Pan African Parliament, which have adjusted, amended or changed the provision of this particular Article. Therefore, the expectation is that any budget, which is formulated, should capture this expense. Pan African Members are expected to receive an allowance in the discharge of their duties. It is not here in the budget, and why? May be the Chairperson will want to explain on this.But let me come back as I finalize, Madam Vice President, to the development of capacity of staff. Pan African Parliament is transforming into a legislative body. What that means is that the culture, the attitude, the capacity and work involvement, the amount of work to be done will be even more. So, the staff has to be more capable. They have to cope with that kind of situation. They need to familiarize themselves to how they shall be dealing with issues of legislation, the Bills, Private Members Motions and so forth. We don’t seem to say something about how we are going to do that. I mean, come January 2011, we could transform into a legislative body, but we are dealing with the same staff who are here, we are dealing with the same people who are here, we are dealing with the same messengers that we have, we are dealing with the same administrative staff that we have, which, as a matter of fact, are not doing very well already. When we want to hold Committee meetings, we have problems in terms of documentation and other services. Now, what are we saying? What we are saying is; the existing staff will not be able to cope up with legislative work. So, I think that in the 2011 budget, we should incorporate the capacity building of staff. Let me stop there Madam Vice President and thank you very much for according me this opportunity. (Applause)HON. HASSABO MOHAMMED ABDUL RAHMAN [SUDAN]:شكرا جزيال سيدتي الرئيسة، أنا حقيقة طلبت الكلمة في موضوع آخر. وعليه أرجو أن أسجل مالحظاتي بأن هناك عدم دقة لدى السكرتارية، في تسجيل طلبات األعضاء، وهذا قد تكرر فأرجو أن يراعى ذلك في المستقبل وشكرا.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Thank you very much Madam President for giving me the floor. Firstly, I would like to congratulate and commend the Chairperson of the Monetary and Financial Affairs Committee on the report and the proposed budget that the Chairperson has presented to this House, this morning. Perhaps Madam President, I should start by making a confession to the fact that I am also a member of this Committee. However, I did not take part in the preparation of the Budget in August 2010 but, nevertheless I think the Committee did a brilliant job, for which they deserve to be commended.Madam President, I would like to draw the attention of this House to page two of the report under introduction on item 1 sub-clause (b), which states that the Committee on Monetary and Financial Affairs is mandated to among others, discuss the Budget of the Union and make appropriate recommendations. Madam President, ever since I became a Member of this Committee in May 2008, there has never been an occasion whereby this Committee had the opportunity to discuss the budget of the Union and make appropriate recommendations on that budget; I have never come across that. Late alone to even see the budget of the African Union with my bare eyes, I have never seen that budget. So, it is rather disturbing that we have this as one of our mandatory responsibilities, but we have never been given the opportunity to act on it.Madam President, if AU does not want this Committee to discuss its Budget, it is better that they say so, so that we can assign the Honourable Chairperson of the Rules Committee and his Committee to remove this item as one of the mandatory responsibilities of this Committee. They should say that they do not want us to discuss their Budget, so that we discard that item from being one of our responsibilities as a Committee.What I want to say Madam President is that we as Members of the Pan African Parliament, we always complain, we cry like a lady called Rachel, we are saying that the African Union does not give this Parliament adequate funding. I want to say it here and now, Madam President that we must understand that the effective operations of all the institutions of the African Union depend on member states subscriptions. If some member states are not paying their dues consistently, and if some member states are still lagging behind in terms of their dues to the African Union, how do we expect the African Union to provide adequate funds to PAP? No, that will never happen! So, member states need to demonstrate more political will to commit resources to the African Union so that African Union can then commit resources to PAP to operate effectively.I know very well that some countries including mine, have been hit by the advent of the economic recession. Madam President, I also want to say that some countries that are lagging behind in terms of arrears; were actually in arrears long before the advent of economic recession. So, that cannot be an excuse for not paying dues to the African Union. I am appealing to all members of the Pan African Parliament that when we go back to our countries, let us talk to our governments and convince them to pay their outstanding arrears so that when we cry here, we cry with the full knowledge and understanding that our countries have paid what is outstanding in terms of the dues to the African Union. Then, and only then can we make a lot of noise saying that AU is not providing enough funds to us to fulfill our mandate. Other than that, we cannot make a lot of noise about AU not giving us enough funds. Finally, let us make sure that our respective countries pay their dues to the African Union. If our countries are still in arrears, do not expect the African Union to provide adequate funds to this institution. Forget it, I bet!Madam President, with those few remarks, I thank you.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Member, I think your point as been very well made and it is very valid, but if the African Union doesn’t have the money even if we cried and shouted and what and may be the same problem faces other organs of AU, so I think that it is an important issue that you have raised which had not been raised before.AN HONORABLE MEMBER:Deputy President, I am surprised that you have got list of people who are not supposed to be on the list and those that are supposed to are not, yesterday in the morning I presented my request to speak on this budget and am surprised my name has not been called up.AN HONORABLE MEMBER:Point of order, Madame President, along the same lines I had given out my name to be put on the list and it is now missing when others wouldn’t want to be there, their names are on the list.THE PRESIDENT:I think that there seems to be confusion in the lists, people put their names, one of the Members actually did mention that, that names appearing on the same list and lists were not clear, so am going to take it as being true and I will give the two Members an opportunity to contribute and that is the end. Please don’t add more Members because we are going to be here until lunch time and we will not be trough with our business and in the afternoon we have the women’s conference.UN HONORABLE MEMBRE:Madame la Présidente, depuis quelques jours, on nous distribue des feuilles sur lesquelles est mentionné le point à discuter, pour demander la parole. Nous avons tous inscrit nos noms dessus. Malheureusement, vous ne les avez pas. Vous prononcez des noms de gens qui n’ont pas demandé la parole, d’autres qui ont demandé la parole et qui sont absents. Tout cela ne fait, vraiment, pas honneur à notre Parlement.Je demande au Secrétariat de distribuer dorénavant la liste des intervenants, avant la séance, comme cela était le cas durant les anciennes sessions, et chacun de nous pourra voir si son nom y figure ou pas. A ce moment-là, il peut discuter avec le secrétariat, parce que, tel que c’est, on ne peut pas s’en sortir; des gens qui ont demandé la parole n’ont pas été cités, d’autres qui ne l’ont pas demandé sont partis. Cela ne peut pas continuer ainsi, Madame la Présidente.THE PRESIDENT:Your point is well taken, I would imagine that there is a list a the entrance there desk, where Members note their names and there should be a clear indication of which debate you want to contribute too and indeed these lists of names should be circulated to all the Members so that the list that I have here that I am reading reflects the same list that the Members would have, that is the practice that we had in the past and that should continue. So you are point is well taken Honorable Member. So having said that, Honorable Deli is that point of information also? Because unless it is different we really taking more of our useful time, yes.AN HONORABLE MEMBER:Thank you Madam President. Madam President, I would want to make an application in terms of the rules of procedure to make good, part of the report here. Madam President if you may permit me; as part of the report on page 5, there is the bullet before Parliamentary Operational Activities 2011. It is saying; non-provision of budgetary allocation to facilitate that independent PAP Election Observation Mission despite the need and request for same.Madam President, you will realize that this raises very pertinent issues; that we assess pursuant to the decision of the Executive Council the need to be part of a Joint Mission. To support the good work that the Bureau is doing already as reflected in this report, I wanted to make an application pursuant rule 61 and all our Notices of Motions, to say that you will have the backing of the House based on a resolution to today’s matter.THE PRESIDENT:Honourable Member, I have received a motion that you intend to move. So, let’s complete this debate then I will give you an opportunity.AN HONOURABLE MEMBER:Most grateful Madam.THE PRESIDENT:So, I give the opportunity to Honourable Matlali Ntebaleng Mavis of South Africa to make your contribution, after which I will give the opportunity to Honourable Harry of Kenya. Please allow me to close the debate at that point.HON. MATLALI NTEBALENG MAVIS [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Honourable Madam President. Honourable Madam President, I support the budget for 2011 financial year and also congratulate the Chairperson on the good report that was also well presented. I have points to make that PAP has got to take care of. What happened to PAP budget in 2010 should not recur. In order to avoid what happened in 2010 where the budget was US$13.6 million and the African Union cut it to US$9.2 million. We need to look at the following points seriously.1.PAPs internal controls have to be up and doing. I am talking about the internal auditor of PAP. I am talking about the Audit Committee at PAP as well as looking into the financial management systems and policies that have to be followed in expending the budget. Most of the time the report of the Audit Committee comes very positive, and it states that everything is well in the financial management of an institution. But when the Committee looks into the reports that it gets, it finds that the story is totally different. So, we would like the Audit Committee, if it exists, to start being serious with its work.2.Another point is of the external auditors; I believe they should be given all the accounts of PAP to be audited. During the previous financial year that is 2010, PAP’s Trust account could not be availed to auditors, and there was little information regarding its status, including even how much was in that account. We found this to be an anomaly. I believe as I am standing here talking today, the matter is not yet resolved. We have to start looking at value for money, not being only interested in compliance. We start to look into why we used this fund for whatever it is used, and did it benefit PAP and Members of PAP? In presenting the 2011 Budget to African Union, PAP needs to reinforce its representation to include Members who would engage AU in a robust debate, in motivating and supporting the presented budget so that the reduction should not be done as it happened previously.I thank you Honourable President.HON. ALI BAHARI [KENYA]:Thank you Madame President for this opportunity. Madame President, I want to thank the Chairman for the able manner in which he presented the budget and the simple version of it. Madame President, mine will be mainly to reinforce and clarify a few issues that have been raised or have been touched upon by the Chairman. One of these is to clearly spell out that at this particular point in time in the 2010, we faced a situation where there was a lot of hostility from the AU on matters related to PAP because of the poor relations that have been there. So the 2010 budget was approved and implemented within that kind of an environment and therefore, it was not an easy budget, it was a sanction budget of some kind.Secondly, I want to say that a lot of the complaints that we get from MP’s, from the staff in terms of, for example efficiency and effectiveness of PAP, in terms of documents availability, in terms of salaries and positioning of the staff is a matter to do with the structure of PAP. The structural problems are not matters that can be easily overcome given the kind of reporting structures at the same time that this institution is subjected too. And therefore, you see complaints year in and year out, which are along the same lines, and I want to give an example of issues about documentation, interpretation, translation, on time performance, salaries that staff complain about; all these have everything to do with the organogram of the institution visa-a-vis the budget. Our structure as never been approved at any given time, and therefore, we are still awaiting that structure to be approved. Along the process, the problems and the complaints of members continue unabated, and this is a very difficult situation, which is one of the challenges that this institution has faced. In relation to that, I believe that this institution needs to be given a bit of autonomy to enable it to carry out its functions. By subjecting this to processes that are long and consuming, time, where heads of states sometime meet - most of the time they meet only twice a year - then you can imagine how long it takes for you to get any approval. Once resources are not there, you can be rest assured that no institution will function as it is required. For example the issue of non-statutory Committee meetings; I think members have said here that Committee is the back bone of any institution of Parliament and therefore, when we stop the non-statutory activities, then there is less visibility of this Parliament. Presently, there is less activity for the Committees and there is less input into the plenary, and therefore, this has affected our capacity to handle issues. In the past non-statutory meetings we had lots of interactions with professionals, with people who were resourceful and we ended up giving lots of input to the plenary in the past. I must in the same vein say that the issue of the trust fund has given us a lot of problems too, because the trust fund is supposed to complement resources to this institution, especially in cases where we do not find resources easily coming directly from the Member states. So, because of the problems we have had with trust fund, we have not been able to draw from the trust fund to be able to finance some of our activities, which is also a big impediment. I hope in this instance the Bureau will insist and push for the audit report that is with the AUC, so that we will be able to move forward and make better use of the trust fund.I also want to take this opportunity to commend the Republic of South Africa, for giving a lot of support to this Parliament in various ways, including where we have not been able to get funding from the AU, particularly on the area of staff compliments because they have always looked at our needs and made it easy for this Parliament to be able to overcome some of those challenges. I think it is a worthy cause that they have undertaken, they have shown commitment over and above the contributions to the AU that they have been making. I want to agree that for Members of Parliament to be ready for the activities that they undertake in terms of the responsibilities in Parliament, it is some of those structural issues that we really need to take up when we engage the relevant institutions. As they say, if you think for example education is expensive, they say try ignorance/ so if you are going to stickTHE PRESIDENT:Honorable Ali Bahari you have half a minute left.HON. ALI BAHARI [KENYA]:So if you are going to stick, am winding up now. If you are going to stick to some of those structural issues, you don’t fill those positions like the ones in finance, like the one in translation, interpretation, then, the cost is the kind of mood that you see among members. With those few remarks I beg to support.THE PRESIDENT:Okay. Thank you so much Honourable Harry. I also realize that you thanked South Africa for the support that she has given us and indeed, it is worth recognizing. We are very grateful to the Republic of Africa for all the support that we are getting. Thank you.That concludes the debate on the report of the Budget of the 2011 and I would like to call the Chairman of the Committee, Honourable Muosa Mbutoh to respond.HON. NJINGUM MUSA MBUTOH [CAMEROON]:Madam President, I think I will call for your indulgence to sit here and try to look at some of the preoccupations of Members. I want to first of all thank all the Members of Pan African Parliament, those who have intervened to give some observations and those who have not intervened. Those who have not intervened, it means they have understood the report very well and they know why they are quiet. Those who had some doubts have asked for clarification on certain few issues. I want to thank them very much for their observations and their remarks, which will be taken seriously for consideration, so that they will improve our ability and systems in Pan African Parliament. But, I want to remind Members of PAP that the 2010 Budget was a very difficult one for us to achieve because the relationship that was between PAP and African Union was still very fresh, but thank God, we used all possible means to make sure that our budget was not going to be reduced. Most budgets for the Organs of AU were reduced but PAP’s was left at nine point something because we had to use all forms of gymnastics to handle the people. They were saying let us give PAP one twelfth and see what they can do before we can give them a budget. It was a very serious debate and we took a lot of time debating until voting took place for the PAP budget.At least we can congratulate the Committee for doing that because there was a bad relationship. Zambia in fact, we agree that we will increase the vote if we were to have full legislative power. So, I know that when the full legislative power is being given all financial aspects of the full legislative power will be implicated. That one is clear, they cannot give you full legislative power without implicating financial issues into the matter. So for that one, it is very clear that we shall still fight to make sure that our full legislative powers have all finances. If the Committee does not function like my brother has said, PAP will not function because activities of the Committee of PAP have been reduced because of low budget and no funds. That is why we are trying to make sure that the activities of Committees should be awake, made stronger and functioning well. In the analysis of our budget, we took into consideration the core activities of the PAP. If you look at the budget very well, and in detail, you will be see that we have gone through the budget thoroughly, and we made sure that we focus the budget on where it is necessary for PAP to function well. I want to deny this fact, and if that is the case, I do not think it is normal. All Committees of PAP have equal rights to make PAP function. I do not think some Committees should consider themselves as more important than other Committees. It is just that the activities may be more, but that does not mean some Committees are more important to the PAP. If that is the impression with regards the Committee on Finance, I think the Bureau have take note - if at all it exists - because no Committee is indispensable, and no Committee is unimportant for PAP. That is the reason why committees were created. Non statutory meeting - I know this is the key problem of our activities and you see how for all these few years that we have been in power, most of the activities of the Committee have been reduced to less functioning because we only work on statutory meetings.Madam President, when the statutory meeting is being called most Committees do not even get a quorum. This is because our national Parliaments do not have the means to sponsor all of us. I hope I will be given the chance to address this issue to the Speakers of the National Assemblies they will be coming here on the 22 October 2010. So that we can also lobby for you and talk to them about the financial constraints we are facing. And if the PRC does come here, thank God, we must put all your financial problems in a very tactful manner, because we are not presenting a budget to them. We will only use the tact to get them so that we can achieve all these issues. Non Statutory meeting is a preoccupation of the Committee of Finance. No Committee can function well without the non-statutory meeting, it is very impossible.On the time table, as my colleagues have said, the issue of budget to be adopted by plenary when it has already been adopted by African Union, does not make sense. I tell you, we are trying to impress upon the bureau to have negotiations with the Africa Union Commission to make sure that the budget does not go to them before coming to the plenary, because once the budget is passed in Parliament, I do not see why we should debate it anymore. Here, for us it is the reverse. We are now adopting a budget that has already been sent to the African Union Commission. How will they reconcile the amendments? So, this is the problem we are facing. That is how the system has been. It is therefore our duty to make sure that we support the bureau in lobbying and making sure that modalities are changed. Let them know the importance of Parliament. For now I don’t think they know what a parliament is. It is our duty through our ambassadors who are there to educate them and make them know what Parliament is supposed to do. Even if you are there, they do not look at you as an MP. If you do not talk to them, they will neglect you, and they listen more to staff than to the MPs. So this is one of the areas we have to fight for MPs to come out of it. We lobby through our own Ministers that we have in our various countries. It is our duty as five MPs to make sure that we do that in our national Parliament.On the drawing of the budget by the Committees, it is true, that when a budget is to be drawn, all the Committee members must present their own budgets to the Finance Committee so that we elaborate on it, and work together to make sure that we have a good budget for ourselves. But the problem is, you will realize that as we came here for the Committee meetings, some Committees had one day and some Committees had two days because of financial constraints. Holding a meeting for two days and for one day, no Committee can perform. We could not come together to sit down and discuss on the budget.I know partners, partners are a problem. The EU promised to support our capacity building in our Committees. I think the negotiations are still going on. This process is still going on to make sure we have capacity buildings in these Committees. Some partners have already shown interest to come back to us for assistance.Madam President, I think Malawi raised many doubts, but I think that if he had listened to the report very well, he would have got all the answers well clarified in the report. I must try to emphasize that in practice and principles, I have just cited one, if a Committee sits for one day instead of three days, does the capacity of that Committee give an input to Pan African Parliament? It does not. Not that all thoseactivities were not there, but more issues could have come out. For example, we have the national Parliament, the visit to national Parliament, we have no doubt, that is to make PAP visible, and we cannot do that because there is no budget. So those are the issues that I tried to cite in order to inform you that PAP would have been more visible and more active in the Continent if money was given to PAP. National Parliaments would have been visited, Committees would be having normal Committee meetings, many issues would have been raised, and fact finding missions would have been done.Madam President, on development capacity, I think there is a place here, where I fair of capacity of Pan African Parliament. I said the capacity building of Parliamentarians to equip them with the necessary skills for appropriate and effective discharge of the roles, functions and duties assigned to them as Parliamentarians and to Staff. I think that is the capacity building I was talking about.On the vacancies, we have a problem with the vacancies. That is a challenge and as you cited, they need to be occupied because those are very important positions. That is why the EU and the South African Parliament have decided to assist PAP in order to fill this and stop further inconvenience. We are taking that into consideration in the budget. When the recruitment is complete, we can now reassess the budget to make sure that it meets the recruitment requirements. So you understand what we mean when we say we do not have staff. We have been complaining everyday that there is no staff in Pan African Parliament. Instead of 190 members, we are relying on 44 members. That is insufficiency of PAP. All MPS have been complaining that the staff is insufficient, that is why I am talking of lack of staff in terms of numbers and capacity.Madam President, the lack of capacity means that, even those that are there, they need some skills. That is why we are still having a problem. There must be a system to be put in place; we need to train staff that can use the system perfectly for the good of PAP. So that is the reason why we are trying to allocate an allowance to make sure that there is training staff. We have to train them gradually because we cannot train them at the same time. The budget will all be exhausted. So we need to train them gradually so that we build a capable and skilled staff.Botswana, thank you for your complements and the additional advice you gives. South Africa, thank you for the recommendations I think the Bureau have taken note of it. Kenya have given more clarifications. I think Madam President I do not want to repeat myself. My colleagues have already clarified many of the issues.Thank you for giving me this opportunity to clarity MPs on their pre-occupations. I also wish that this opportunity be given me to present the concerns of MPs to PRC and National Parliament Speaker as there will visit us.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much, Mr. President.Honorable Members, I now put the question that the Report of the Committee on Financial Affairs and the budget of the Pan-African Parliament for 2011 be adopted as agreed. (Applause)(Report adopted.)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you so much.Honorable Members, I now call the Clerk to read the Third Order of the day. I can see a hand up. Honorable Dery, you may have the Floor.HON. DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:Thank you Madame President. You have indicated earlier that you had a Notice of Motion that I wanted to give, with your permission, now I would like to do so.THE PRESIDENT:Honorable Members, under Rule 61(1) and (2), the Honorable Dery is allowed to give a Motion and I think because we need three days for it to be debated on the floor of the Parliament, we consider the Motion before the next item on the agenda. So you may have the floor.
3.0 – AVIS DE MOTION PORTANT SUR LES MISSIONS CONJOINTES D’OBSERVATION DES ELECTIONS DU PAP ET AUTRES ORGANES DE L’UNION AFRICAINE
HON. DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:Thank you Madame President.Madam President I want to start by laying a brief foundation for this Motion. I will do so with your permission by referring to the report that has just been presented and at page five in which the Committee rightly observed the non-provision of budgetary allocation to facilitate an Independent PAP Election Observation Mission.Madame President, you will realize that, since 1st February, 2010, based on a decision of the Executive Council of AU, we are now supposed to be a part of a joint mission with other AU organs. Rightly, the Bureau has engaged constructively with AU organs and I think that on our part we should give the Bureau the support to so engage, so that they could amicably through good advocacy get the decision of the EEC changed.So, pursuant to Rule 61, I want to read the text of the Motion that I want to give notice of.With your permission Madame President, the notice goes as follows: Whereas in the context of the involvement of the people of Africa and grassroots in decision making, the Pan-African Parliament derives its mandate for Election Observer Missions from Articles 3(g) and 3 (h) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union and Article 3 of the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Committee relating to the Pan African Parliament. Aware that as per Article 4(3) and Article 6 respectively of the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the Economic Committee of African relating to the Pan African Parliament, the composition of PAP reflects diversity of politically opinions of the Member States and voting is based on personal and independent capacities of Members of PAP, convinced that in the circumstances, PAP best reflects the vision of the involvement of the peoples of Africa and grassroots in decision making among all other organs of the African Union, whereas by a decision of the Executive Council of the African Union adopted on 1st February 2010 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia namely Decision on Election Observation Ex.CL/Dec.534(XVI), PAP is to be part of Joint Elections Observation Missions with other AU organs under a centralized budget managed by the Department of the Political Affairs of the AU, concerned that PAP as part of the Joint Commission Election Observer Mission with other AU organs compromises the vision of the involvement of the people of Africa and grassroots in decision making further as exacerbated by operational challenges such as unfavorable terms of participation for Members of PAP and poor communication among others.Now, therefore, Madame President, I humbly move that it is resolved and it is hereby resolved as follows:1.That PAP should engage the relevant organs of the AU to advocate that the decision on the election observation (XVI) of the Executive Council of the AU in respect of Joint Election Observation Missions with PAP and other AU organs be rescinded to enable PAP undertake its independent election observation missions; and2.That the terms of conditions of Honourable Members of PAP on Election Observation Missions as per applicable terms and conditions for AU elected officials.Madame President, I humbly submit that this be the notice pursuant to Rule 61. Rule 61(1) permits the Presiding Officer to fix a date putting the Motion on an Order Paper before the expiry of the three days where it is of public interest. I submit that it is of public interest because the President of this House did state in his report the good job that the Bureau has started in respect of the terms of engagement of Honourable Members and various contributions on the last report that it is within your competence, by your discretion, to put it on the Order Paper either on Monday or Tuesday and I do so humbly submit, Madame President. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Dery, do we have anybody to support the Motion?AN HONORABLE:Here, here.THE PRESIDENT:YesAN HONORABLE:شكرا سيدتي الرئيسة، باعتبار أهمية الموضوع. والحال أنه اآلن المشاركة، بالشكل الحالي، تعتبر إهانة ألعضاء البرلمان؛ إذ يتم اعتبار أعضاء البرلمان في الدرجة الثالثة أو الرابعة، أقل حتى من موظفي اإلتحاد اإلفريقي.وللعلم، فإن مجموعة شمال إفريقيا اتخذت قرارا بمقاطعة المشاركة، في هذه البعثات، حتى تعود الظروف على ما كانت عليه وأن يتم التعامل، باحترام، مع أعضاء البرلمان. لذلك، فإنني أدعم هذا المقترح.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Member. So, the motion will go on the Order Paper for next week. I believe it has come in on good time, there is no reason why it should not be considered, so it will be debated next week indeed and we thank you for this timely motion that you have moved at the right time.Honorable Members, I would like the Clerk to read the last order of the day.THE CLERK:Presentation and debate on the Report of Election Observer Missions.THE PRESIDENT:Honorable Members, given the fact that the report have been circulated, I want to suggest that we have a summary of the presentations from the Members who are going to present so that it gives an overview of what transpired and may be if we do not get the time to debate the reports today will be able to debate it first thing next week.So, I would like to call upon Honorable Master Goya to present the report on Rwanda. Please do an overview in five minutes.Then I would like to inform Honorable Kebzabo Saleh that he will be presenting the report on Guinea, so that he gets prepared.Are you ready to present it now?HON. KEBZABO SALEH [CHAD]:Yes.THE PRESIDENT:Okay, Honorable Goya, because you look like you are not ready, he can go first.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:I am ready.THE PRESIDENT:If you are ready, then present the report on Rwanda.
3.0 – RAPPORTS ET DEBATS RELATIFS AUX MISSIONS D’OBSERVATION DES ÉLECTIONS
3.1 – RWANDA
HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Thank you very much Madam President. I am ready as always.I will just go straight to page five of the report. So, I will skip the first four pages and go straight to page five where it is starting with Item 5, which says, "The Rwanda Presidential Elections, 4th to 13th August, 2010".Madam President, introduction, the African Union constituted an Election Observer Mission to Rwanda for the Presidential Elections set for 9th August 2010. The African Union’s deployment of Election Observer Missions is in accordance with its objective of ‘promoting democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance,’ and principle of ‘respectful democratic principles, human rights, the rule of law and good governance’ on the Continent.The Mission Composition, the Mission was composed of representatives from different countries and various institutions. The Observers came from the Civil Society, Electoral Commissions and included other significant persons like Ambassadors and former Government Officials.The Pan African Parliament was represented by myself from Botswana, Honorable Baromi Edoh from Togo, Honorable Alfonso Nsue Mokuy from Equatorial Guinea, Honorable Soueilman El Kaid from Saharawi Republic, and two PAP staff members namely; Mr. N. Simakando and Ms. M. Simui.Arrival of the Mission, a few members of the AU Observer Mission arrived on 1st August, 2010 and announced the arrival of the mission in Kigali, Rwanda. The majority of the members of the Observer Mission arrived on the 4th August.Interaction with stakeholder, the mission met and exchanged views with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Electoral Commission of Rwanda. Efforts were made to contact and meet some political parties such as the Liberal Party, Social Democratic Party, and Rwanda Patriotic Front who were participating in the elections. The mission was also met with Mrs. Victorie Ingabire Umuhoza, the Chairperson of the United Democratic Forces who was under house arrest at the time of elections. The Civil Society Platform represented all member Civil Society Organizations in the meeting with AU Observer Mission. The Mission was able to interact with other Observer Missions such as the Commonwealth, the Great Lakes Conference, the Francophone and COMESA to exchange views.The Mission deployed teams of two members each to all provinces, except for Southern Province and Kigali where two teams of four members were deployed to observe the voting process. The teams sent reports to the Mission Leader while in the field on their impressions on the process.Now, I will skip the Mission Statement and the Mission Report and go to item 6; Challenges of Joint Missions.It has come to our realization that these joint missions have impact on the Pan-African Parliament. The poor representation of the PanAfrican Parliament is due to the conditions of travel, air ticket in economy class and the low rate of per diem paid to observers.It should also be noted that these joint missions face challenges such as:1.Organizational difficulties related to poor coordination of logistics such as the appointment of observers at the PAP, the transmission of invitations and tickets;2.The distribution and deployment of observers regardless of the language of communication makes it difficult for Members to participate effectively in missions; and3.The Pan-African Parliament is not represented adequately in the leadership of Missions.I think I should go back to the report, on page 5. The report was prepared by all the Members of the Observer Mission and was concluded by Tuesday afternoon. The report was not distributed to the Members because the staff from the African Union Commission argued that it had to be presented to the African Union Commission Chairperson. To date Madam President, the Pan African Parliament has not received the main report on the Rwanda Elections. It is our hope that the AU Chairperson will submit the report to the Pan-African Parliament in the near future. (Applause) So what I am just reading to you is just pure administrative issues that we encountered while we were in Rwanda.Now, next page, page 6, item 7, "Tasks of the PanAfrican Parliament Election Observation Desk". We, as Members of the PAP who observed elections in Rwanda, feel that PAP should establish an Election Observation Desk and under item 7, these are the tasks that we recommend should be carried out by this taskforce.It is suggested that the specific tasks performed by the PAP Election Observation Desk should be as follows:1.To ensure that framework of formal collaboration between PAP, AU and other concerned organs for the AU Election Observation Mission is finalized;2.Ensure the availability of essential planning information and logistic of the PAP delegation;3.Ensure technical and administrative support of the AU Election Observer Team;4.Strengthen the capacity of the Election Desk within the Pan-African Parliament to manage effectively election observation related activities;5.To ensure that PAP gets opportunity for a high media visibility (high attendance during press conferences, interviews in major international news channels etc. and to engage stakeholders on main issues;6.Ensure that there is an evaluation of the Election Observation Mission; and lastly7.Receive the preliminary statement and final report for the information of Members.Now, conclusion and recommendations. Apart from establishing a permanent Election Desk at PAP, the following recommendations are made:1.That the PAP should lobby that leadership of successive Election Observer Missions should alternate between Pan-African Parliament Members of Parliament and the AUC appointed eminent Person. In this regard PAP Members must be given capacity building on how to lead missions.2.In addition, the AUC which is the Secretariat of the AU should start to relinquish some of the functions like management of Election Observer Missions to the PAP, which is a relevant organ, whose objectives include among others encouragement of good governance, transparency and accountability in members states under which election observation falls.3.To coordinate the AUC the preliminary assessment of the social, economic, political and constitutional arrangements of the country holding the elections; and4.PAP Members should be given an opportunity to be deployed to all areas in the country.Madame President, on behalf of the delegation, I wish to thank the Bureau of PAP for giving us an opportunity to participate in the Rwanda elections. But as I have mentioned, we don’t have the full report of the elections, it is still with the AU Chairperson but it is our hope that the report will be submitted to PAP in the near future and it will be tabled in this Parliament. I thank you Madame President.THE PRESIDENT:To be clear is that this is not the report on the election because it must be one joint report submitted by AU. So your point is clear and I hope it is well taken. All that the Members are doing is to give us an overview of what transpired. What happened there, rather than a report on the election in those countries.So, I would like to give an opportunity now to Honorable Saleh Kebzabo to present the report on Guinea. Under normal circumstances the presenters should have moved in front but since the Member, Honourable Goya has set the precedent, I will allow you to present from where you are. Five minutes.
3.2 – GUINÉE CONAKRI
HON. KEBZABO SALEH [TCHAD]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.Je crois que le rapport de mon collègue du Rwanda est complet, et je voudrais dire que, à quelques exceptions près, j’ai lu les autres rapports, toutes les missions d’observations, où nous, membres du PAP, avons été. On nous mettait souvent strictement, dans les mêmes conditions. Donc, je ne voudrais pas me livrer à l’exercice de lire le rapport, parce que je vais répéter exactement les mêmes choses. Je voudrais donc, tirer certaines conclusions, et ces conclusions seraient les bienvenues dans la mesure où il y a une motion qui est relative à l’observation des élections par le PAP.Moi je crois, Madame la Présidente, qu’il faut qu’on remette les pendules à l’heure. Tant que les parlementaires vont être noyautés et noyés dans une délégation de l’Union africaine, ils ne feront aucune observation. Moi en tout cas, je n’ai fait aucune observation, j’ai voyagé, et j’ai même dit la dernière fois, lors de la réunion de restitution, que, pour moi, c’est du tourisme. On perd du temps, on perd de l’énergie, on est stressé et on est décrédibilisé. Au total, c’est de cela qu’il s’agit. On ne fait pas une moindre observation.Et, si l’Union africaine veut vraiment promouvoir la démocratie, la bonne gouvernance, les bonnes élections et autres, il faut que les méthodes changent. On ne peut pas aller à une élection, pendant une semaine et dire qu’on a observé. On n’a absolument rien observé.J’étais content d’entendre, dans son rapport, le Président du PAP dire, l’autre jour, qu’observer une élection, c’est aller avant, c’est rester pendant et après le déroulement des élections. Tant que nous ne ferons pas cela, on ne parlera pas d’observation. Alors, je pense que pour notre crédibilité, et pour le travail de parlementaires que nous avons à faire, nous ne devons plus accepter d’être noyés dans une délégation de l’Union africaine, dans laquelle il y a des gens qui sont respectables par ailleurs, notamment des anciens Ambassadeurs, des anciens Premiers ministres et beaucoup de gens des Droits de l’Homme. Mais, nous n’avons rien en commun avec tous ces genslà, Madame la Présidente.Nous avons autre chose à faire et il faudrait qu’on retienne que le Parlement panafricain est une observation spécifique, parce que nous avons une autre vision, autre chose à apporter, et l’opinion attend de nous autre chose qu’une mission de tourisme qui va juste dire que cela s’est bien passé, applaudir et revenir. Ce n’est pas cela.Je ne vais donc pas revenir sur tous les problèmes de conditions matérielles, de voyage où on nous considère comme des objets, comme des cartons qu’on met dans un avion. Moi, j’ai fait presque 11 heures de vol en classe économique. Chaque fois je paie la différence, mais c’est quand même un prix que je ne devrais pas supporter. Il appartient à l’Union africaine de le faire.Quand, avec cela, je vois qu’il y a parfois des gens qui se battent pour aller à ces missions d’observation, je dis que je ne comprends pas, Madame la Présidente. Il faut qu’on se respecte et il faut qu’on se fasse respecter.Nous avons dit que nous allons obliger nos Etats à nous faire voyager en première classe, à nous donner au moins 500 dollars de perdiems. Pourquoi est-ce qu’on accepte de voyager en classe économique et d’avoir 100 ou 130 dollars par jour de perdiems?Je crois qu’il faut arrêter cette histoire et ne plus continuer à couvrir des inepties de ce genre. Là- dessus, je suis tout à fait d’accord avec nos collègues d’Afrique du Nord, qui ont cessé d’envoyer leurs amis en mission d’observation, parce que cela ne sert absolument à rien du tout.Donc voilà, Madame la Présidente, la contribution que je voulais apporter, parce que le rapport, luimême, ne fait que de la redite. Je vous remercie.(Applaudissements)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much. I also realize that for Rwanda, East African was not represented for example and yet Rwanda is in East Africa. That clearly shows how the management of the Observer Missions from PAP is not going very well for us. So, we share your views and we will continue to negotiate with the AU to allow us to have our observer missions once again.There is no time to listen to the report on Ethiopia, but I can see a hand up, Honourable Member, is that point of information or order?AN HONOURABLE MEMBER:نحن استمعنا في الجلسة االولى في Yes, Madam Chair.خطاب السيد/رئيس البرلمان ان البعثة الخاصة بمراقبة االنتخابات في السودان لم تذهب وتم تصحيح ذلك في وقت الحق واالن لم نسمع شيئا عن هذه اللجنة او عن مالحظاتها التى سوف تقدمها للبرلمان، هل لنا ان نعرف مصير ذلك.THE PRESIDENT:Okay. It is not only Sudan that is not going to be presented now, there are a number of other missions, there is Burundi for example, it is not going to be presented today, Ethiopia cannot, although it was on the list. The issue of Sudan was very clearly made and we know now that there are Members of this Parliament who observed the election of Sudan. So, that report will be made next week. The issue was noted very clearly Honourable Member.So Honourable Members, I would like...(Interjection)Yes.UN HONORABLE MEMBRE:Je voudrais préciser, dans le même sillage que notre collègue - et le rapport l’a montré -, qu’il y avait une omission aussi pour ce qui concerne les rapports à l’Ile Maurice. En Ile Maurice, il y avait cinq (05) parlementaires du PAP, intégrés dans la délégation de l’Union africaine; mais, à la différence de l’ensemble de nos collègues, nous, en Ile Maurice, on nous a autorisé de présenter un rapport et ce rapport a été remis au Président. Il l’avait omis; maintenant, la question que je repose est la suivante: est-ce que, la semaine prochaine, comme pour le Soudan qui a été omis, le rapport de l’Ile Maurice sera présenté? Parce que nous, nous avons déposé un rapport complet de toutes les élections. Je vous remercie.THE PRESIDENT:The point is very well taken. The Clerk please take note of that so that those reports are presented also next week. Honourable Members, I would like to suggest that we complete the reports on election observation on Monday because we have the Women’s Conference this afternoon. We cannot go beyond 12 noon as I had suggested at the beginning, otherwise the women parliamentarians of this House will kill me. They need to go for lunch and then be able to attend their conference.There are some announcements by the Clerk.
4.0 – ANNONCES
THE CLERK:Thank you Honourable Chair, I have the following announcements to make to Honourable Members:1.There is a meeting of the Western Caucus in the No. 1 at 1 o’clock;2.The Women Conference is taking place today in this Chamber at 1430 hours; and3.The women MPs are invited to lunch at Gallagher, transport will be available outside in 15 minutes.Thank you.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you so much Mr. Clerk. Now, I can also take the opportunity to make clarification on my invitation to the Caucus of East African Region for lunch on the 10th not 9th as was indicated on the paper, at the residence of the High Commission of Kenya in Pretoria on Sunday, the 10th October, 2010 at 1230 noon. Please do note because there is a mistake on your invitation. Yes, Honourable.AN HONOURABLE MEMBER:Point of clarity Madam President. On the programme for the Women’s Conference, it says that the opening ceremony is at 2 o’clock and I just heard now that it is 02.30 p.m. Now, can we have clarity please.THE PRESIDENT:I personally would suggest that we start at 2 o’clock given the heavy schedule that I saw on the programme. So, if that is acceptable, women Members of Parliament, colleagues, let’s start our conference at 2 o’clock as had been put on the programme. Thank you very much.So, Honourable Members, we have now come to the end of our business for today, therefore, this House stands adjourned until Monday, 11th October, 2010 at 9 o’clock a.m. I thank you and have a good week end.La séance est suspendue à 11heures cinquantesept minutes jusqu’au lundi, 11 octobre 2010 à neuf heures
Monday, 11th October 2010
1.0 – MESSAGE DE LA PRÉSIDENCE
THE PRESIDENT:Good morning Honourable Members and welcome to week two of the Pan African Parliament.I will now allow a minute of silent prayer.(Minute of silence observed)You may sit down, please.Hon Members, first of all I welcome you to week two of our business. I want to congratulate you on the work that we were able to accomplish last week. I also want to welcome our brothers from the European Union who are here with us. Translation, French are you on? No. Spanish are you on? Translators; we do not seem to be benefiting from your service. Portuguese is on, I can hear Portuguese. Spanish! - Spanish is on, okay. French, yes, you are on. Thank you so much.Honourable Members I have the pleasure and honour to welcome the team from the European Union who are here with us this morning. Mr. Michael Ghalagh, my colleague, is the leader of the team. Mr. Ghalagh if you can rise, Mr. Ghalagh is the leader of the European team; you are welcome to be here with us this morning. I also want to invite Members of the Pan African Parliament team that normally meets with the European Union team to meet after our morning session. After lunch there is a meeting with the European Union. I have 24 names with me of the Parliamentarians. The Committee room where the meeting will be held will be announced by the Clerk. I hope that you still remember who you were. All the chairs of the permanent Committees of Pan African Parliament except the Committee on Rules, I think, were part of the team. I would request the Chair of the Committee on Gender also to be present during that meeting. I thank you. Now, I will request the Clerk to read the first order of our business.THE CLERK:Thank you, continuation of presentation and debates on the reports of Election Observer Missions.
2.0 – SUITE DES RAPPORTS ET DÉBATS SUR LES MISSIONS D’OBSERVATION DES ÉLECTIONS
THE PRESIDENT:Honourable Members, on Friday we had debate on the Election Observer Missions that took place during the last session. I think we had finished the presentations, but we also had recognized that there are countries where we did send observers whose presentations we did not receive. I would like to know from the Clerk, whether those presentations are ready now. The report on the mission to Rwanda, the report on the mission to Ethiopia, and there is another mission that is skipping my mind. Mr. Clerk, can you let us know whether those are ready today. I now call upon honourable Musa Mbutoh to present the report of the Observer Mission to Ethiopia. We would prefer that you come to the front so that we can see you in accordance with our rules. I know you have three legs, but since they have brought you here, they will bring you to the front. Then the next one will be the report on Sudan, just to get you prepared. After that we will hear the report on Mauritius, and then the last will be the report on Burundi.
2.1 – ETHIOPIE
HON. NJINGUM MUSA MBUTOH [CAMEROON]:Thank you Madam President for recognizing me and good morning to Honourable Members. I have a different view on the report of elections in Ethiopia and I will be very brief because I don’t want to give a report on elections that we didn’t really observe.I want to skip all these background stories, introductions, objectives and mandate of election. We now know the mandates for Pan African Parliament. The election observation is probably one of the PAP’s most significant, visible and productive activities since its inception. PAP has sent election observers missions among others to Kenya, Zimbabwe, Angola, Swaziland, Ghana, Namibia and have had very good and effective impact in Africa election observation.But the Decision No. Executive Council 534 (xvi) was adopted during the Sixteen Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the African Union, in February 1, 2010, resolved that election observation by the AU organs must be conducted under a centralized budget. The coordination of the election observation will be jointly organized with AU, Pan African Parliament and other AU concerned organs. Joint Missions so far have been held in Sudan, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Burundi, Guinea and Rwanda, and to these elections, I feel it have been no impact on PAP compared to what we have done in Zimbabwe, Angola, Swaziland, Ghana and Namibia.The African Union constituted an Election Observer Mission to Ethiopia for the General Elections set for May 23, 2010. The African Union’s, deployment of election observer missions is in accordance with its objective of ‘promoting democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance’; and principle of ‘respect for democratic principles, human rights, the rule of law and good governance’, on the continent. There is always PAP’s position in this.The mission composition: The mission was composed of representatives from different countries and various institutions. The observers came from the Civil Society, Electoral Commissions, and included other high profile persons such as Ambassadors and former government officials.Pan African Parliament was represented by the following Members. Out of the 18 Members, only 9 were present, not because they didn’t want to come, but because of reasons I will give you.Hon. Bendir KhatoriHon. Joseph NjobvuyalemaHon. Forrie Raisi TemboHon. Ali Hasna HassanHon. Ibrahim Habeb NurHon. Florentino Mendes PereiraHon. Elizabeth AgyemanHon. Njingum Muosa MbutohHon. Gaston Engohang ObiangThree staff members were added to the delegation, who came as just observers too, to assist MPs because they were not allowed the opportunity.The general report of the Ethiopia mission was drafted by a team set by African Union Commission and undoubtedly, the presentation of the final statement at the end of the election. It is true that PAP is not supposed to give another report on elections because the mission was jointly organized and PAP Members did not cover all the regions. However, we would like to highlight our experience on the field and the shortfalls of the joint mission because PAP Members were completely sidelined in the process of election.Arrival and hospitality of the mission: Most of the members of the African Union Observer Mission arrived in Addis Ababa on May 15 and 16, 2010. The Observers were based at Hilton, under the leadership of His Excellency Quite Ketumile J. Masire, former Head of State of Botswana. The forty percent allocated to PAP was not reached due to:1.Inconvenient to travel in economic class;2.Late reception of tickets for members who accepted the AU travel condition;3.Sponsorship of tickets by Members in order to be reimbursed upon arrival at Addis Ababa;4.Poor coordination on logistics at the airport upon arrival of members. Some members had to contact their Embassies, while others took taxis to reach the hotel; and5.Rudeness and unwelcoming attitude of the staff of the African Union was very bad for the Pan African Parliament MembersThe Pan African Parliament Members were not involved in any formal communication with the African Union Commission. All statements were written by a team set by the African Union Commission excluding PAP. To highlight this, the arrival statement that was initially prepared did not take into consideration the fact that the mission was jointly conducted by African Union, Pan African Parliament and other AU organs as stated by the AU Decision Number 534 of the Executive Council adopted on February 1, 2010.The Observers were composed of 24 teams of 2 or 3 observers each. They were deployed to various constituencies. On deployment, the Pan African Parliament made the following observations: late deployment and arrival at the end of the campaign; discrimination of PAP members, PAP members were sent to the remotest areas; lack of coordination on arrival at the deployment zones. Members were struggling to have a focal point for their settlements; lack of communication with the population in certain areas of deployment; no vehicle available on the arrival at the deployment centres.Evaluation meeting: the language was a serious barrier to Pan African Parliament observers. Documents were not available in the official languages. Documents were only available in the official languages of the host country. Communication was almost impossible, and PAP was not visible during the meeting.Recommendations:1.It has come to our realization that these joint missions have had no impact on the Pan African Parliament. Due to our experience on the field, we recommend that PAP should hold its own election observation mission independently.2.It is vital for Pan African Parliament to put in place the requisite infrastructure that would assist in the conduct of election observation missions.3.The PAP electoral observation desk overall objective will be to ensure that all processes of the election are in line with Article 3 of the African Union Constitutive Act and Article 3 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, the African Charter on Democracy, Governance and Election, and other human rights instruments in respect of the decision number 534.The AU code of conduct and other rules and procedures guiding AU declarations, but when PAP is not fully involved in election observation, it will not have any impact on the African people we represent. This plea should be forwarded to the AU summit so that the decision of the joint mission could be reviewed. I thank you Honourable Members, I thank you Madam President, and I beg to move. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Honorable Members, we thank Honorable Muosa for that report. I just want to remind you that this is not a report on the election of the country that is being presented on; it is just the experience of the Pan-African Parliament because the final report should come from the European Union. So, we are not debating the final report.AN HONORABLE:It is African Union.THE PRESIDENT:African Union, sorry. I am sorry about that. The final report is supposed to be a joint report of the African Union Observer Mission.May I now invite Honorable Edward Adjaho to present the report on Sudan? I do not see Honorable Adjaho here. Ghana is normally present in this Chamber; I do not know what has happened today but let us go to the report on Mauritius, if Honorable Babou Abdoulaye is present to present the report on Mauritius. He is not here also.I do not have a name for Burundi but could a representative of the team of the Pan-African Parliamentarians that went to Burundi, would anybody be able to present the report on Burundi?Okay, since I do not see anybody volunteering to do that, I will now open the debate on the report of the Election Observer Missions that have been presented and I have lists of 24 names with me. And since we seem to be lagging behind time, I will give two minutes to each presenter to make your presentation. Much of it, if you think someone has already said it, probably it is worth not saying it again. This is a continuation from last week. So, the first speaker on the list is Honorable Farhat Mohamed of Libya. Honorable Farhat, please.HON. FARHAT LUTFI MOHAMED [LIBYA]:لسيدة الرئيسة،سوف أتحدث عن نقطتين تتعلق النقطة األولى بمراقبة االنتخابات في القارة اإلفريقية والنقطة الثانية تتعلق بمراقبة االنتخابات خارج القارة االفريقية.أوال فيما يتعلق بمراقبة االنتخابات في القارة االفريقية: تقع مراقبة االنتخابات في القارة اإلفريقية ضمن أهداف البرلمان االفريقي، وفقا لنص المادة }3 }من البروتوكول الخاص بالبرلمان اإلفريقي، وقد كان هذا االختصاص يمارس بشكل مستقل عن بقية أجهزة إلتحاد اإلفريقي. وقد كانت التقارير التي تعرض علينا بالبرلمان تحرص على عرض األمور علينا، بصورة واقعية وموضوعية، وكنا نتخذ بشأنها قرارات في غاية األهمية.إن إلغاء المخصصات الالزمة لتغطية بعثات مراقبة البرلمان، في ميزانيتنا، ووضعها تحت تصرف المفوضية، لم يكن قرارا موفقا حيث وضع البرلمان تحت سلطة المفوصية، ولم يكن التنسيق المطلوب بين البرلمان والمفوضية، من الناحية العملية، مرضيا كما أن معاملة البرلمانيين، من الناحية المالية والمعنوية، لم يكن متناسبا مع وضعهم ومسئوليتهم. ولذلك أرى إعادة الوضع إلى ما كان عليه، وأن توضع المخصصات المالية الالزمة في ميزانية البرلمان، حتى يمكن أن يمارس البرلمان اإلفريقي دوره، بشكل مستقل وفعال.ثانيا فيما يتعلق بمراقبة االنتخابات خارج القارة االفريقية: ورد في نشرة األخبار، في األيام الفائتة، بأن واشنطن تطالب القاهرة بمراقبة االنتخابات داخليا وخارجيا، حتى تتمكن من التأكد من سالمة االنتخابات فيها. وهذا مطلب شرعي، في ظل العالم الذي يتحول إلى قرية صغيرة، ولكننا نطالب أيضأ، وفقا لمبدإ المعاملة بالمثل، أن نراقب االنتخابات في الدول االوروبية والواليات المتحدة، حتى نتأكد من سالمتها، كما يريدون التأكد من سالمة االنتخابات في القارة اإلفريقية.شكرا سيدتي الرئيسة.HON. HAJAIG FATIMA [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you President, I have a few points to make.First of all, I would like to agree with Hon. Farhat that PAP delegation must go as an autonomous delegation. We are an autonomous body of the African Union therefore I think the way we look at elections and the way we look at issues in Africa especially in conflict is different from other organs of the African Union.The second point I would like to make, I think that we do need more capacity building for our Members when we observe elections. So, I think the new Members that which are coming in all the time and I think we need to assist them in preparing them for observing elections.The last point but I think is an important point, I think that really to get to understand what is happening in a country, the PAP delegation must go at least a month before the actual elections to see what is actually happening, which the media is free to actually report on what is happening, the preparations for the elections whether it is actually fair to different parties and to the electorate, to see the voter registration is up to date, the register is in place and of course at least two weeks after the elections. I think to observe elections within two days or a couple of days before the elections doesn’t really give us a picture where we can actually say, these elections are free and fair. So I think we need to relook at how we want to actually conduct these observations and the missions. Thank you Madame.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much, I know give an opportunity to Honorable Ali Bahari of Kenya. Honorable Bahari is not here, I can see his seat. May I give the opportunity to Honorable Rugara of Zimbabwe. Honorable Bahari you have just missed an opportunity to make your presentation.HON. CONIQUET RADEMBINO RENE [GABON]:Je m’excuse! Mais, je n’ai pas demandé la parole. Maintenant, puisque vous me la donner, je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.A propos d’observation des élections, je n’ai jamais été désigné, on m’a fait des propositions, mais j’ai dit que, vu ce que je suis et mon âge, je ne veux pas voyager en classe économique et je ne peux pas vivre avec des indemnités qui ne me conviennent pas du tout par rapport à ce que je suis. C’est pour cela que je ne suis jamais parti.Effectivement, j’approuve le fait que le Parlement panafricain puisse observer les élections de manière indépendante, parce qu’à quoi cela sert de soumettre, à notre débat, un rapport fait par la présidence du Conseil de l’Union africaine et d’être sous les ordres. Ce sont des fonctionnaires, nous, nous sommes des élus. Donc, il y a là ce problème. Il faut qu’on y réfléchisse et qu’on puisse arriver à une conclusion, puisque, au début, nous avions commencé à travailler dans ces conditions, à quoi ce changement est dû? Il faut bien qu’on le sache. Voilà ce que je peux dire concernant les élections, je vous remercie.HON. TAMBOURA ASCOFARE OULÉMATOU [MALI]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.Je voudrais également joindre ma voix à celle de ceux qui m’ont précédée, pour dire que nous devons organiser nos missions d’observation indépendamment de celles de l’Union africaine. J’ai juste une question à poser. Par le passé, et même maintenant, pour que le PAP participe à une mission d’observation, est-ce sur invitation des pays, ou bien on le fait d’office?Je vous remercie.HON. BABOU ABDOULAYE [SENEGAL]:Excusez-moi, Madame la Présidente de prendre la parole, pour refaire une mise au point. Je suis Abdoulaye BABOU; normalement, c’est moi qui devais présenter le rapport sur l’Ile Maurice. Alors, quand j’ai vu dans l’ordre du jour qu’il y avait mon nom, je suis sorti pour voir si le rapport était disponible. Le monsieur qui est dehors m’a dit qu’il n’y avait pas de rapport disponible. J’ai dit que j’étais étonné, dans la mesure où le rapport a été remis entre les mains du Président qui, luimême, à son arrivée à Dakar, m’en a parlé. Et, depuis qu’il m’a dit cela, sachant que le rapport n’est pas disponible, je suis allé dans les services du PAP pour retrouver le rapport. C’est madame Marie BEBEY qui vient de me faire la copie du rapport. C’est pourquoi moi, j’ai fait un rapport, qui est là, sur les élections de Maurice, et pas comme les autres. Donc, c’est à cause de ces inconvénients dus au fonctionnement intérieur du PAP que je n’étais pas là, Madame la Présidente. Mais, voici maintenant le rapport, il est disponible, et nous y avons traité, tous les 5 membres du PAP, des questions législatives au niveau de Maurice. C’est la précision que je voulais faire. Le rapport est là, mais il n’était pas disponible ici. Ce n’est pas de ma faute, c’est avec l’administration du PAP que nous avons eu ces problèmes, et c’est regrettable. Je vous remercie.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honourable Babou, we note your concerns. I suggest that the report gets circulated to the Members so that Members can read it, since we have passed the presentation of that report. It will be at the front, at the entrance, and Members should note that the report on Mauritius is now available and will be circulated. So, we note your concern. Thank you.HON. HASSAN ALI HASNA [DJIBOUTI]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente de me donner l’opportunité d’apporter ma modeste contribution dans ce débat important sur le déroulement des missions d’observation électorale auxquelles des membres de notre Parlement ont pris part.Je voudrais d’abord féliciter les différents exposants qui sont intervenus, depuis vendredi matin, pour la qualité de leurs présentations respectives.Cela étant, nombre de réflexions que j’avais l’intention de partager avec les membres de notre auguste Assemblée ont déjà été largement développées par les précédents orateurs. Il reste, cependant, un point sur lequel je souhaite vraiment m’appesantir. Ce point, c’est celui relatif au traitement réservé aux parlementaires panafricains appelés à faire partie des missions d’observation électorale formées par la Commission de l’Union africaine et dépêchées dans les différents pays du continent.Madame la Présidente,Chers collègues, membres du PAP,Nous sommes tous d’accord, aujourd’hui, pour dire que ce traitement est très humiliant et indigne de notre statut. C’est pourquoi, pour ma part, maintenant que des efforts considérables ont été déployés depuis l’avènement du nouveau Bureau de notre Parlement pour essayer d’aplanir toutes les difficultés relationnelles que nous avions auparavant avec les différents organes de l’Union africaine et en particulier avec la Commission africaine, je propose personnellement que l’on puisse revenir au strict respect de l’esprit et de la lettre du Protocole instituant le PAP qui dit, en son article 11.1 que l’observation des élections entre dans le cadre des attributions et des pouvoirs du Parlement panafricain.Par conséquent, je pense et je crois que c’est ce qui a été préconisé dans la motion qui a été introduite par un de nos collègues, vendredi dernier. Je pense que la conduite des missions d’observation des élections doit revenir au Parlement panafricain. Nous devons travailler en parfaite symbiose et synergie avec la Commission de l’Union africaine. Il y a un partage de compétences pour ce qui est de la conduite des missions d’observation électorale. Je pense que cela revient de plein droit à notre Parlement.Par conséquent, la Commission de l’Union africaine peut nous apporter son expertise technique et mettre à notre disposition les moyens dont elle dispose à cet effet, mais je pense qu’il revient à notre Parlement de conduire et de diriger les missions d’observation d’élections.THE PRESIDENT:Half a minute hon. Souleiman.HON. HASSAN ALI HASNA [DJIBOUTI]:J’en ai fini Madame. J’ai un dernier mot. Donc, il appartient à notre parlement de diriger nos missions d’observation qui sont dépêchées dans les pays qui sont en élection. Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.HON. MUKABARANGA AGNÈS [RWANDA]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.Je voudrais dire aussi que ces missions d’observation des élections, Madame la Présidente, sont parmi les activités qui renforcent la visibilité de notre institution et doivent, donc, à mon sens, être plus élaborées que ce que l’on a reçu, tout en réservant du respect et des félicitations à ceux qui nous ont représentés dans ces missions.Madame la Présidente,En analysant ce rapport, je constate qu’il aurait dû y avoir des informations complètes. Il aurait dû nous rappeler notamment le contexte et le background - si je puis l’appeler ainsi - des élections qu’ils ont observées.Nous savons tous très bien que, par exemple, en Ethiopie, il y a eu des violences au cours des dernières élections. Des personnes ont été emprisonnées. Quelle était la différence de ces dernières élections avec les nouvelles élections? Que disait la constitution? Que disait la loi électorale? Qu’en est-il du registre des électeurs? Toutes ces informations auraient dû, à mon sens, être reflétées. De même pour les autres pays, ils auraient dû, par exemple, souligner que, pour les élections au Rwanda, c’était des élections présidentielles, des élections importantes, dire dans quel contexte ces élections sont venues, faire un commentaire sur ce que les médias disaient sur ces élections, et quels sont les nouveaux acteurs dans ces élections présidentielles. Nous avions un honorable candidat au sein du PAP à ces élections. Cela aurait pu être souligné.Madame la Présidente,Je pense qu’il n’est pas acceptable qu’on doive prendre le rapport général de l’Union africaine. Le PAP peut confectionner son propre rapport. Ce sont ces quelques commentaires, Madame la Présidente, que je voulais vous soumettre. Il est important, avant d’entamer une mission, que nos représentants aient quelques informations préliminaires sur les pays qu’ils vont visiter et examiner.Je vous remercie.HON. JATTA SIDIA S. [GAMBIA]:Madame, I am sorry but from my point of view, there is nothing that I can say about this particular issue because I have not read any report. We have had presentations on administrative and logistic matters but we have not had any report on any election proper in any of the countries that we are dealing with. So, I am sorry but I cannot say anything. Thank you. (Applause)HON. HASSABO MOHAMMED ABDUL RAHMAN [SUDAN]:شكرا جزيال السيدة الرئيسة،أنا أعتقد أن مداخلتي سترتكز على أنه يجب على البرلمان أن يضع معاييرا ومؤشرات لبعثاته لمراقبة االنتخابات. هذا أوال ، ثانيا يجب أن يعرض التقرير وأال نستمع للشكاوى: الترحيل والتذاكر والمسائل اإلدارية فهذه ال تفيدنا كثيرا. نحن، كبرلمانيين، نود أن نتمطئن بأن االنتخابات جرت في أوضاع ديمقراطية، بمشاركة، وباستقرار. ألننا نمثل الشعب وعليه نود أن نتمطئن. فعليه أقترح أال نستمع لشكاوى أعضائنا اللوجستية أو نقاطع مراقبة اإلنتخابات. وعليه أقترح أن تكون لدينا معايير ومؤشرات Principles Guiding أي مباديء توجيهية، ألعضائنا الذين يراقبون االنتخابات. وعليه أود أن نسمع التقرير أو نطلب من مفوضية اإلتحاد اإلفريقي أن تعرض التقرير وأعضاؤنا يعلقون على ذلك. ولكن، منذ الجمعة، لم أستمع إلى تقرير عن االنتخابات، بل أستمع إلى شكاوى: تذكرة {economic}وأشياء أخرى ال أعرف ما هي وأشياء إدارية ومشاكل وتاكسي، هذا ليس تقريرا. نود تقديم التقرير أو نطلب من مفوضية اإلتحاد اإلفريقي أن تعرض التقرير هنا، لنسلم عليه رد مفوضية السلم ، تقرير عن أوضاع األمن ويعرض مفوض الشؤون السياسية تقرير عن االنتخابات وأعضاؤنا يعلقون على ذلك.وشكرا جزيال.HON. NJOBVUYALEMA JOSEPH [MALAWI]:Thank you Madame Vice-President for giving me this opportunity to contribute to this important report. I must state that I was a member of the mission which went to Ethiopia and apart from everything else, I was happy with the whole arrangement and the way the election was carried out. But my main worry, which the presenter of the report has already cited, is lack of communication between PAP Members who comprise the mission and AU. There is no communication at all.Honorable Madame Vice-President, the whole purpose of communicating is to impart or share information. When you are sent out on a mission, you have some specific information which you think you are able to share with the organizers. It is important that African Union should be able to share information with members of PAP, I mean we are an organ of African Union and rightfully so. PAP members are basically politicians; all of us who are here are politicians. We have undergone elections so many times, we have a lot of experience, we have a lot of knowledge, we have very important information for AU officials, but what happens is, the AU officials ignore or sideline PAP members completely. I mean the whole purpose is not just coming up with complaints, but putting things in order. We are saying, if we are sent out to missions, we should be recognized by African Union officials. You could see that even the protocol officers did not recognize us. Why? One wonders whether you have gone there as an intruder or what.HON. RASHID ABDUL PELPUO [GHANA]:Thank you Madam President, I have one observation to make. The fact that we have representation of Observer Missions shows that PAP is showing interest in what is going on in Africa in terms of our democratic developments. It is important that we develop this process by getting fully involved in it and get experiences in other countries. With the experiences, we better our own standards and learn from best practices. If in the event PAP is finding it difficult to continue with this process, it will be a subject of serious discussion and serious consideration for PAP leadership. I believe very strongly that all the stories we are hearing about Members going on tracks and finding it very, very difficult to go through the process are so saddening, and we have to rethink how we send our Members to these places.Members of Parliament are the cream of society; they represent the people of Africa, they are the pulse of our democracy, they are people whom we have to uphold, to show respect and reverence for, in terms of building a democratic transition in Africa. So, if they go out there, using economy tickets and flying in the economy, going without the needed facilities and materials to work with, it is an indictment on the very foundation and principle of PAP and our strive to democratize Africa. I want to say that we need, without any option to relook at this and to rethink and ask ourselves whether we need it or not. If we do not need it, we do not go for it, if we go for it because we need it, we have to ensure that we fully sponsor it, and that Members are comfortable when they go out there to observe. Thank you Madam President.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honourable Rashid.HON. SHAMAKOKERA THARCISSE [RWANDA]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente de me donner la parole. Cette occasion me permet d’exprimer ma déception quant aux rapports qui nous ont étés présentés. Il ne s’agit pas, en fait, de rapports. On se serait attendu à un rapport réel sur le déroulement des élections, ce qui n’est pas le cas et ceci m’a amené à me poser cette question: pourquoi les rapports des membres du PAP, qui seront présentés au PAP, doivent-ils être préalablement approuvés par le Président de la Commission de l’Union africaine? Ma réponse est la suivante: je voudrais qu’elle soit aussi celle de la Chambre, si possible et que soit mis fin à cette bureaucratie de mission conjointe d’observation d’élections PAP-UA.A ce sujet, d’autres problèmes ont été soulignés par les membres des missions eux-mêmes, je rappellerais ceux liés à la logistique, au transport et autres.Madame la Présidente,Les rapports des membres du PAP ne doivent pas être censurés par la Commission de l’Union africaine avant d’être présentés au PAP. Et le PAP, seul, doit mener ses propres missions d’observation sans être obligé de passer par l’Union africaine. Je me réjouis déjà que cela soit fait, pour la mission du PAP envoyée à l’Île Maurice, et que cela soit possible pour les autres missions à venir.Pour terminer, je voudrais dire que j’ai été désigné pour faire partie de la mission d’observation en Ethiopie. Je me trouvais en Ethiopie, en ce moment; mais, comme le message m’a été communiqué, juste, à la veille de mon départ au pays, je n’ai pas pu y participer. Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much. That explains why no one from East Africa went to observe elections in Ethiopia, because I have a list of those who went to observe election in the different countries and I am concerned that the region of East African is not being represented. So, that explains it. Thank you very much Honourable Member. (Interruption) Yes, point of information?UN HONORABLE MEMBRE:Il y a des honorables membres de l’Afrique de l’Est qui faisaient partie de la délégation en Ethiopie. Il y avait deux membres Madame: l’honorable Habeb Ibrahim Nour de la Somalie et l’honorable Hassan Ali Hasna de Djibouti.THE PRESIDENT:Okay, thank you very much Chair of the Caucus of Eastern Africa. May I now give the opportunity to Honourable Forrie Raisi TemboHON. TEMBO RAISI FORRIE [ZAMBIA]:Thank you, Madame President, for giving me this rare opportunity to add a word to the debate on the Floor.Madame President, from the onset, I must state that I do strongly support the report on the Election Observer Mission to Ethiopia presented to this August House.Madame President, there were a lot of challenges on the joint mission faced by the Members of the PAP who were assigned to observe elections in Ethiopia. Some of the challenges, I am sure, have already been mentioned, such as the poor conditions of travel for Members of Parliament.The second point was the low rate of per diem which was paid to Members of Parliament. I am sure this issue has discouraged a lot of Members to take part in the observer missions.The other issue was the issue of tickets not being sent on time. I for one, Madame President, did not receive my ticket until my Parliament had to come in and buy a ticket for me.Also language barrier was another issue of concern that affected the participation of Members of PAP in the election observer mission.Madam President, the whole show was taken over by the African Union Commission which is against the objective of PAP to ensure that the process of elections is in line with Article 3.Madame President, I wish to ask PAP so that next time it is better to send Members of PAP 20 days or more before the election date to facilitate Members to have ample time to observe campaign rallies and meetings. This issue has to be taken seriously. Most of the PAP Members who went for this mission did not have ample time to observe the campaigns.I thank you, Madame President.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much, Honorable Member. I wonder whether we have twenty days to be out of our National Parliaments to spend in the field, am not so sure about that but the point is well taken that we should at least be there some days before the actual elections so that you can understand the ground and how things are going.Honorable Members, I would like to remind you of one of the rules that we had agreed on here that when you contribute you stand so that we can all see you and listen to you. Sometimes it takes me time to find out where is the contributor. So, if you can remember to observe that small rule of our House.I now give the opportunity to Honorable Mohamed Abdoulkader of Djibouti.HON. ABDOULKADER MOHAMED MOHAMED [DJIBOUTI]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente, pour m’avoir donné l’opportunité de prendre la parole.Je voudrais tout d’abord féliciter l’ensemble des intervenants qui nous ont présenté le rapport administratif des différentes missions d’observation, comme précisé dans le document.De même, je voudrais joindre ma voix à celle de tous ceux qui m’ont précédé tout au long de ces derniers jours, pour féliciter le Bureau, pour son excellent rapport d’activités, et appuyer sa démarche en ce qui concerne les missions d’observation.Pour revenir à la question relative à la mission d’observation, beaucoup de choses ont déjà été dites et pas mal de mes préoccupations ont été évoquées. Cependant, je tenais à apporter ma contribution à ces débats qui me semblent très importants.Tout d’abord, je voudrais commencer mon intervention par des rappels. Le premier rappel, c’est que les missions d’observation sont des compétences du PAP en vertu des articles 3 et 11 du Protocole au traité instituant la communauté économique africaine.Aussi, le PAP avait commencé à superviser les élections en Afrique, notamment au Zimbabwe, au Kenya, au Ghana et en Angola. Mais voilà, que, tout d’un coup, nous avons constaté que l’Union africaine a mis fin aux missions d’observation indépendantes du PAP, sans que nous sachions les raisons de ce revirement. Pour ma part, je pense que le fait que le PAP organisait des missions d’observation constituait pour lui un excellent moyen quant à sa visibilité, à laquelle nous tenons beaucoup, et qu’il gagnait en crédibilité à travers ces missions.Je crois que c’est cela qui est à l’origine de la mise en terme des missions indépendantes de notre institution et il faut réagir par rapport à ce recul, en demandant le retour au respect du Protocole, dans la mesure où les missions d’observation rendraient plus visible notre institution.Par rapport à la désignation des membres de la Commission, je voudrais suggérer que les Présidents des caucus y soient associés.Je vous remercie de votre attention.HON. AGYEMAN ELIZABETH [GHANA]:Thank you Madame President. I am also a Member of the team that went to Ethiopia.I want to agree with my team leader that we were not treated well at all by the AU Commission. Much has been said about that and it was discussed during the debriefing. That was the first time I went out there to observe elections. So, I think I should have known better before I left for the place. The ticket came to me a day before I left. It was also an economic class ticket. Ghana’s Parliament had to upgrade it for me before I went there.During the deployment, I was sent to a place called Dire Dawa, that is the second capital of Ethopia and when we arrived airport at Dire Dawa, we had to stay there for about two hours. There was nobody to meet us, there was no car available and I can tell you the kind of taxicabs there, about the nineteen century type of Peugeot cars, where there as taxicabs and we did not know the hotel we were going, we had to call Addis Ababa to the AU Commission before they told us the name of the hotel.Madame President, much has been said about the treatment we received how it was but what went on during the elections, there were so many things. I am waiting for the African Union report because as somebody coming from Ghana, I understand democracy and I know what transparency is but considering so many things I do not call this election any good elections, I will say this. (Applause) After elections, I think results should come out immediately; you do not have to wait two months before you declare results of elections.Madame President, if I want to say more, I will say because I was the team leader for the Dire Dawa delegation and I wrote my report. I am waiting until I get the main report from the AU Commission. We were there with the European Mission, they went six weeks before the elections, so we could also have gone like two or three weeks before the elections so that we got to know more about what went on before the elections.I thank you Madame President. (Applause)DEPUTADA CATARINA PEDRO DOMINGOS [ANGOLA]:Muito obrigada, Senhora Presidente. Da leitura que fiz aos relatorios, primeiro, quero felicitar os Colegas que, de forma sacrificada, puderam cumprir essas missoes sem olhar às dificuldades de atendimento que foram reservadas e, nesta óptica, proponho que, em fun?ao dessas dificuldades que estamos aqui a analisar, que a Mesa do Parlamento Pan-Africano junto da Uniao Africana, possa decidir sobre a dignidade dos Deputados, nestas missoes.A segunda questao, é em rela$ao ao Relatório do Burundi, o qual proponho a retirada do meu nome porque nao fui avisada para cumprir esta missao, nao recebi nenhuma comunicado a este respeito, de modo que nao fiz parte desta missao. Devia constar o nome da pessoa que me representou nesta missao.A terceira questao, dos relatórios que estamos analisando, vi que é necessário que o Parlamento Pan-Africano defina dois tipos de modelo: um modelo sobre como devemos elaborar os relatórios na base dos objectivos que queremos atingir no Parlamento Pan-Africano, em segundo lugar, os indicadores específicos para a observado eleitoral.Muito obrigada.HON. KANTENGWA JULIANA [RWANDA]:Thank you Madame President for giving me the floor.I also wish to congratulate our colleagues who managed to go for these Observer Missions under such conditions. I wish to salute them because I consider them they are beginning to make themselves heroes of trying to carryout difficult tasks under difficult circumstances. (Applause)However, Madame President, the reports that were tabled here were actually not reports of the Election Observation Missions, they were reports of the organization of the election Observation Missions. Furthermore, it was also said that the reports will have to come from the AU before they can be tabled at PAP, that’s after being acceptable to the AU.Madame President, I want to say that this is not in order, this is not why PAP is there, and we are not supposed to be rubberstamping what AU has said. We are supposed to be adding value to whatever processes are happening towards the integration of Africa but not rubberstamping what the AUC has just finished.Madame President, the outputs to PAP or the usefulness of this exercise clearly shows that the joint missions are a futile endeavor; I don’t know why we should continue with them. My way forward is to propose to the Bureau that they have been trying hard on so many flouts and so many difficult things, but to try and convey in honest to the AUC that this situation is unattainable; it is unsustainable and undermines the very mission as to why PAP is there and it should be discontinued. This one I am saying they need to do it in honest and really convey to them that it is not serving any purpose. So, a review needs to be done with a view to rectify the situation. Otherwise, I don’t know why we should be carrying out such Observer Missions when we only come up with a report of complaints. We haven’t known what actually transpired in the election processes that were taking place on the African Continent. So, if we are going to becoming here to debate such reports of how we have been mistreated, it is not useful to me. I wish to thank you.HON. KINGSLEY NAMAKHWA [MALAWI]:Thank you, Madam President for according me the floor to contribute to the socalled Report on Election Observer Missions. Going through the so-called reports, to me these are not reports. It appears they should have come as, maybe, communications from the Chair because what we hear are lamentations from the Members who attended these missions: how uncomfortable it is to travel in economy class, how humiliated they were, what kind of hotels they were staying in and yet we are calling these reports.PAP had sent its Members to observe the elections. The Members who went to these missions were the right people to observe the elections because all the Members here present were duly elected by the grass roots and we represent the people of Africathe grass roots. What it means to go to election observation missions is that we need to look at the grey areas and perfect the forthcoming elections. But to have a mission going to the elections and when you go there you come back with no report and the Members from PAP are being bulldozed and not even being given a chance to express themselves, really, it is very pathetic. Those who went for those missions are the true sons and daughters of Africa.Madam President, my understanding is that diplomacy at times works and this is what AUC is trying to do. But looking at Africa, every nation that we go through, we hear of disputed election results. Why do we get that? Because we doctor reports and that is what the AUC is actually doing because all the missions who went out have never brought a report. What is the delay? It is because the report is being doctored to suit the environment. Whenever we send our people to these missions - let me urge PAP for the benefit of our Members - let us get an objective report for the Members to debate. But waiting for the AUC Report, to me, we are going to get a diplomatic report; we are going to get a doctored report, which will not help Africa and yet we are talking of democracy. Democracy will not work as long as we wait for doctored reports. I thank you, Madam President. (Applause)DEPUTADO ERNESTO JOAQUIM MULATO [ANGOLA]:Obrigado, Senhora Presidente. Também vou-me juntar a todos os outros Colegas que apreciaram os relatórios, embora com as deficiencias que aqui estamos a observar.Em segundo lugar, o objectivo de observar, como também já foi dito, tem a ver sobre como é que as eleigoes vao ser realizadas ou como é que vao se fazer as eleigoes, como também sentimos aqui que há dois termos, realizar e fazer eleigoes.Dos relatórios que aqui vimos, encontramos alguns aspectos que chamam a nossa atengao, embora esses nao serem os próprios relatórios. Quando aqui temos, no Burundi, falou-se que nao tiveram a oportunidade de se reunirem com os actores que fariam parte das eleigoes mas, na mesma informagao, nao nos dizem quais foram as razoes que levaram os partidos da oposigao a se retirarem, e se as eleigoes feitas sem esses partidos como é que seriam classificadas.Penso que a retirada dos partidos da oposigao teve razoes, e os nossos observadores tinham que nos dar o porque dessas razoes, e que numa próxima eleigao deve-se tomar nota para serem corrigidas. Por último, é também o que os outros Colegas já aqui disseram, sobre a apresentaçâo dos relatórios. No Relatório do Burundi, os nossos Colegas foram mais claros quando afirmaram que os funcionários da Uniâo Africana disseram que eles nâo podiam ter o relatório que todos eles concordaram que seria apresentado, sem que o Presidente da Comissâo o aprovasse.Ora, se o Relatório é a observaçâo no terreno, como é que o Presidente da Comissâo vai aprovar, vai dizer que nâo está bom ou está mau!?Penso que é o que os Colegas aqui também já disseram: esses sâo relatórios manipulados e que nós, que queremos que a Carta Africana sobre a Democracia, Eleiçoes e a Boa Governaçâo seja aplicada como os próprios Chefes de Estado concordaram, entâo temos que ter outra atitude quando vamos fazer essas observaçoes!Muito obrigado.HON. AWALEH ADEN ROBLEH [DJIBOUTI]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.Je ne parlerais pas d’un rapport spécifique à un pays, mais je donnerais une observation d’ordre général.Je me suis surtout demandé à quoi servent les missions d’observation des élections. Si on veut faire de véritables observations des élections, il faut plusieurs étapes absolument importantes. Les fraudes électorales ne se font pas au moment du vote, elles commencent dès le début, en amont, c’est-à-dire au moment de la confection des listes électorales, surtout lors de la mise sur pied d’une commission électorale nationale indépendante (CENI), etc.Donc, si nous voulons vraiment observer les élections, nous devons passer par toutes ces étapes. Parce que, si nous observons des bureaux de vote, nous disons après, dans un rapport, qu’il n’y a pas eu de problème, que tout s’est passé normalement alors que le rapport signale des irrégularités, c’est comme les pays européens qui disent observer nos élections, ils ont une formule consacrée: « il y a eu quelques petites irrégularités qui ne faussent pas le résultat final. »Moi, je voudrais dire que notre Parlement doit prendre très au sérieux son rôle, et il ne reste plus que les élections pour permettre l’alternance politique. Vous savez, l’autre possibilité que nous avions, la limitation des mandats pour avoir un changement quelconque. Cela n’existe plus, cette lapalissade est balayée par tous les chefs d’Etats africains. Il ne nous reste que les élections. Alors, nous devons prendre à bras le corps les élections en Afrique.Lorsque nous parlions, l’autre jour, de la Charte africaine de démocratie, de bonne gouvernance, c’était une chose excellente mais, il fallait la traduire par la pratique. Donc, nous devons observer profondément ces élections, en intervenant auprès des comités électoraux, en permettant à ces comités d’obtenir la liste électorale et de distribuer les cartes électorales après vérification. Les listes électorales établies par les ministères de l’intérieur sont délibérément et illégalement « gonflées » pour frauder en faveur des dictateurs en place.Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Member. That brings us to the end of the list of contributors on the Election Observation Report. And I want to make it clear for the Honorable Members that the Bureau is trying whatever is possible to negotiate with the AUC about your concerns as you have elaborated on them and we hope that things will change. We are aware that this does not represent the mandate and the expectation of the PanAfrican Parliament.May I now call upon Honorable Muosa to respond, followed by Honorable Master Goya to respond also subsequently. I am going according to the list that I have so you will respond after that. Thank you. Honorable Muosa please.HON. NJINGUM MUSA MBUTOH [CAMEROON]:Thank you Madame President for giving me the floor for a second time. I think I will not overburden myself because the Honourable Members have already shown their concerns and they have given us compliments on our observation. What I want Members to understand is that this is not a comprehensive report of election observation. We are not mandated to table election reports, here as the decision that was taken by the African Union Commission and the other organs and approved by the Heads of States Summit; that the election results must be sanctioned by the Africa Union Commission before it is tabled or published or taken to the plenary. So, we have no right to table any report here, but we are giving our views and giving our situation on how the election went on, so that you can actively contribute and assist the bureau to see what measures can be taken for a good observation of elections.I think the most important issue now as I will like to contribute Madame President, is that as they have involved the Heads of States to accept sign and approve the decision should not be insolent, we are gentlemen MPs and we have the respect, but I think if we have to go for elections now, the bureau should negotiate with the Africa Union Commission so that we should have our own independent groups in that joint commission. Our own delegations should have their own leaders from PAP so that we can bring our report and present to the plenary. Our logistics will be handled by our staff so that we can easily handle our elections. They will follow and guide us successfully in our elections.On the issue of tickets, they should also know that we are also going to do away with economy tickets. PAP should be involved in all the regions because if we went for elections and we have only three regions that we represent out of the 24 regions, then we cannot give a concrete report as Parliamentarians. It is our prerogative to observe election and give a good report Madame President; I hope it will assist you in the struggle to negotiate with the African Union Commission.With that Madame President, I think I will end my contribution for now.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Thank you very much Madam President. Madam President when I was given the floor last week to present the report on the Rwanda Presidential Election Observation Mission, I was very explicit to the fact that what I was presenting was not a full detailed report, but rather a synopsis of the administrative and logistical issues surrounding that mission. But nonetheless Madam President, I have been listening very keenly to the interventions made by Honourable Members and I would like to commend those who found it worthwhile to comment on these issues. But, I plead with Honourable Members to wait for the reports to come from the African Union and then upon receipt of these reports, it will be incumbent upon us who went to all these missions to find out whether these reports have been doctored by the African Union. I think for now let’s not waste our breadth talking about issues of doctoring of reports before we have even seen these reports from the African Union Commission. I think we must wait, let’s all wait for the reports to come to this August House. We will cross the bridge when we come to it.What is important for us Madam President is to ensure that we take out PAP from the Joint Mission Observation. And this has come out very clear from this August House, and we should continue making a lot of noise about it. We should talk about it until Jesus comes, if Jesus will ever come. We should not stop talking about it. So, I think that is the most important aspect that we as PAP should be seen to be doing Madam President.In a nutshell, I just want to thank the Honourable Members who made some comments on this report. I thank you Madam President.HON. CHARUMBIRA FORTUNE [ZIMBABWE]:Issue of position Madame President. Madame President, I have been listening to reports, what are called on election observation missions. We are meant to believe these were reports and even the documents that were given to us, they are written, ‘Report on the PAP election observation mission’. However, everybody is disowning them as reports, saying these are briefs, and the actual reports are coming. So, we need to amend this documents, these are not reports so they should not be presented here as reports. Thank you.THE PRESIDENT:Could you Honorable Chief make a proposal as to what we should call them.HON. CHARUMBIRA FORTUNE [ZIMBABWE]:These are just briefings on the administrative challenges that members encountered.THE PRESIDENT:Ok, your point is taken. Thank you very much Honorable Chief Charumbira. I now allow the Clerk to read....AN HONOURABLE MEMBER:Madame Speaker, before you proceed. What is the procedure in terms of getting the reports to PAP? Is it that what we have are briefs, or not?THE PRESIDENT:Well, I thought of whether we should adopt these reports or not, because it is not really an observer mission report. So, the situation is not clear whether they are briefings or not, but if the members fill that these are the reports in whatever form they are, then we should adopt them. Can we adopt the briefings?AN HONOURABLE MEMBER:I think you misunderstood me Madame Speaker; I was asking the procedure for getting the proper report, because it seems from the reports by members, the proper report is yet to come from the AU Commission. Therefore, what I am asking is; what is the procedure to be followed for us to get the reports? How do we get it? Are they going to just send it at their own time because I think these members were there on behalf of PAP? Whether they had a good time or not, we need to know how that report is going to come into our hands; that is all.AN HONORABLE MEMBER:Madame President, thank you. Madame President I had my sister from Ghana who was on these missions; she had her own very strong points on the report that she has written, which we are waiting for AUC to release officially. Now if we are going to adopt this as an election observer mission report, then what do we do with that report? I think as far as am concerned, we just take note of this pending the outcome of that report and we can compare notes. Thank you Madame President.THE PRESIDENT:Yeah, I think your point is taken Honourable Bahari, but I think that the point that Botswana was raising is the procedure of how we will receive the report from the AUC. Normally, the AUC sends the report to the Pan-African Parliament and sometimes they come here and present them. When the reports are available, they will be presented one by one through either the relevant committees or the AUC representative coming here and presenting them. Then we will debate it accordingly, that is the procedure. I hope I have answered your question. So as of now we take note of the reports of the administrative proceedings that went on during the observer missions. Honourable members, I would request the Clerk to read the second item on the agenda.THE CLERK:Thank you Honorable President. Presentation and Debate on Peace and Security.THE PRESIDENT:I can see Honorable Soglo, Madame Soglo you may take the floor.HON. VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Madame Vieyra Soglo, Madame la Présidente, s’il-vous-plaît! Madame Vieyra Soglo!Madame la Présidente je remarque que vous ne m’avez pas appelé. Je suis désolée de rappeler toujours que je suis malvoyante. Cela m’humilie. Pourtant, j’ai demandé à ce qu’on m’inscrive à tous les débats et, comme je ne peux pas lire là- bas et m’inscrire moi-même, je vois qu’on fait l’impasse sur ma personne. J’ai demandé à prendre la parole et j’ai demandé qu’on m’inscrive pour tous les débats. Or, je ne vois pas mon nom sur la liste. Je vous remercie, Madame la présidente.THE PRESIDENT:Madam Vieyra Soglo, we accepted that, whenever you put up your hand, we will take your hand. So, the only problem is that you waited until the second order was read. Otherwise, every time you put up your hand, we always give you the floor. You will excuse me on that. I didn’t see your hand earlier. I suggest that we proceed.HON. VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Madame la présidente, il faut que quelqu’un m’aide, n’est-ce pas? Vous n’êtes pas à ma place, je m’excuse! Vous dites que j’aurais dû lever le doigt, heureusement que le Président m’a aidé, puisqu’il faut que quelqu’un m’aide pour que je puisse appuyer sur le bouton pour demander la parole. Vous ne savez pas ce que moi je souffre, ici! Alors je m’excuse! J’ai levé la main, vous n’avez peut-être pas voulu regarder. Pour demander la parole, on ne va pas argumenter longtemps, si vous êtes dans ce Parlement! Je suis désolée! Je suis déjà suffisamment humiliée pour que, tout le temps, j’en rajoute!
3.0 – PRÉSENTATION ET DÉBATS SUR LA PAIX ET LA SÉCURITÉ EN AFRIQUE
HON. KHUMALO MARWICK [SWAZILAND]:Madame President, the Vice President, Chairperson of Caucuses, my fellow Parliamentarians.Since this is my maiden speech as the Chairperson of this Committee, may you allow me to convey my deep gratitude to the Southern Caucus for having nominated me to stand for this position and most of all to convey my deep gratitude to the Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolutions for seeing it fit to elect me to this position.Madame President, let me state at the outset that this is a document that is home grown; a document that was produced by the Committee itself within a very short space of time. The Committee when it realized that the report that we had was not up to speed and it was not up to taste, so, the Committee decided to set up a small a Subcommittee to work on this issue over a period of two days working even after hours, Madam President. And we are grateful to the Subcommittee which composed of the Chairperson, who was chairing that Sub-committee, who is the Deputy Chairperson of the Committee, the Honorable Dusty Wolokolie, Honorable Fatima Hajaig, the Honorable Lassane Sawadogo, the Honorable Ouaddadi Cheikh Ahmed El-Heiba, Honorable Obama Nve and Honorable AbdulAziz Abdulahi. This is the Sub-committee that was mandated by the Committee to work on this document and we are proud that it has all the content that we believe touches on the issues of peace and security within the African Continent.Madame President, the decision to proclaim 2010 as the year of peace and security was taken by the special session on the consideration and resolution of conflicts in Africa held in Tripoli, Libya on 31 August 2009. The declaration was made against the backdrop of the continued prevalence of armed conflict n the continent despite the significant progress made towards the promotion of peace, security and stability. Notably, in paragraph 9 of the Tripoli Declaration, the Heads of State and Government made the following undertaking and I quote, "We are determined to deal once and for all with the scourge of conflicts and violence on our continent, acknowledging our shortcomings and errors, committing our resources and our best people and missing no opportunity to push forward the agenda of conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction. We as leaders simply cannot bequeath the burden of conflicts to the next generation of Africans."Madame President, the situation at Regional Level, notwithstanding the remarkable strides that have been made in democratic governance, challenges with respect to peace and security at some flashpoints all over the continent continue to stifle the movement towards progress in democratic development. These flashpoints are of grave concern that must continue to seize our resolve for speedy and lasting peaceful resolutions.We focus on Central Africa, the Congo in particular. Peace has come to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nevertheless, the Congo DRC needs stronger institutions. There is concern however, that there is still conflict in Eastern Congo in Kivu where reprisal attacks against civilian populations continues. The parties to the conflict are implored to come to terms, dialogue and find a peaceful solution to stabilize the country.Madame President, the Committee applauds the arrest of rebels who were involved in mass rape of women, men and children. It is pleasing to note, positive developments by the organization of a meeting on the situation of children, women and men. This shows progress towards resolving the issue.On Central African Republic, there is little peace in the Central African Republic. However, there is social instability due to the absence of elections despite the sitting president’s term of office having come to an end. There is agitation among rebel groups opposing the government. It should be noted that some progress is being made as the independent Electoral Commission has set a date for elections.The Committee is however, concerned about the continuous low level conflict and would like to see peace and stability so that development takes place.In Chad, the Chadian problem is caused by internal political crises whose origin dates back to a distant past on the one hand and to conflicts with neighboring countries on the other. Since the last rebel attack on N’djamena which was repelled early thanks to the assistance of the French Military and which led to the arrest and disappearance of an opposition leader, Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh, the situation at the moment seems to be striving for calm. In this regard we must pay tribute to the holding of the forthcoming elections in this country and the political rapprochement with neighboring Sudan. Without any doubt this situation could have positive impacts on the internal crisis of this country and in the sub-region.In East Africa, Somalia. Somalia has been ravaged by violence since warlords overthrew Dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and have since turned on each other. International community organized reconciliation between former transitional federal governments and moderate Islamists in which the current President, Sheik Sharif was elected. The aim was that the international community hoped that President Sharif could unite the country’s factions but violence has continued.Suicide bombing unheard of in Somalia before 2007 have become increasingly frequent and the lawlessness has raised concern that Al-Qaeda is trying to gain a foothold in the Horn of Africa.African troops from Uganda and Burundi protecting the Somalia Government wage daily battles with Islamic militants who hold much of central and southern Somalia. Bombings have become deadlier as Al-Shabaab militia receive training from veteran insurgents from Afghanistan and Pakistan conflicts.Among the thousands of killings that are occurring, in 2009, one of the deadliest attacks took place at Shamo Hotel where a graduation ceremony was being held. In this incident, four ministers, graduating students, relatives, journalists, security personnel and others were killed. Six MPS and other government officials were attacked and killed at the end of Ramadan 2010 in Muna Hotel.Recently, another attack carried out by Al-Shabab took place in Uganda, Kampala, where innocent civilians watching the final football match of the 2010 World Cup were attacked. In this attack, over 70 people were killed.The last attack carried out by Al-Shabab tool place at Mogadishu Airport by suicide bombers in which two peacekeepers were amongst those killed.The rule of law has completely broken down in Somalia. The anarchy also allowed piracy to flourish off the country’s coast. Corruption is another major problem affecting Somalia.Eritrea, Djibouti and Ethiopia, the border between Eritrea and Djibouti on the one hand and Eritrea and Ethiopia on the other have not been resolved, the border dispute. However, the Horn of Africa must promote peace and stability so development can take place.It is pleasing to note that the Amir of Qatar has brought about an agreement between Eritrea and Djibouti to resolve its border dispute.Sudan, Sudan is entering one of the most critical phases of its history. For the region and African continent, the successful completion of the ongoing processes is of utmost importance. We are confident that with genuine support from the international community the Sudanese people have the capacity to seize this historic opportunity to overcome the challenges facing them.South Sudan, South Sudan will be holding a referendum in 2011. There is concern with the oil deposits around the border of north and south Sudan which could be a source of discontent. Therefore the Committee proposes that a solution be reached with respect to equitable sharing of resources within the North and South Sudan. It is the Committee’s further hope that the referendum process must be credible and free of violence.Darfur, the Committee welcomed the Darfur Peace Strategy that is concerned with continued dialogue with the rebels. The internal social peace, development and services programme, support the return of the displaced people and rehabilitation of villages and compensating the affected people.The continued dialogue with the rebels under the supervision of the Afro-Arab International Initiative (AU, AL and the UN) in Doha is a development worth taking note of. It is noted that development of good relations between Sudan and Chad has had positive impacts in supporting the peace process and stability in Darfur. All security violations and support of rebel movements have increased significantly.The humanitarian situation in Darfur seems to be stable. The indication in this respect is the return of some refugees and displaced people to their home villages. If I may add, Madame President, that one of our newest members in this Committee, not only is he from Darfur, but he has been seized with the issues in that country for some time. We are hopeful that he will remain a source of information from that region.Madame President, North Africa, Saharawi Republic, we members of the Committee reiterate Africa’s commitment to continue supporting the efforts aimed at resolving the dispute on Western Sahara on the basis of international legality, of relevant Security Council and General Assembly Resolutions of the United Nations as well as the Tripoli Plan of Action. We support the Saharawi peoples’ wish and right to choose and determine their own destiny.We call upon stakeholders in particular Morocco to fulfill their commitments to the Tripoli Plan of Action.The Pan-African Parliament is filled with consternation by the massive and repeated violations of human rights in the Western Sahara by Moroccan authorities. It is calling on the African Union and the United Nations Organization to become involved particularly in this matter by compelling Morocco to respect its obligations and to free political prisoners that it is still holding.Southern Africa, Madagascar, the situation in Madagascar constitutes a real challenge for Africa and the SADC region in particular. SADC continues with efforts to arrive at an agreement on a consensual and inclusive transition in Madagascar. However this initiative has continued to come up against the will of the Rajoelina Regime to proceed with the elections in disregard of the spirit and letter of the Maputo and Addis Ababa Agreements. The Committee commends efforts by SADC, AU and UN to find a quick solution. No effort should be spared to achieve return to constitutional legality.West Africa, Cot D’Ivoire, following eight years of bickering and posturing in holding elections as a way forward, the critically remaining hurdle of a voter register has been achieved thereby clears the way for elections to go ahead. The Committee is optimistic that the elections will be held as scheduled at the end of October 2010. All stakeholders should endeavor to ensure a smooth, free and fair election.Niger, democratic civilian rule has not returned in Niger. However, it is pleasing to note that a one year transition programme has been adopted calling for organizational of a constitutional referendum, municipal and legislative elections and presidential elections on 26 December 2010. We hope that this timetable will be respected and upheld. All stakeholders should endeavor to ensure smooth, free and fair elections.Guinea (Conakry), a glimmer of hope now looms as the presidential run-off date has been set for 24 October 2010 between the two leading candidates for the first round of elections nearly four months ago. The Committee would like to urge the ECOWAS, African Union and United Nations and other key players to remain seized and fully engaged to ensure a free, fair and transparent process that would respect the true wishes of the Guinean people thereby lending legitimacy to the outcome of the polls.Nigeria, the bombing on Nigeria’s 50th Independence anniversary celebrations has thrown a spanner in the works of the heretofore critically fledging path leading to elections in the first quarter of next year. There is tension brewing within the ruling party with political rivals of the sitting President for the party’s nomination accusing him of intimidation and witch hunting following the arrest and questioning of aides of one of the rivals in connection with the incident.The unfolding developments in this situation have to be closely monitored and managed so as to avoid and untoward repercussions for the democratic gains so far made in the continent’s most populous country.As a major player in Africa, we would not like to see an escalation of further tension in Nigeria.Madame President, may I conclude by enumerating the challenges. Core challenges will have to be addressed by both Africans and international partners. The key challenges include:1)Fostering institutional capacities;2)Political commitment by the majority of African states;3)Improving the quality of international support;4)Prevention and combating of terrorism;5)Proliferation of small arms and light weapons;6)Protection of civilians in peacekeeping operations;7)Maritime security and safety especially in the Indian Ocean off coast of Somalia and Gulf of Guinea;8)Piracy off the coast of Somalia is but a symptom of the complex political security and humanitarian situation in Somalia including the enduring climate of lawlessness, poverty, youth unemployment and collapse of state institutions. Illegal dumping of toxic waste off the coast of Somalia were also key contributing factors to the emergence of this phenomenon; and last but not least9)Lack of a fully established and operational early warning system.Madame President, I submit. Thank you.(Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much, Honourable Khumalo for that very well presented and elaborate report. We also wish to congratulate you upon your winning of the hotly contested election and now, you being the chair of this important committee, we wish you the best of luck and we vest our hopes and aspirations in your work. Honourable members, now we open the debate on the report as presented by the Honourable Khumalo. I have a list of twenty two names and I wish to remind you that we have a meeting with members from the European Parliament and so Parliament has to close to go for lunch at exactly twelve thirty. Therefore, I wish to give each person three minutes; this is an important issue and a substantive report. So, I recognize that less than three minutes will be too short. I stick to the three minutes and to the point. The first person on the list is Honourable Juliana Kantengwa of Rwanda.HON. KANTENGWA JULIANA [RWANDA]:Thank you Madam President for giving me the floor. I wish to congratulate Honourable Khumalo on winning the Presidency of the Committee and representing our views so ably. I also wish to salute the Sub Committee members for sacrificing their precious free time in order to produce such a good piece of work for our Committee. Having said this Madam, may I also add that I am a member of this Committee. There are few issues that I would want to comment on. Firstly, I would wish to bring it out that the warming of relations between Chad and Sudan is a welcome development and we commend the PAP first of all, through its Committee of Cooperation to have contributed to this rapprochement since 2006.Secondly, I also want to salute the peace keeping efforts of the Africans by Africans in the Darfur and Somalia. It is a welcome development and we wish to encourage the process to continue to evolve into a permanent development on the African Continent because we are recognizing that Africans can do it. So, if we can get more involved in bringing down the conflicts on the different parts of the Continent, it is a welcome issue. But Madam President I have two points concerning the timid positioning of the AU towards two specific disputes. The first one is between Eritrea and Ethiopia on border issue. We all know that the ruling was made according to the terms of reference for international mediation, and Ethiopia is supposed to abide by that international ruling. I do not understand why the African Union is not urging Ethiopia enough, to abide by that and resolve that ongoing conflict.The second one is the Saharawi republic; we all know that quite a big number of our countries do recognize the territorial occupation of Morocco over Saharawi, yet we know that they also took a double standard stand of not having Morocco in the African Union, and in recognizing the existence and aspirations of the people of Saharawi for self-determination. Why do we not have all the members of the African Union sanction Morocco for colonizing the people of Saharawi, since Saharawi is a Member of the African Union? Expelling Morocco is not enough when you trade with it!Finally Madam President, I also wish to talk about the semantics of our election observation missions to the conflicts that are prevailing on the African Continent. Madam President we all know that businesses of power capturing and power giving away, the theatre is during the election process. Now we are not going to be very effective in monitoring and participating in the resolutions of Conflicts in Africa if our efficiency at election observation missions is hampered like we have said before in the previous debate. So if we take these two things together, and you rightly said that this Committee is dealing with very important issues that are besieging Africa right now, the issues of conflict, the two have to be taken hand in hand. We need to empower PAP to effectively come out and play its role both in election observations and in playing a key role in prevention and resolution of the existing conflicts. I thank you.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Juliana. Now we give the opportunity...AN HONORABLE:A point of Clarification!THE PRESIDENT:Yes, point of clarification.AN HONOURABLE:Thank you Madame President. There is a report that was handed to us this morning on Peace and Security in African from the AU. I just want to appreciate at what point we are going to be presented with this report because I was thinking that because we are already discussing peace and security, maybe this could have been an appropriate time for the report to be presented so that as we debate, then we debate on the two reports.THE PRESIDENT:From my point of view, I think the AUC was supposed to come and present that report. I cannot give an immediate answer right now because I run a risk of giving you incorrect information, when the opportunity arises and if the member from the AUC becomes present, it will be presented. But short of that, we will go with our own. Thank you very much.The next speaker on the list is Honorable Justin Joseph Marona of Sudan.HON. JUSTIN JOSEPH MARONA [SUDAN]:Thank you Madam President for giving me this very important chance. To begin with I really want to thank the AU mission that is operating in Sudan. They have opened missions in South Sudan in Juba for monitoring the implementation of comprehensive peace agreement in Sudan. I also want to thank the participation of AU in all the areas of conflict in Sudan, especially Darfur and all the forces that are there, enhancing the peace in our nation.Madam President, the East Africa Region where Sudan is in, according to the report and I thank the Chairman or the President of the committee of cooperation and conflict resolution for this very nice report that they have presented. Sudan is one of the crucial countries at this moment because Madam President, we are going to finalize the implementation of the peace in Sudan. Madam President, the last phrase or clause of this agreement is very sensitive as it relates to the conflict or peace in the region. The issue of the self determination of the people of South Sudan and self determination of people of Abyei are going to be conducted on 9th January 2011. Therefore, Madam President, these issues are very sensitive because they are related with border demarcation, the post-referendum negotiation that is going on and speeding all this processes are equally important in order for us to reach a peaceful ending of this agreement.Madam President by giving this, I want to raise a motion about the issue of how the PAP will participate in the referendum mission in Sudan, given the fact that the issue of election observation missions had encountered a lot of constraints, which have put PAP in a very uncomfortable position as regards its full participation in election missions in the continent. The referendum in Sudan is very vital and sensitive. Therefore, I would like to put it as a motion and for it to be given as a note to AU that the earlier participation of PAP in the processes of the referendum of South Sudan and Abyei is very important because the expectation of the people of South Sudan and Abyei is fixed on the date mentioned for referendum.THE PRESIDENT:One minute Honorable Marona.HON MARONA JOSEPH JUSTIN [SUDAN]:Ok. Secondly Madam Chair, I would like it to be noted in this august house that the issue of speeding up the referendum processes, the Abyei referendum issue, border between South and North and post referendum issues are very important because they have a connection, and are related to the peace and security in Sudan and region at large. Madam President since my time is up, I would like to thank you.THE PRESIDENT:Honorable Marona the work of getting PAP involved in what is going on with the referendum in the Sudan can be done through our Permanent Committees. So, I would suggest that the Sudan gives us an invitation and we will find ways of getting involved before the election is in place. I thank you. I now give the opportunity to honorable Fatima Hajaig of South Africa.HON. HAJAIG FATIMA [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank Madam Chair. First of all, a few days ago we commemorated 50 years of independence for 17 African States. Looking at these countries, we find that 10 of them have been engaged in conflict or are in fact still engaging in conflicts. We have among them; Togo, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Niger, Ivory Cost, Chad and Central African Republic, Nigeria and Mauritania. So we need to ask the question; why are we having these various conflicts? We have heard about the conflicts that are happening at this moment. What can we identify as the reasons for these continuous conflicts? Among them - it is not an exhaustive list - is the lack of institutions that promote democracy and good governance, border disputes, unconstitutional changes of governments, especially non acceptance of the election results, lack of resources or unequal distribution of resources and structural imbalances in the various states. What can we do to avoid these conflicts?We need to identify and implement projects and programmes for implementation; for example, enhancing conditions of peace, security as well as political and economic governance, post-conflict reconstruction and development. Here, the inclusion of women in the peace processes, in conflict resolution, in post conflict reconstruction is imperative.Madam President, in war it is the women and children who suffer the most despite the fact that the men usually create the wars. What we need is a vision of a common future that will ensure economic growth, improvement of the standard of living and the quality of life, freedom and social justice and peace and security for the peoples of Africa. Some objectives that we ought to take into account are:1.To achieve development and economic thrust in order to alleviate poverty;2.Enhance the standard and quality of the life of the people, and give support to the socially disadvantaged;3.We need to evolve common political value systems in institutions especially as we move towards an African Union government;4.We need to promote and defend peace and security;5.We need to promote selfsustaining development on the basis of collective selfreliance and the inter-dependence of Member states;6.We need to achieve complementarities between national and regional strategies and programmes;7.We need to promote and maximize productive employment and utilization of our resources in the member states and our regions;8.We need to achieve sustainable utilization of national resources and effective protection of the environment and our water ways; and9.We need to strengthen and consolidate the long standing historical social and cultural affirmatives and links amongst all the peoples of Africa.In conclusion Madame President, I would like...THE PRESIDENT:I give you half a minute to conclude because you are concluding.HON. HAJAIG FATIMA [SOUTH AFRICA]:Mr. Kofi Annan said; despite the progress made of the last decades, there is still a long way to go. In this regard he notes that there are so many incidences of corruption, squandering of resources, inequality in wealth distribution, abusive of electoral processes and selective adherence to the rule of law. Therefore, imploring is the most crucial start for moving the African Continent, for, it is strong leadership and good governance that will make the difference. I thank you.DEPUTADO MANUEL SERIFO NHAMAJO [GUINÉ BISSAU]:Obrigado, Senhora Presidente. Inscrevi-me para abordar sobre o Relatório do Embaixador Ramtane Lamamra, Comissário para Paz e Seguranza, mas como nao está presente e nem sequer foi apresentado, permitam-me fazer algumas observares sobre a apresentagao do nosso Colega Deputado Khumalo Marwick.Comego por felicitar a sua nomeagao para dirigir essa Comissao tao importante neste contexto e neste Continente tao conturbado.Senhora Presidente, no Relatório apresentado, falou da marcagao da data da segunda volta das eleigoes na Guiné Conacry. Chamo a sua atengao para a preocupagao que tenho: nos últimos tempos os sinais que nos chegam é de preocupagao porque a tendencia tribal comega a ganhar terreno e nao sei se nao seria prudente actuarmos na prevengao dos possíveis conflitos logo que se anuncie os resultados da segunda volta. E nao sei, nesse sentido, o que é que estâo a preparar, mas, na Guiné Conacry os sinais que nos chegam sâo muito preocupantes.Hâ outro aspecto que queria também chamar atençâo, é a existência de uma fome terrivel a nivel do Niger e, pergunto: preparar eleiçoes num pais em que metade da populaçâo padece de fome, morrem animais, hâ uma instabilidade alimentar, haverâ condiçoes para as eleiçoes? É preciso agirmos, como diz o texto, é melhor prevenirmos do que depois irmos como bombeiros.Sâo essas as duas questoes que queria realçar, mas o meu objectivo era debater sobre o Relatorio do Embaixador.Muito obrigado, Senhora Presidente.HON. VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Madame la Présidente, je vous remercie de m’avoir donné la parole. Mais, tout à l’heure, j’avais aussi un petit mot à dire, vous n’avez pas voulu me donner la parole, je n’en fais pas un cas.Je voudrais simplement poser quelques questions sur les histoires des conflits. Les chefs d’Etats, paraît-il, se sont rencontrés et ont décidé de ramener la paix. J’ai écouté la radio hier, il paraît qu’ils sont en Lybie et qu’ils ont décidé aussi de faire tout leur possible pour mettre fin aux conflits. Mais, ma première question, Madame la présidente, mes chers collègues, est la suivante: est-ce que ce n’est pas nos chefs d’Etats euxmêmes qui sont à l’origine de ces conflits? Dans un cas, c’est parce que les élections ont été contestées, dans un autre cas c’est parce qu’ils demandent à changer les constitutions?Ces messieurs se prennent pour des dieux et ont notre vie dans leurs mains, parce que tout le reste, Madame la Présidente, mes chers collègues, en ce qui me concerne, c’est comme dit le Canard enchaîné, ce sont des paroles verbales, car il y a bientôt 20 ans ou 50 ans que nous sommes dans la voie de la démocratie, qu’on parle de démocratie, et qu’on ne voit rien venir! Il y a bientôt 20 ans que le peuple africain souffre et que la population ne sais plus où elle en est.Alors, Madame la Présidente, j’aimerais, si possible, que nous fassions quelque chose de concret, qu’on me donne des choses concrètes et peut-être, grâce à Dieu, je pourrais voir, avant de mourir, la paix en Afrique.Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.HON. LABELLE MARIE NOËLLE FRANÇOISE [MAURITIUS]:Madam President, Honorable colleagues, distinguished guests, peace and security has been a recurrent subject at our various settings. Can it be otherwise when peace and security remains a huge challenge in Africa?Madame President, I do recognize that many initiatives have been taken to manage these difficult situations. I do recognize that many organizations are working towards the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts in several countries.Madame President, we have to keep in mind, as rightly pointed out by my colleague from South Africa, the sources and the main causes of these conflicts. We have of course the non respect for democracy which includes dysfunction within Electoral Commission or simply absence of independent Electoral Commission, the unconstitutional change of government and also unfortunately a resurgence of interethnic conflicts which in some countries lead to displacement.Madame President, we are also after fifty years facing the boarder issues. We realize that the Charter on Democracy, Election and Governance, offer necessary tools to help us to have a better situation. I think that the Pan-African Parliament has an opportunity to take concrete action and initiative to deepen the process of democratization. In this respect all the initiatives taken to ensure the ratification of this Charter will help to have a better situation on our Continent. But ratification is not the only solution; follow up has been proved to be most important. We can recall the first country which ratifies this Charter entered into a coup some days after ratification.Madame President, also we know that other actions have to be initiated and in this respect. That PAP reviews its action, and this, can be the time for our Permanent Committees to make an auto evaluation. How each permanent Committee of PAP can enter into this process? How can we work together with the AU as an important partner in the initiatives taken for further democratization of the African Continent?Madame President, I also want to share the concern expressed by different colleagues regarding the Saharawi Republic. I think we should not stop talking about it until our brothers and sisters in the Saharawi Republic find the place they deserve.Madame President, I can only wish that we continue to contribute to have a better Africa and concrete actions are initiated in a very short time from PAP, thank you. (Applause)DEPUTADO JAIME BESSA AUGUSTO NETO [MOZAMBIQUE]:Muito obrigado. Senhora Presidente, pe$o para falar sentado por questoes de saúde.THE PRESIDENT:Honourable Members, I thought we had agreed that we stand so that we can see each other.HON. NETO JAIME BESSA AUGUSTO [MOZAMBIQUE].Madam President, I am not feeling well.THE PRESIDENT:No problem.DEPUTADO JAIME BESSA AUGUSTO NETO [MOZAMBIQUE].Muito obrigado, Senhora Presidente, por me ter permitido falar sentado. De facto, nao estou bem de saúde para ficar muito tempo de pé.Em primeiro lugar, queria saudar o nosso Colega, Senhor Deputado Marwick Khumalo, por ter apresentado este relatório em nome da Comissao. Senhora Presidente, o Relatório que nos foi apresentado indica que o nosso continente ainda está longe de alcanzar os requisitos para o pleno desenvolvimento. Como muitos países nossos vizinhos nao gozam de plena estabilidade política, os seus povos sao vítimas de violencia e intimidado, e carecem muitos deles de assistencia humanitária.Os conflitos internos afectam, sobremaneira, a estabilidade do continente no seu todo e interfere no desenvolvimento económico. A instabilidade nas zonas fronteiri?as está cada vez insustentável. A questao da Somália é o exemplo daquilo que estou a dizer. E segundo o Relatório, todas as regioes do nosso continente sao afectadas por instabilidade, o que faz com que cada uma das nossas regioes nao seja estável, porque quando um dos nossos irmaos nao está bem, todos nao estamos bem.Eu, Senhora Presidente, queria apenas saber, se nós temos exemplos do Zimbabwe, do Quénia e da Libéria, onde o sucesso da restaurado da paz, da seguranza e os esfor?os de promodo do desenvolvimento e alivio á pobreza estao a surtir efeito, por que é que todos esses exemplos nao pegam para o resto do continente!?Nós nao podemos, de facto, usufruir dos recursos que temos, enquanto nao tivermos essa paz que nós pedimos todos os dias. E, acho que devemos deixar de estar a fazer apelos á paz e fazermos coisas concretas para que, de facto, o nosso continente se pacifique o mais rápido possível e, um dos exemplos, penso que já foi dado pela nossa Colega da África de Sul e reforjado também pela nossa Colega das Maurícias. Está relacionado com a maneira como nós realizamos as nossas elei?oes. Penso que a Uniao Africana deve ver com muita responsabilidade esta acqao, para permitir que nós nao continuemos a ter focos de instabilidade a partir da realizado das elei?oes nos nossos países.Muito obrigado.HON. ABDUL-RASHID PELPUO [GHANA]:Thank you Madam President for this opportunity and let me also thank the presenter Mr. Khumalo, for an elaborate presentation.Madam Speaker, conflict is just not a choice; it is a symptom of a bigger problem that occurs in Africa. It is as a result of leadership wanting to extend itself into the future. It is also because we have an elite group in Africa that suffers from greed and are always undermining the rights of peoples of Africa. And often as part of the problem, people want to resist and when they resist there is always conflict. Conflicts then bring about underdevelopment. Underdevelopment is one of the major problems that Africans suffers, and until we can ensure peace and security in the continents, we are likely for a very long time to continue suffering the pain of conflicts, to tell stories of pain because conflict is a very painful experience, to tell stories of walking skeletons of people shown on western televisions; people who are hungry and displaced, and cannot find their way back home to their various countries.Madam President, it is important that we begin to re-examine the role of PAP in ensuring that we support the AU to reflect the very purpose of AU as one that will promote peace and security, and one that will promote development in Africa. We have indeed presented to ourselves a lot of resolutions and treaties. It is important that we encourage our various countries to rectify these all. They are not the ones that will eventually bring about the end of conflicts, but it is a choice that we are going to make. And as a matter of fact, we have to do a lot of sacrifices in our daily lives, we have to sacrifice whether we like it or not, we have to subsume our individual interests under the State interests more and more. Many of our leaders, many of our political allies still think that, their individual interests are bigger than the interests of our individual countries and so we pursue that agenda and we get support from the majority, the masses of people who do not understand. So, part of the problem is the ignorance of our own people. As PAP members, we need to promote education and we need to ensure that we do this tirelessly, to ensure that our people are aware. Let us also encourage our people to recognize the role of the peer review mechanism as projected in the NEPAD initiative. Let’s encourage membership of the AU to subject themselves to the peer review as Ghana did as the first country in Africa and let us ensure that eventually people will.. (Interjection: Point of Order!) Point of Order!AN HONOURABLE MEMBER:Madam President, we don’t have the list of speakers, so we can’t follow, who is able to speak or not. Thank you.THE PRESIDENT:Could the Clerk’s desk circulate the list of speakers please.HON. ABDUL-RASHID PELPUO [GHANA]:Madam Speaker, can I just make this last remark. In the fifth stanza of the African Union Anthem, it tells about us toiling together to better the standards of Africa. I think that we need to remove the first line of the fifth stanza that talks about toiling in Africa. We are not toiling, we have gone beyond toiling and we are going to work using our brains not the physical toil that is defining us all today.HON. SILAVWE MAKAMACHE CLEVER [ZAMBIA]:Thank you very much Madame President for giving me this opportunity to make a brief contribution on this important topic.May I also start my debate by congratulating my dear brother, Honorable Khumalo for scooping the position of a Chairperson of the Committee and commend him for his detailed report presented this morning.Madame President although we may celebrate 50 years of independence of the 17 countries and indeed many more others, mere political independence is nothing if there is no peace and security in the entire Africa region. We are also aware that the absence of peace and security, it means that there is no meaningful economic and social development that can take place. I am sure if we recall on the speech of the former President of Tanzania Dr. Mwinyi, he presented a very rich and educated speech in this August House where he spoke about some leaders who were not comfortable on which was happening in neighboring countries, even when they were very comfortable in their own countries but because their neighbors were having some political problems they had to come together and form what they called the ‘Front Line States’, to sacrifice, to ensure that even the neighbors got independence and this is very important. As this organization, what is it that you can be done to ensure that we give peace and security to our neighbors who are still suffering? These are some of the issues that we need to address if this organization will be able to be appreciated by Africa as a region.Madame President, dear colleagues, we as PanAfrican Parliamentarians, we must double our efforts in ensuring that the conflicts in various countries come to an end. Even the motto of One Africa, One Voice will remain meaningless if our brothers and sisters in some parts of the African region continue dying due to political instability.The Chairperson has ably explained and he has given us the figures and the countries where we still have a lot of problems, where there is political instability and where there are conflicts. If there are conflicts, then we know that our brothers cannot have enough time to grow food. Some of them are even dying because of hunger. This is very very discouraging and as Pan-African Parliamentarians, let ensure that we work with our government to put our hands together to ensure that we restore peace in these countries.Madame President, it is pleasing to note that on the (interruption)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Member. I cannot give you two minutes, I can give you half a minute, conclude.HON. SILAVWE MAKAMACHE CLEVER [ZAMBIA]:Madame President, it is pleasing to note that on 21 September this year, Africa joins the rest of the world to mark Peace Day for Africa. This day was indeed significant because AU had declared 2010 as a year of peace and security.Madame President, 21 September 2010 was the bridge in the implementation of the campaign that allowed the Continent and its international partners to review the achievement so far made and revise plans for the future. It is imperative that we all continue to work together to ensure that this is year is marked more than just a series of symbolic activities.^(interruption by the bell)THE PRESIDENT:I now give the opportunity to Honorable Ali Souleiman of Djibouti, Suleiman is not around. I now give opportunity to Honorable Sisa Njikelana of South Africa.HON. NJIKELANA SISA JAMES [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Madam President. Mine is to focus on action. I do concur with my colleagues that Honorable Khumalo has done a brilliant presentation in articulating the situation as it stands in Africa when it comes to peace and security. However, once upon a time, one of the great man said, ‘philosophers have interpreted the world, ours is to change it. That is what I am proposing. I am proposing that a special session of the Pan -African Parliament be arranged and convened, and such a session will focus on the role of the Pan-African Parliament in its contribution to peace and stability in Africa.Mainly three local areas are proposed:i.In such session PAP would have to come up with an action plan within the current PAP mandate as a consultative and advisory body.ii.Such session should be preceded by an intensive appraisal by the Committee on cooperation, international relations and conflict resolutions since such appraisal shall serve as a guide to this session.ii.The Pan-African Parliament through its Bureau as its leadership must ensures the participation of ECOSOC, the African Union Commission, the United Nations and the InterParliamentary Union in the special session.As a matter of addition, there are two agencies or institutions that should be included as well. The first one is APRM;, to ensure that we are able to appraise the extent to which countries have conducted themselves such that they advance peace and security in Africa. NEPAD as well should be invited to articulate the extent to which threat to peace and instability has negatively affected its programmes. We just started campaigning for the African Charter and this report actually emphasizes and reinforces the need for us to ensure that instruments like this African Charter on democracy, elections and becomes a living document.Another thing very obvious is that, a lot of reports have been presented here in the past, but to me as a person one question arises; what exactly are we committing as public representatives in asserting ourselves and also in ensuring that we make a visible contribution towards peace and security as public representatives in Africa? Madam Chair that is my emphasis. I thank you, shookran.HON. MUKABARANGA AGNÈS [RWANDA]:Madame la Présidente, avec tout le respect que je vous dois, par rapport à ce que vous venez de dire à l’instruction qui vient de nous être donnée d’aller participer à une autre réunion, je vais juste dire que j’apprécie le rapport qui nous est soumis et le fait que le PAP parvient, chaque fois et à chaque session, à mettre dans notre agenda la considération des rapports sur la situation de paix et de sécurité dans notre Continent.Madame la Présidente,Je voudrais apprécier que l’Union africaine, ensemble avec ses organes dont le PAP, parvient à mettre en place des mécanismes de résolution de conflit et de paix là où des conflits éclatent.J’apprécie tout particulièrement les efforts de médiation que l’Union africaine a pu mener avec de bons résultats et, ensemble, avec les communautés régionales, notamment la CEDEAO (ECOWAS), pour atteindre des résultats tangibles, notamment pour la Côte d’ivoire qui organise bientôt des élections, le Niger, la Guinée Conakry. Cela doit être souligné, Madame la Présidente. Et, nous devons féliciter notamment les Présidents, comme Blaise Compaoré, qui ont joué un rôle déterminant. Dans d’autres parties de l’Afrique, Madame la Présidente, ces accords doivent être accompagnés. Je veux parler du Soudan, de la Somalie et du Madagascar où des choses piétinent encore.Madame la Présidente,Eu égard aux sources de ces conflits qui ont été soulignées, eu égard aux mécanismes des accords de résolution de conflits et de bonne gouvernance qui sont en place, je pense que nous devons accompagner ces accords. Nous devons suivre, évaluer de façon permanente les accords qui existent et les mécanismes en place. Ce ne sont pas des accords qui manquent, Madame laPrésidente, mais c’est surtout l’évaluation, la pression de tout un continent qui doit sesolidariser contre ceux qui ne veulent que du trouble.Madame la Présidente,Laissez-moi conclure en disant que la Charte africaine, le mécanisme d’évaluation par les pairs, les missions d’observation des élections, ont le devoir de s’assurer que des organes tels que les institutions judiciaires et les commissions électorales marchent et travaillent de façon impartiale, quand il y a des disputes à l’issue des élections. Mais, que tous les acteurs, Madame la Présidente, acceptent les résultats des votes. C’est tout ce qu’on doit souhaiter, surtout pour les pays comme le Soudan, le Niger, la Côte d’ivoire et c’est sur cette note que je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.HON. LIMATA JOSEPHINE MWIYA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you very much Madam President for allowing me to add a few words on this wonderful report presented by the Chairperson Honourable Khumalo.Madam President, let me start with peace in Africa. My question is; do we have peace in Africa? The answer is no. I say so because of our friends who are suffering because there is no peace in their countries such as; Somalia, Saharawi and Sudan. They are still under fire for lack of peace in their countries. But then, what have we done for our fellow friends who are still looking for peace in their countries?Madam President, it is not only these three countries who have no peace. There are some coups where soldiers who went to war are still in power at this time. So, what are we going to do with them? How are we going to assist those people who are still under fire of soldiers, who are forcing themselves to be leaders in the some countries in Africa?Madam President, what is our role as Pan African Parliament and even UN, what are they doing to assist our fellow Africans? Madam President when there is no peace in Africa, the majority of people who suffer a lot are women and children. So, it is our role to give support and to look into these issues seriously as PAP. I thank you. (Applause)HON. HASSABO MOHAMMED ABDUL RAHMAN [SUDAN}بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم.شكرا جزيال السيدة الرئيسة،لسادة األعضاء،السيد رئيس اللجنة، التهنئة لكم، األخ كمالوإسمحوا لي بالتقدم بالشكر والتقدير حول تقرير اللجنة. كما أشيد بالمجهود الذي يبذله اإلتحاد اإلفريقي، وخاصة مفوضية السلم واألمن، التي قامت بارسال بعثة مشتركة. وكذلك أشيد بكل الدول اإلفريقية، التي ساهمت في السلم واإلستقرار في السودان. وهنا أقترح تطوير اآلليات اإلفريقية لفض النزاعات، وخاصة آلية االنذار المبكر.وحسب تجربتي، في هذا المجال، عملت ثالثين سنة في نزاع الجنوب والشمال في عملية شريان الحياة وفي دارفور، حوالي 250 منظمة أجنبية، لم أجد منها إال واحد في المائة من الدول اإلفريقية. وهذا ال يساعد على فهم القضية. وعليه أنا أعزز وأشجع مشاركة الدول اإلفريقية، المؤسسات األكاديمية، المنظمات اإلنسانية، المؤسسات البحثية، مؤسسات االنذار المبكر. ألنهم يستوعبون قضايا إفريقيا وأسباب النزاعات. ومن هنا أقترح على مفوضية السلم باإلتحاد اإلفريقي، وعلى الدول األعضاء، المزيد من المشاركة بمؤسسات المجتمع المدني والمؤسسات الرسمية أو االكاديمية. وهذا سيساعد في استيعاب القضية.كما أنني أشير إلى أن السودان قد مر بمرحلة هامة جدا: اتفاقية السالم الشامل ألـ {CPA {التي ساهمت فيها الدول اإلفريقية مساهمة من الدرجة األولى. وهنا ال بد أن أشيد بدول اإليقاد وأشيد إشادة خاصة بكينيا الشقيقة ألنهم هم الـ {Founders {للـ {CPA {واآلن اتفاقية الـ{CPA {تعتبر اتفاقية موديل {Model {وتطبيقاتها اآلن وصلت إلى 95 في المائة، في قسمة السلطة والثروة وأهم مرحلة كانت االنتخابات. وأؤكد هنا أن الشعب السوداني وقيادته، الذين لهم إرادة، جاؤوا باتفاقية السالم الشامل. أيضا لهم إرادة في تكملة بنود اتفاقية السالم، منها االستفتاء في الجنوب وابيي وتحديد الحدود. هنا نطلب من إخوتنا، في اإلتحاد االفريقي، وخاصة في البرلمان اإلفريقي أن يشهدوا معنا هذه المرحلة في يناير القادم.أما عن دارفور فدارفور في مرحلة جديدة، خاصة بعد قيام اإلنتخابات، لقد تم انتخاب 96 عضوا في البرلمان اإلتحادي وأنا عضو منهم. وأثناء اإلنتخابات لم تقع أية حادثة، ولو واحدة، لتعطيل دائرة واحدة في اإلنتخابات. في دارفور أيضا هناك استراتيجية جديدة تركز على الحوار مع المسلحين في الدوحة، والسالم اإلجتماعي من النزاعات.وكما تعلمون فإن في دارفور 120 قبيلة وفيها الرعاة وفيها المزارعين. وفي السابق كان اإلهتمام فقط بحمالي السالح وال يهتمون، باألغلبية الصامتة، الموجودة بالداخل. ولكن اإلستراتيجية الجديدة ركزت على حل النزاع الداخلي وبناء الثقة والسالم االجتماعي، كما ركزت أيضا على التنمية.وهنا ال بد أن أشيد بالدعم اإلفريقي والدعم العربي، خاصة دولة قطر التي تبرعت بـاثنين مليار دوالر للتنمية واإلعمار في دارفور. ومن الموضوعات، التي ركزت عليها االستراتيجية أيضا، عودة النازحين وتعويضاتهم.والجديد في األمر أيضا، ال بد أن أشيد بالعالقة بين تشاد والسودان. هذه العالقة لها تأثير كبير جدا في استقرار األوضاع في دارفور. وذلك نتيجة التداخل اإلجتماعي، فهناك أكثر من 20 قبيلة مرتبطة بين السودان وتشاد. واآلن العالقات ممتازة جدا مع الدولة الشقيقة تشاد. أما تعليقي على النزاع في إفريقيا ،عموما، ال بد من البحث عن األسباب الجذرية للنزاع. أنا أعتقد بأن جزءا منها ورثناه عن {President: I give you half a minute} اإلستعمار {K.O {وكذلك السلم واإلستقرار واألمن مرتبط بالعدل والتنمية ومحاربة الفقر والفساد. ألنه حتى الديمقراطية، التي نتحدث عنها بميثاق، البد أن تحترم حقوق األقليات و التنوع والتداخل االجتماعي. وشكرا جزيال.DEPUTADO LUÍS REIS PAULO CUANGA [ANGOLA]:Obrigado, Senhora Presidente. Passo a palavra, porque as questoes que quería colocar já foram abordadas por alguns deputados que me antecederam.Muíto obrígado.HON. COULIBALY KADIDIATOU SAMAKE [MALI]:Je vous remercíe, Madame la Présídente.Madame la Présídente,Chers Collègues,On ne sauraít parler de la paíx et de la sécuríté en Afríque sans aborder le problème de la gouvernance dans nos Etats.Chers Collègues,Le Directeur général de l’Agence Française de Développement et ancíen Více-présídent de la Banque mondíale a écrit qu’il y avait plusieurs sortes d’Etats en Afrique, dont les Etats prédateurs et les Etats fantoches.Pour luí, les Etats prédateurs sont des admínístratíons sans Etats. Dans ces Etats, la corruption et l’arbitraire n’ont plus rien à voir avec la petíte corruptíon quotídíenne. Les représentants du pouvoír omníprésents parasítent aussi bien l’économie que la société. Pendant que le pouvoir s’enrichit, les populations s’appauvrissent de plus en plus. Elles sont contraíntes de vívre au jour le jour et dans ce cadre, la víolence devíent une réponse.Les Etats fantoches sont des Etats sans admínístratíon. En dehors de la capítale, ces Etats n’arrivent plus à assurer leurs fonctions de base, à commencer par le contrôle de leur terrítoíre et la protectíon de leur population. C’est l’instabilité qui s’installe avec son cycle de violence.C’est pour cela, Madame la Présidente, que nous devons beaucoup ínsíster sur la préventíon des conflits. L’Afrique est en train d’émerger, mais elle est très fragile. Les Etats doivent prévenir les conflits de demain, en gérant les tensions sur les terres agricoles disponibles, qui touchent de plus en plus de régions africaines, de ressources naturelles (eau, bois, pâturage).L’Afrique minière, dont la liste des membres s’allonge, devra gérer leurs richesses dans la durée pour les mettre au service du développement. L’expérience du Botswana montre que cette voie peut être celle d’une croissance soutenue en Afrique.Madame la Présidente,Pour terminer, je souhaite que l’Union africaine s’intéresse à la zone sahélo-saharienne dont le nord du Mali fait partie. Cette zone est devenue aujourd’hui la zone d’action des salafistes et des bandits de tout genre. On assiste à des enlèvements, des prises d’otages qui sont souvent exécutés. La zone est trop large et trop grande, des millions de kilomètres carrés pour être gérée par un seul pays, donc il faut l’union de toute la zone.Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.HON. MAKGALEMELE DIKGANG PHILLIP [BOSTWANA]:I thank you Madame President. Well, I wish to start by congratulating the Committee for a well thought report and also congratulate Honorable Khumalo as the Chairperson of that Committee.Madame President, I also wish to note the peace progress that has been made especially in North and Southern regions. I wish to advocate for the need to see how we can replicate some of the successful case studies to other regions and within those region where there has been some successful case studies of peace, we should find mechanisms of how such positive case studies can be shared for one fast tracking of peace in those respective regions.Madame President, I think in order for us to debate this topic from a more informed position, we need to appreciate more the causes of conflict in those countries as you are aware Madame President they would range from economic, social and may be governance in its broad sense.I also note that in the report the Committee has noted challenges and made some proposals on early warning systems for example and how the support from the international community can be enhanced. I wish to associate myself with those recommendations and urge this Parliament to find ways of how the Committee can be assisted in terms of operationalising those proposals.Madame President, I think going forward, there is need to for us to evaluate our peace and security interventions and the resolutions that we have previously made in this PAP. So that we are able to ascertain the progress that has been made and any shortfalls so that we can come up with something more comprehensive.Madame President, peace and security for it to succeed, there is need for us to educate our peoples, the electorates on the ground. There is need that there be an aggressive strategy towards promoting and teaching our nations on the need for peace and security in schools and in public forums.Madame President, I wish to also propose that there is need for us to look for partners who can help us as PAP on peace and security issues, especially with regards to peace. I know that there are various partners that we can work with, civil society, in the context of sports I know that FIFA for example has certain initiatives that are geared towards using football for the promotion of peace in deferent countries.Madame President, the international media is very key as you know most of the time it presents a very negative picture about Africa. I think there is need for us to find ways through which we can partner with the international media more, so that even the positive case studies of how peace and security have been natured and enhanced in Africa should also be shared with Africa and international world. (Applause)Finally, Madame President, I also wish to associate myself with the proposal by Honorable Sisa Njikelana of South Africa where he is calling for a special PAP session on peace and security. I think such a session will allow us to focus on this very important topic and develop our vision and come out with key resolutions which we can monitor and review in various PAP sessions.With those comments, Madame President, I thank you.HON. KOKERAI RUGARA [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you very much Honorable President.My remarks are not going to be many, simply because a lot has been said. I just like to make one or two remarks concerning the long list of the unstable governments, unstable countries that our dear friend here enumerated. The list is so long and one begins to wonder whether Africa is moving forward or backwards? I think most of the countries in Africa are moving backwards, probably, fifty years after they gained independence, they move fifty years back. We have to find a remedy to this. Remedy to make sure we move forward like my brother next to me here said. We have to be bold enough to call a spade a spade, not a working tool. I think it is important that Parliaments do that.This long list doesn’t seem to end because it would seem as we are moving towards year 2011, we have an addition or two additions to the list of misgoverned countries. Can we please work as much as possible to cut that list short? I believe the list is so long that even our very able Committee forgot my country Zimbabwe from the list, and they think there is peace in that country. That is an illusion! It is not peaceful! When you consider peace, you do not just listen to the sound of the gun and think that if there is no sound of the gun, there is peace, no! (Laughter) Any unstable society, where people cannot say what they want to say, where even Parliament is not functioning properly (Applause) and then you want to think there is peace, it is an illusion.My last point Madam President is on what Kenya and Zimbabwe have tried to do; the Constitution making process. I think that this Parliament has not done its duty to go and monitor what this Constitution making process is all about and how it is conducted. If it is not conducted peacefully, the outcome itself cannot be a democratic one. But then we sit away and listen to stories. I can tell any story now because I am involved as much as I want the truth to be told. I might shun away from the truth, but the best should have been for Parliament, I mean this Parliament to go to Kenya during this Constitution making process; to come to Zimbabwe when we were doing the outreach exercise and see for ourselves whether to call it free and fair. If other countries are going to do it next time, can this Parliament please try to be there and see because the Constitution is based on democracy? You cannot have an undemocratic Constitution and then have democracy.Thank you Madam President, it’s all I wanted to say. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much hon. Rugara. I think those are important suggestions; that the Pan-African Parliament should get involved in knowing what this Constitution making and changing is about. I think it is not too late to implement your suggestion because through our permanent committees we can still do an evaluation of what has taken place for example in Kenya and even in Zimbabwe. That is a good suggestion and I hope the Hansard has captured it so that we could think about it. We could see the feasibility of implementing it by the Bureau.I now wish to give the opportunity to hon. Bernadette Lahai of Sierra Leone.HON. LAHAI BERNADETTE [SIERRA LEONE]:Thank you Madam President. I want to identify myself with the report presented by the new Chairman of the Peace and Security Committee. Madam President, peace and security continue to be both the building blocks as well as challenges to Africa’s sustained developments. Therefore, Madam President, no amount of time, no energy, no resources are either big or small enough for us to pursue peace and security in Africa, in order for Africa to enjoy her vast natural and mineral resources.Madam President, coming closer home, we have a union which comprises of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. And the pending elections in Guinea, there will be runoff on the 24th October. We are heartened by the report that the situation is good and we hope that at the end of the day the results of the runoff will be accepted by both parties. The unique situation in Guinea is that, the runoff is between two candidates that come from the two largest ethnic groups. Coincidentally these two ethnic groups are also found in Sierra Leone and Liberia and we are therefore praying that nothing goes wrong with this election because otherwise we can also experience the spillover from Guinea to the two countries. We are still grappling with our own post conflict reconstruction, and these countries I am sure, are not prepared in any way for any additional problems that may arise from Guinea.Madam Speaker, Honourable Members, the conflicts in Africa have to do with unequal distribution of resources, but most importantly, the one that is scarce but most sought after is power. I agree with my colleague from Liberia who said that in Africa, Presidents or individuals want to cling to power at every cost and therefore they can do everything and sometimes we have added to the problem. I say, we Parliaments have added to the problems by sometimes agreeing to extend the longevity of these unconstitutional governments. So, as we discuss the issue of peace and security, let us also look into ourselves, what role has Parliament played? Have we played a positive role or have we in our different political allegiance actually added to our own predicaments?I thank you very much. (Applause)HON. OUADDADI CHEIKH AHMED EL- HEIBA [SAHARAWI REPUBLIC]:شكرا سيدتي الرئيسة،وهنا أريد، وأنا عضو في هذه اللجنة، إال أن أهنيء نفسي وأهنيء الرئيس " كمالو "على ما توصلنا إليه من نتائج وعرضناه عليكم. سسيدتي الرئيسة،إننا نؤمن ونبقى متشبثين بإعالن طرابلس. ونتمنى من طرف قادتنا الوفاء بالوعد وهذا يسعني، سيدتي الرئيسة، إال أن أذكر شيئا ما بالوضع في النزاع في الصحراء الغربية. إن المواطنين في الصحراء الغربية يعانون، بشكل دائم، من طرف السلطات المغربية االضطهاد والقمع والتسلط في األراضي المحتلة للجمهورية العربية الصحراوية. إال أن المقاومة الصحراوية واجهت هذا التعجرف بأساليب سلمية وراقية.سيدتي الرئيسةإن السيدة مريم البورحيمي، كناشطة صحراوية حقوقية، كانت بين ظهراننا هذه األيام وهي رمز للمقاومة وقادمت من المدن المحتلة الصحراوية، قد عبرت بالتنديد عما يتعرض ويخضع له الصحراويون من ترهيب واختطافات قسرية واعتقاالت وتعذيب من طرف السلطات المغربية.سيدتي الرئيسة،إنه ال يفوتنا أن نذكر بانشغالنا إزاء مصير النشطاء الحقوقيين الصحراويين، وكيفية تأمينهم من اإلهانة والمضايقات ومصادرة حقوقهم في الرأي والتنقل. وعليه فقد أصبح أكثر من الضروري التضامن الدولي، من طرف كل الجهات الحية، مع الشعب الصحراوي المقاوم للضغط على المغرب، ذي السياسة المسدودة، لكسر التعتيم المضروب على قضيته الشرعية. ولهذا الغرض نطالب بتوسيع مهمة بعثة األمم المتحدة في الصحراء، لتشمل مراقبة حقوق اإلنسان في األراضي المحتلة منها.إن حل مسألة الصحراء الغربية أصبح مسؤولية ملحة، في عنق المجتمع الدولي، ويتمثل في تنظيم استفتاء تقرير مصير الشعب الصحراوي الرامي إلى استقالله وحريته.شكرا سيدتي الرئيسة.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honourable Member. We continue to be concerned about what is happening in the Saharawi and If I can inform the rest of the Members who did not attend the Women’s Conference over the weekend. The women are making resolutions to be tabled here and to be sent to the African Union on the issue of the suffering particularly of women and children. We had the opportunity to see a video from the Saharawi by a woman activist. So, we do join you and we give support to the Saharawi case.HON. KEBZABO SALEH [TCHAD]:Je vous remercie de me donner la parole, Madame la Présidente.Je voudrais, avant tout, féliciter mon collègue, Khumalo, qui, depuis la semaine dernière, a repris le flambeau pour diriger la Commission de la Coopération. Je lui souhaite beaucoup de succès, et surtout de faire en sorte que cette Commission retrouve sa place au sein de nos institutions et que son blason soit redoré.Je voudrais, deuxièmement, Madame le Président, à la suite de ce que certains de mes collègues ont dit par rapport aux conflits, ajouter, effectivement, que pour la plupart des pays qui sont en conflit, pour la très grande majorité, il se pose à eux des problèmes de pouvoir. C’est essentiellement cela. Je vous donne l’exemple du Tchad qui va aux élections générales, l’année prochaine. Vous ne serez pas surpris d’entendre dire que le Président Déby qui, aujourd’hui, est dans sa 20e année de pouvoir, va encore être candidat l’année prochaine, puisqu’il a modifié la constitution à cet effet.Je voudrais ajouter, Madame la Présidente, deux autres réflexions. Nous n’avons pas assez de temps pour en discuter et, moi-même, ce n’est pas en trois minutes que je peux en parler.Ma collègue du Mali a évoqué une question très importante. C’est le problème du terrorisme qui est imposé aux pays du Sahel, partant de l’Algérie, de la Mauritanie, du Mali, du Niger, du Burkina Faso, du Tchad. Et, C’est un mouvement qui va s’étendre jusqu’en Somalie.Cette question, aujourd’hui, occupe beaucoup tous les spécialistes de la géostratégie mondiale, parce que c’est un transfert de conflits pratiquement d’Asie, du Moyen Orient en l’Afrique. Si les pays africains, tous ensemble, ne mènent pas une réflexion approfondie sur cette question, demain ce sera une gangrène qui va être installée dans cette zone sahélienne, et que nous ne pourrons pas extirper de sitôt. Donc, je voudrais que les collègues y réfléchissent de façon vraiment très approfondie.Le deuxième problème que je voudrais aussi porter à votre attention, pour qu’on le partage, est celui des prochaines élections au sud Soudan. C’est la première fois qu’un pays africain va certainement, par voie électorale, accéder à l’indépendance. Pour tout le reste, vous savez que c’était soit la lutte armée soit un octroi d’indépendance par des négociations. Mais, c’est la première fois que le principe des peuples à disposer d’eux-mêmes, par une autodétermination, va avoir lieu. Ce sera, donc, un événement très important.Je voudrais, d’abord, dire que, sur le principe, je soutiens que tout peuple, aspirant à la liberté, à l’autonomie, à l’indépendance, puisse saisir l’opportunité d’y accéder.Mais, je voudrais, en même temps, poser un problème par rapport à notre Organisation. Je veux parler de l’Union africaine. Vous savez que l’un des principes fondamentaux qui a guidé à la création de l’OUA en 1963 était le sacro-saint principe du respect des frontières héritées de la colonisation. Aujourd’hui donc, voilà que, par la force des choses, et je dirai même par la logique des choses, dans un pays africain, une partie du pays va se détacher pour s’autodéterminer et avoir son indépendance.Il y a là lieu, je pense, Madame la Présidente, audelà du soutien ou pas qu’on va apporter à ce qui se passe au Soudan, qu’on réfléchisse sur ce problème qui était un des principes sacrés de l’Organisation de l’Union africaine, qui a donné naissance ensuite à l’Union africaine. Je crois que si nous subissons le cours des événements sans les anticiper par une réflexion qu’elle mérite, nous risquons de nous laisser submerger, de nous laisser subjuguer et de ne pas nous retrouver en train de bâtir une Afrique sur des bases qui sont saines, acceptables et démocratiques.Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.HON. ALI BAHARI [KENYA]:Thank you Madame President.I want to start by congratulating Honorable Khumalo for being elected as the Chair of this very important Committee.Having said that Madame President, I have only a very brief contribution to make. The first one is that, I think for quite a long time the concern of African States has been about the Head of States who are either continuing in power or are leaving power. I think this should now shift largely to the people itself because that is what forms the State or the Republic. The concern of Pan-African Parliament should be the happiness, the peacefulness of the people of Africa and whether they are getting their services or not. For a long time Presidents have acted in a manner that is likely to exclude a section of a country or certain communities in a country and it is high time now they realize that this does not pay because some of the causes of conflicts in Africa or majority of them is the issue of exclusion by the State of certain regions and the lack of fair play in the entire leadership of a country.And therefore, while this Committee has written many reports in the past which we do appreciate, I think we should now move from that into the direction of how we as Pan-African Parliament can prevent conflicts to occur in Africa. Probably for the AUC they will have to be very diplomatic because they are dealing with Heads of States. I do realize now, Parliament has to find room whereit has to come in and deal with the issues aggressively. Why most of these problems persist, it is because out of that diplomatic approach. There has been a tendency not to address the real problems and therefore you will be dealing with the symptoms and the problem continues unabated and therefore, it bites very hard and ultimately at the end of the day the problem persists and Africa does not move to the next level.With that, I only want to say that, there is therefore need for an evaluation of our institutions because all the problems that we are realizing are related to institutional development of a country. Whatever you will say, you will look at it, you will say there is no independence of Judiciary, you will say there is exclusion by the State, you will say there is longevity in power that will create perhaps dictatorship at the end of the day all that has everything to do with the institutions of a State and it high time that now this Committee evaluate that position.With those few remarks, I want to say, thank you very much for this opportunity. (Applause)HON. FARHAT LUTFI MOHAMED [LIBYA]:شكرا سيدتي الرئيسة على إعطائي الكلمة. مساهمتي، في هذا الموضوع، يمكن أن تكون نظرية أكثر مما هي عملية. ونحن نحتاج إلى التنظير.يرجع غياب السلم واألمن في إفريقيا إلى العوامل التالية: أوال غياب الديمقراطية في الكثير من البلدان اإلفريقية. ثانيا عدم اإلعتراف باالختالفات العرقية والدينية والسياسية وغيرها من االختالفات. ثالثا عدم اإلعتراف بالحقوق الطبيعية لإلنسان كحق الحرية الشخصية وحرية التعبير. رابعا التفاوت الطبقي والتباين الشديد بين األغنياء والفقراء، الذي يزعزع األمن اإلجتماعي. خامسا التدخل الخارجي، الذي يصب في إطار المصالح الخاصة بالدول الكبرى، والدول التي كانت تستعمر القارة اإلفريقية.هذه هي العناوين الرئيسية، التي ترجع إليها أهم أسباب عدم االستقرار وغياب السلم واألمن، والتي يمكن أن تسطر بشأنها مجلدات كبيرة وأن يساق بشأنها أمثلة كثيرة، في معظم الدول اإلفريقية. إن معالجة هذه العوامل، تقع ضمن أهداف البرلمان اإلفريقي واختصاصاته. ولكن البرلمان، بوضعه الحالي، ال يستطيع أن يقوم بدور فعال لمحدودية امكاناته ولوضعه االستشاري الذي ليس له تأثير على القرارات، التي تتخذ بشأن معالجة األوضاع الشاذة، التي تنتشر في القارة اإلفريقية.إن البرلمان اإلفريقي، بانتشار أعضائه في القارة اإلفريقية، وما يمكن أن يحظي به من شعبية، يمكن أن يسهم في استقرار القارة ونشر روح الديمقراطية وثقافة االختالف وترسيخ الحقوق الطبيعية لإلنسان، واالسهام في األمن اإلجتماعي والمحافظة على مصالح الشعوب اإلفريقية، ولكن ذلك لن يتحقق حتى تعطى للبرلمان اختصاصاته التشريعية، وأن يدعم باالمكانات الالزمة لممارسة هذه االختصاصات.شكرا السيدة الرئيسة.HON. KHUMALO MARWICK [SWAZILAND]:Madam President, thank you very much. I would like on behalf of the committee to thank all the Honourable members for their submissions. We have recorded their submissions and let me just inform my colleagues that they have given us a lot of work to look into, even in those issues that we didn’t touch on, which Honorable members have touched on. That is a good assignment and it will work for us as a Committee in future.Let me just highlight that we will actually be sitting down with yourself as the second vicepresident responsible for international relations, to discuss some of the issues that have been raised by, for instance the Honourable member from South Africa, and also on the issue of Sudan. Going to the Sudan for the referendum so that PAP can be involved and also another issue, which I think needs some serious intervention from this Parliament, is the issue of Western Saharawi, which has been mentioned quite a number of times in this fora.Chairperson I think, there has been some issues that have come up, for instance; the case of Mali, the Northern part of Mali. We agree with the submission made by the Honorable member that it is one issue that is becoming a very troublesome issue to Africa because it has some foreign elements who are exploiting the vastness of the Northern part of Mali. It has become a haven for people conducting mischievous deals including hijackings and all. So, yes we agree with Honorable member Chairperson, and it is one issue that we would like to focus on the next time. I believe that we will be making a presentation next time in the next session on that particular issue.Chairperson, there was mentioning of quite a number of areas, one of those where Kenya and Zimbabwe. Chairperson, considering where these two countries come from, I think there is a lot of credit that needs to go to Kenya and Zimbabwe. There are so many positives that have come out of those governments of national unity. Yes, like the honorable Rugara has pointed out, he is a national of Zimbabwe, he knows better than us. But, there will always be problems, and those problems need to be attended to, if not by Zimbabweans themselves without intervention. When you consider where these two countries are coming from Chairperson, I think as a Parliament, we need to commend the progress that has been made thus far in those areas. Problems will always be there, but they do need to be attended. As for the case of Kenya Chairperson, it was pleasing to note that not so long ago, I think a few weeks ago, when I was in Kenya and I was in a fall away, the President of the country and the Prime Minister of the country, they both spoke positively about the new Constitution, which had just been adopted in Kenya. As outsiders; that was quiet comforting Chairperson to learn that it is somewhat embraced country wide. The nationals in the streets of Nairobi they would actually attest to that they were happy with the new Constitution, and we can only hope that things are going to move on for the better.Madam Chairperson, without taking much of the Honorable members’ time, I can safely say that the problems that happen or that are taking place in these troubled areas of Africa, it is true, and I agree fully with those that talked about the longevity, it is the issue of leaders who don’t want to leave office and the issue of power and everything that goes with it. But yes, we are the nationals of those countries, we need to do something and I agree with the certain speaker who said " sometimes we are also at fault as Parliament", because we find ourselves moving motions, supporting the very same longevity of staying in power, which we are questioning here. Then you find that based on that, the head of state will continue to stay in power because we have amended the Constitution.Having said that Chairperson, I will say on behalf of the Committee, all that has been submitted here in so far as this report is concerned has given us some road map on which to move on. I would like to once again reiterate the fact that on some of the issues, we will sit down with the second vicepresident as well as the Committee in future, to see how we can make our meaningful contribution as the Pan-African Parliament by way of intervening in these areas of conflict. Madam Chairperson, I therefore request the Pan-African Parliament to adopt the report from our committee. I thank you very muchTHE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much, Honorable Khumalo, for that precision with which you have handled the matter of this report.So, now Honorable Members, I put it to the House that we adopt the Committee’s Report as presented by the President of the Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolution. (Applause)(Report adopted)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you. Thank you very much Honorable Members. Honorable Members, the Clerk has some announcements to be made. Mr. Clerk.THE CLERK:Thank you Honorable President. I have the following announcements to make:1.The climate change interest group, you are meeting is now at 1230 as soon as we adjourn, in the Chamber; and2.The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Economy, meeting time is 1 o’clock in Room No.3. Thank you.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much, Mr. Clerk.So, Honorable Members, we shall now take a twoand-a-half hour lunch break in accordance with the provisions of Rule 32 of the Rules of Procedure. Therefore business is now suspended until 02.30 in the afternoon.The House, suspended at 12.28 p.m. resumed 14.34.THE PRESIDENT:Honourable Members, welcome back from lunch. I want to thank those of you who really endeavoured to come on time and devote your time to the business of Pan African Parliament. So, I request the Clerk to read the third Order of our business.THE CLERK:Thank you Honourable President; presentation and debate on the report of the Committee on Administration and Financial Evaluation.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you Mr. Clerk. I will now call upon Honourable Jatta, the Chairperson of the Committee on Administration and Financial Evaluation to present the report of the Committee.
3. 0 – PRESENTATION ET DÉBATS SUR LE RAPPORT DU COMITÉ D’EVALUATION ADMINISTRATIVE ET FINANCIÈRE DU PAP.
HON. JATTA FABAKARY TOMBONG [GAMBIA]:بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيمMadam President, hon. Members, please allow me to table before you the report of the Committee on Administrative and Financial Evaluation (CAFE) of the Pan-African Parliament for your consideration.IntroductionThe Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community relating to the Pan-African Parliament stipulates in Article 25 that; five years after the entry into force of this Protocol, a conference of the state parties to the protocol shall be held to review the operation and effectiveness of this Protocol as well as the system of representation.At the end of the First Parliament, PAP has implemented the necessary actions for the review of the Protocol and has already renewed its Bureau.Elections of the regional caucuses and Bureaux have also been conducted.The process leading to the elections of the Bureaux was characterized by heated debates by Members of the Pan-African Parliament on the interpretation of the relevant protocols and regulations governing elections of the Bureau. Against this background, the plenary resolved to elect an ad hoc committee in terms of Article 22(3). The committee is composed of one representative from each of the regional caucuses with the view to organizing elections and transition.Elections of the Bureau were held on 28 May 2009 in terms of the Protocol and within the framework of the implementation of Decision DOC.EX.CL/459 (XIV) of the Assembly of Heads of State and Governments of the AU. At the end of the elections, the new Bureau tasked the ad hoc committee to carry out an analysis of the institutional, political, financial and administrative situation of PAP and to make relevant recommendations.The ad hoc committee sat from 15 to 19 June 2009 and from 29 July to 5 August 2009 at the seat of the Pan-African Parliament, Midrand, South Africa, to undertake the assignment. The committee produced a report with specific recommendations on the political, financial and administrative situation of the Pan-African Parliament.Following the report of the ad hoc committee, the plenary moved and adopted a motion dated 30 October 2009, establishing a Committee on Administrative and Financial Evaluation (CAFE), to enable PAP to inspire the African People and serve as a citadel of accountability, transparency, good governance and adherence to the rule of law.The motion was followed by a resolution of PAP adopted on 4 November 2009, determining the composition, organization, functions, operations and terms of office of the committee as spelt out in the resolution quoted below.The CAFE held its first meeting from 26 to 30 July 2010 at the seat of the Pan-African Parliament in Midrand, South Africa. Hon. Members, due to financial and time constraints, the committee resolved to limit the scope of the first report to assessing and evaluating the status of implementation of the recommendations contained in the Ad Hoc Committee Report of 2009.The Composition of the CommitteeThe committee is composed of the following PanAfrican Parliamentarians:1.Hon. Jatta Fabakary Tombong - Chairman2.Hon. Jean Baptiste Nouganga-Vice Chairman3.Hon. Wubneh Emiru - Rapporteur who was replaced by hon. Francoise Labelle4.Hon. Chief F.Z. Charumbira5.Hon. Ahmed Mohammed Ragab6.Hon. Abdelmadjid Azzedine7.Hon. Loide Kasingo8.Hon. Edward K.D Adjaho9.Hon. Bahari Ali10.Hon. Guy Christian OssagouAt a later stage, hon. Francoise Labelle was elected by the Eastern Caucus to replace hon. Wubneh Emiru. Hon Francoise Labelle was further unanimously elected rapporteur of the committee.Hon. Members, terms of reference of the ad hoc committee of 2009. I will not bog you to read these terms of reference meant just to refresh your minds.On the next page, page 8, we have 2.4, establishing CAFE, that is the Committee on Administrative and Financial Evaluation.After the investigations and analysis of issues underpinned in the above domains, the ad hoc committee submitted a report that has specific recommendations to the plenary of PAP. The plenary debated and adopted the recommendations of the ad hoc committee. The plenary also adopted a resolution to establish the standing committee on Administrative and Financial Evaluation (CAFE) of the Pan-African Parliament on 4 November 2009. The resolution establishing the committee states that the CAFE:1.Must be composed of ten members on the basis of two designated by each regional caucus.2.The CAFE is responsible for carrying out the evaluation of normal and regular operations of the Pan-African Parliament at the Administrative and Financial level.3.The CAFE may at any time refer its observations, supported by appropriate recommendations, to the PAP Bureau; it shall draw up and submit to the plenary of the PAP an interim evaluation report every six months and a final report at the end of its term of office.4.The CAFE’s term of office is two years, renewable.It is on the basis of this background that the CAFE sat to evaluate the status of implementation of the recommendations made to the plenary by the ad hoc committee.MethodologyThe committee centered its evaluation on recommendations relating to:a)Institutional and political domain of PAPb)Financial domain of PAPc)Administrative domain: the administrative structure and issues relating to the status of PAP staffMethods of InvestigationFor each one of these domains, the methodology adopted consisted of posing questions that sought to establish what has been done, then highlighting the weaknesses and shortcomings inherent in the current situation in the form of observations and making relevant recommendations in order to remedy the situation.The following PAP staff members were interviewed by the committee:Adv. Zwelethu Madasa (Clerk of PAP);Madam Helen Dingane (Deputy ClerkLegislative Business);Mr. Morad Boularaf (Deputy Clerk- Finance and Administration);Madam Wawa Josiane (Principal Clerk);Mr. Ahmed El-Dieb (Senior Protocol Officer);Mr. Emmanuel K. Afedor (Internal Auditor);Madam Rebecca Nabweteme (Senior Human Resource Officer);Mr. Khalid Dahab (Communication); andThe Bureau Member, and the Fourth Vice President, hon. Joram M. Gumbo.Problems encountered by the committee during compilation of the reportThe committee encountered some problems when preparing this report.1.The financial resources allocated to this committee did not permit the committee to do a thorough job.2.The translation of documents was often slow and sometimes the committee could not access some documents in all the working languages of PAP.Hon. Members, on this page, these are the recommendations of the ad hoc committee report and status of their implementation. The ones in ordinary typing are the recommendations extracted verbatim from the ad hoc committee’s report and the ones in italics are the comments of the committee on the status of implementation.So the extracted 4.1, I will not bog the Assembly to read it; it’s just done to refresh your minds on what the ad hoc committee had recommended.Then we have 4.1.2 on page 14 of the English copy, that is, the status of implementation of these recommendations.The Consultative Role of PAPThe PAP has written to the specialised committees of the AU requesting to be furnished with the work plans of these committees. The work plans of the AU will be passed on to the PAP statutory committees such that PAP committees can start preparing work plans that are in tandem with the priorities of the AU’s specialized committees.In addition, AU committees have been requested to make presentations in the meetings of the PAP committee’s sittings. The AU specialized committees have since agreed to participate in these meetings. It is expected that PAP MPs will use this opportunity to gain more insight into the workings of the AU.Also, the PAP committee clerks have been given an instruction to extract issues that relate to each PAP committee from the decisions of the Kampala AU Summit (the most recent AU summit). This will also assist the MPs and PAP committees to be familiar with AU decisions that relate to their mandate.The PAP Bureau managed to meet the Executive Committee of the AU during the Kampala Summit. During these interactions the PAP made attempts to interest the Executive Committee and other organs of the AU to work harmoniously with PAP.Lastly, in 2009 the PAP held a workshop for bureaux of PAP committees and the PAP Bureau in Centurion. A similar follow up workshop was conducted in 2010 at the PAP precincts. All PAP MPs were invited to this workshop. The objective of these workshops was to familiarise the participants with the consultative role of the PAP within the AU governance framework.The PAP Rules of ProcedureThe Committee on Rules has since completed the drafting of the new PAP Rules of Procedure. These procedures have been presented in the PAP Chamber. However, the rules could not be adopted because the plenary lacked the two thirds majority that is required to adopt this document. This problem has remained difficult to resolve because the two thirds majority that is required is very difficult to attain in the Pan-African Parliament. This is due to the fact that some MPs do not turn up for PAP sessions because of several reasons ranging from, reasons associated with the expiry of their mandate to reasons relating to the financial difficulties of some national Parliaments in sponsoring the participation of MPs in some of the PAP activities.PAP’s Relations with AU OrgansThe relationship between PAP and the AUC has improved since the election of the current Bureau. The committee notes that some measures have been implemented to improve the financial management. PAP is adhering to the AU rules and this has also contributed to the improved relations. The PAP always sends reports of expenditure and other activities to the AU on time. These are accepted well. The AU has also brought its auditors to audit PAP operations.The AU has committed itself to making presentations before the statutory Committees of the Pan-African Parliament. This will assist in harmonising the operations of PAP’s Permanent Committees with those of the AU. In the past, it was reported that the linkage between the PAP Committees and AU Committees was weak.The PAP is scheduled to hold a meeting with the PRC in October 2010. This meeting is expected to resolve all the impediments that have complicated the relations between PAP and the PRC.Communication and Promotion of the PAP imageThere is a communication strategy that was designed in tandem with the PAP Strategic Plan ending in 2010. However, it is difficult to implement this strategy because there is no budget allocated to communication in the PAP budget. Also, the Office of the Senior Information Officer is understaffed.PAP’s 2011 budget has included communication. If this is approved by the Heads of States, the PAP Communication Officer will tap into this budget to improve the visibility of the Pan-African Parliament. In addition, the next PAP strategic plan will have a component that deals with communication and publicity.The information office has entered into agreements with donor organisations like GTZ and AWEPA to uplift the profile of PAP. Through these partnerships PAP has developed newsletters and pamphlets.The GTZ has also funded the attachment of young journalists to the Pan-African Parliament during sessions. The young journalists act as correspondents during PAP sessions and they receive training on parliamentary reporting. The young journalists are usually trained two days before the start of the session. They are drawn from ten countries in Africa. PAP has a network of journalists throughout Africa who graduated from the young journalists program. The Communication Department of PAP always sends them press releases and updates relating to PAP.A partner organisation/donor had offered to make a documentary about the Pan-African Parliament. Once completed, the documentary would be screened on several TV stations in the African continent. This would help promote the PAP.After viewing the documentary, the PAP plenary in 2010 decided to set up a Communications Committee. This Committee has been appointed by the PAP plenary in 2010 to review the above mentioned documentary. This Committee has not met due to the fact that two of its members were held up by other commitments while the other member is no longer a PAP MP.Furthermore, a company named Urban Brew has offered to cover the PAP plenary. This will go a long way in popularising and disseminating news about PAP.Translation/Interpretation of Documents for PAP MeetingsThe translation of documents produced within PAP is satisfactorily done. However, the PAP is still having problems with documents that are produced outside PAP (by people who come to make presentations during meetings) and the translation of documents during meetings. The translation of documents is sometimes poorly done. Sometimes the documents are not translated into all the working languages of PAP. This makes it difficult for some MPs to participate as they are unable to follow presentations and the consequent discussions.The PAP does not have enough in-house translators. As such, the translation is often outsourced. At the moment PAP does not have an in-house French-English Translator. The external translators often attempt to cheat PAP and do a shoddy job.The quality of the interpretation during meetings has improved.Hon. Members, 4.1.3 are recommendations extracted from the ad hoc committee’s report and on page 19; 4.1.4 is the Committee’s comments on the status of implementation.PAP’s Relations with Organs of AU.This has been dealt with earlier in this report, vide para 4.1.2, on page 15.Relations with Development PartnersThe development partners were unsettled by the report of the ad hoc committee. Some of them suspended their support to PAP. DFID, the EU Commission and ACBF suspended their involvement in PAP. They generally queried the fact that PAP is not adhering to the rules of financial administration and management.After the withdrawal of DFID, PAP convened a meeting to inform all the partners that the ad hoc Committee was appointed to improve capacity and internal controls within the PAP. The PAP administration later met with the EU in a separate meeting to reiterate the same point. In that meeting the EU revealed that they were not happy with the interference of the PAP Bureau in administrative matters.The PAP administration also met with ACBF in Harare. The ACBF then sent a team of assessors to PAP. After the completion of the assessment, the ACBF team of assessors wrote a report that demonstrated that PAP has used the funds from ACBF in line with the agreement signed between the two institutions. The ACBF then lifted the suspension. The ACBF agreement is supposed to go for a midterm review by the end of October of 2010.The EU has communicated a willingness to continue funding PAP. They have stated that they were more interested in funding the activities that would strengthen the PAP administratively. They have since approved the recruitment of staff in the Finance Department.The PAP administration has written to DFID cataloguing the specific actions that have been taken to address the matters that were raised by the ad hoc Committee report. PAP is patiently awaiting a response from DFID. Meanwhile, the four year contract that PAP had with DFID expired in July 2010.Relationship with Regional, International and National Parliaments.The PAP’s interaction with national Parliaments is done through the Office of the Clerk of PAP. The Clerk of PAP invites MPs to meetings and other activities of PAP through their national Parliaments. As of now, the relationship between PAP and national Parliaments is amicable.The PAP invited Speakers of all Parliaments that are Members of the Pan-African Parliament to a Speakers’ Conference in May 2009. The Speakers expressed a desire to have this conference on a regular basis. The second conference will be held in October 2010 and not 2009- correct thatafter the PAP ordinary session.The PAP has a focal point at the National Parliament of Tanzania. This office is tasked with distributing information about the Pan-African Parliament. There are plans to create similar focal points in other national parliaments.National Parliaments often invite the PAP for events and seminars and they have also offered staff exchanges. National Parliaments have contributed to PAP by providing support staff during PAP sessions. These have assisted PAP to complement staff shortages.Regional Parliaments cooperate well with PAP. So far, PAP has held four seminars with regional Parliaments on the harmonization of AU decisions.The PAP is an observer in IPU, Francophone Parliament and CPA. PAP has had a meeting with the Arab Transitional Parliament. The Latin American Parliament has also expressed a willingness to establish a South-South relationship with the Pan-African Parliament. The details of this relationship are yet to be finalized.Lastly, the European Parliament has an expert group that is closely working with the PanAfrican Parliament.The next ones are recommendations extracted from the ad hoc Committee, that is, 4.1.5. I will not read it. I will move to 4.1.6.The Status of Implementation of that recommendationAt the moment, election observer missions are done under the AUC’s supervision. The PAP and other AU organs participate in these missions. PAP gets 40 percent representation and the remaining 60 percent is shared by other AU organs. The leadership of these missions is under the sole control of AUC.4.1.7 is a recommendation extracted from the ad hoc Committee and 4.1.8 is the status of implementation.The consultant who was recruited by the African Union Commission to work with the Pan-African Parliament has been in touch with PAP, and has facilitated several meetings intended at reviewing the Protocol. In May 2010 a delegation of the PanAfrican Parlimanet held a consultation meeting with the AUC and personnel from the AUC Legal Office at the AUC headquarters. This meeting was meant to give added impetus to the process of reviewing the Protocol. A roadmap for the review of the Protocol has been put in place.This was followed by a workshop on the validation of the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community from 10 to 13 August 2010 in Midrand. In this workshop, the report of the consultant appointed by the AUC to review the Protocol was discussed. At the moment, plans are underway to hold a conference with member states so that they are apprised of the progress made.Hon. Members, 4.2 in the financial domain: these ones are extracts from the ad hoc Committee’s report and 4.2.1 is the status of implementation.It was noted that the financial management has improved. The PAP is adhering to AU rules and regulations.However, there are certain concerns that need to be addressed. For instance, control measures are still insufficient. The PAP does not have a permanent Finance Officer. Most of the staff in the Finance Division is working on short-term contracts.There is no audit committee. Therefore, the recommendations of the audits that are carried out are not sufficiently implemented. There is no particular office that is tasked with following up on recommendations of audits and ensuring that these are implemented.The Clerk of PAP has agreed with the Deputy Clerk- Finance, Administration and International Relations - and the Internal Auditor, that an audit committee must be set up. The Internal Auditor has been instructed to draw up the terms of reference for this committee.Furthermore, the Internal Audit Department of PAP is insufficiently resourced. It is manned by one officer. He does not have the human and material resources needed to make timely and periodic audit reports. Also, the recommendations made by the Internal Auditor are not properly adhered to. This is largely due to the fact that PAP does not have an office that is tasked with ensuring that the recommendations of audit reports are implemented.PAP does not have a legal advisor. As a result, administrative procedures are still not clearly spelt out. This often leads to instances whereby some staff matters are not properly handled.The staff shortage that is present in the whole Parliament, particularly in the Finance Department, creates weaknesses that have a negative bearing on the financial management of PAP. The recruitment of staff in this department is in progress.PAP does not have a procurement unit in the Secretariat. The institution is also using a procurement manual that is specifically modelled for the AUC. This manual does not pay attention to the peculiarities that affect PAP.The PAP Trust FundThe Trust Fund is still dormant after the current PAP President suspended transactions of the Fund. The PAP President has requested the AUC to audit the operations and transactions of the Trust Fund account after the last ad hoc Committee report demonstrated that there was serious mismanagement of the Fund by the previous Bureau. The auditors have since audited the Trust Fund and compiled their report. The draft report has since been completed. PAP is patiently waiting for the AUC to provide them with a final copy of the report.The Travel AgencyOn 8 September 2010 a new travel agent was appointed.The issues of double billing and very high ticket prices still afflict this area. It is difficult to bring this problem under control because PAP does not have personnel employed to verify the billing of tickets. Also, when the double billing is detected, it takes a long time for the travel agency to reimburse PAP.Medical insurance for MPsThe life, travel and medical insurance of PAP MPs are still an outstanding matter. At the moment, MPs who need medical attention during PAP meetings at the PAP precincts or in neighboring areas are free to seek help at Casternhof Clinic in Midrand. The PAP has an agreement with the clinic that allows PAP MPs to be treated and then PAP pays afterwards. Before seeking help at Casternhof Clinic, MPs need to get a letter from the Secretariat authorizing them to receive medical attention from the clinic.The problem with the medical insurance is that MPs are not covered when they attend PAP activities outside Midrand, South Africa. Also, it is not known whether all MPs are aware of the arrangement that PAP has with Casternhof Clinic. However, the Committee notes that for the present session, that is, October 2010, a correspondence has been sent to all Members informing them of the presence of a medical team in the precincts of the PAP.As at now, the selection for an insurance company to provide medical insurance cover has not yet been finalized.The PAP intends to lobby the PRC’s help on the issues related to life, travel and medical insurance of PAP MPs on 15 of October this year.In the administration domain, 4.3, these are recommendations extracted from the ad hoc committee and 4.3.2 is the status of implementation.The issue of the non-renewal of the contracts of the former Clerk and Deputy Clerk-Legislative Business is still with the AUC. The tribunal has not yet informed PAP about progress on this matter.4.3.3 are recommendations extracted and 4.3.4. is the status of implementation.Staff recruited in the President’s Office is classified under the special appointees’ category in the AU Rules. They do not come into the institution through regular recruitment measures. It is not obligatory to advertise and interview candidates for these positions. The political leader, the PAP President in this instance, has the prerogative to appoint staff in the President’s Office. The staff comprises of the Director of the Bureau, the Personal Assistant to the President and a Secretary. The occupants of these positions are expected to vacate them when the political officer who appointed them vacates office.However, the former Director of the Bureau has launched an appeal against the termination of her contract when the former President of the Bureau vacated office. The matter is still pending at the AU tribunal.The staff turnover of officers employed in the President’s Office used to be very high. This situation has deep financial repercussions for the Pan-African Parliament. Each time a staff member resigns, the PAP has to pay separation allowances. The practice of people coming in and leaving soon after is still a hotly contested issue throughout the AU structures. So far, no mechanism has been put in place to rein in this costly practice.Recommendations relating to staff issues: these are extracts from the ad hoc committee and 4.3.6 is the status of implementation of these recommendations.Staff MattersPAP has serious shortages of staff in various key positions within the institution. At the moment PAP has a staff complement of 45 people. The institution needs about 190 people to operate effectively. The PAP has been unable to recruit new staff because its structure has not yet been approved by the AU.PAP has been working on developing an organizational structure for submission and approval by the relevant AU organs. This process has been completed. The organisational structure of the Pan-African Parliament has since been submitted to the AU for approval. The PAP is hoping that the next AU Summit in January 2011 will endorse the structure.While awaiting the approval of the PAP structure, the PAP has appointed a new Clerk and Deputy Clerk-Legislative Business. The PAP could recruit for the positions of Clerk and Deputy Clerk- Legislative Business because these were budgeted for and they are not new positions.The recruitment of the Clerk and Deputy ClerkLegislative Business was done through the Bureau with the assistance of Human Resource Staff seconded from the AUC. The interview process was presented to the plenary by the President of the PAP Bureau. The plenary endorsed the appointment of the Clerk and Deputy Clerk- Legislative Business.The EU audit report and the Internal Auditor have noted that the separation of powers between the Bureau and the Secretariat is not clearly defined in PAP. For instance, the Bureau can recruit staff junior to the Clerk and Deputy Clerks. This is deemed as interference with the managerial authority of the Clerk and his deputies.PAP has a recruitment Committee which is responsible for short listing and interviewing job seekers. The Committee is also responsible for handling contract renewals. This Committee has not met due to financial constraints.With regard to the 25 positions that PAP advertised and interviewed for in 2007, the positions could not be filled due to lack of funds. The results of the interviews were never made public and they are still confidential. The Senior Human Resources officer disagreed with the ad hoc Committee’s observation that the recruitment for the above mentioned positions was flawed. She stated that adverts were sent to all Parliaments that are members of the Pan-African Parliament through letters, websites and newspapers. She has noted that some African countries do not apply when positions are advertised. This does not necessarily imply that there are flaws with the recruitment process.In order to cope with the extra duties placed on PAP staff during sessions and committee meetings, the PAP often sources support staff from national Parliaments. The support staff is often assigned to different Senior Officers within PAP and their performance is evaluated by these officers. Those who were found to be inefficient have been removed from the list of support staff.Meanwhile, the PAP has requested a budget for 25 key positions in its budget for 2011. The outcome of this request will be known next year after the adoption of the AU 2011 budget.The Committee has observed that some staff members have been made to act for a long period in positions that they do not qualify to be appointed in.Staff TrainingThe practice whereby staff members could seek opportunities for training through the internet and then approach PAP for funding has been stopped. PAP has a training policy that guides the institution.Hon. Members, these are the recommendations of the Committee.Institutional Domaina)There is need for the Pan-African Parliament to develop a policy framework that would guide the institution’s interaction with donors or development partners to conform to the objectives of PAP. These activities should be centralised in a specific office with necessary capacities to mobilize and coordinate.b)PAP must engage with national parliaments to avail funds that would make it possible for PAP MPs to attend sessions and committee meetings.c)During the Speakers’ Conference, the PAP needs to encourage Speakers to be more supportive of MPs who are PAP Members. Speakers must encourage these MPs to attend the PAP meetings and sit throughout the whole session.d)PAP MPs are made to travel in Economy Class when they go for AU missions, particularly election observer missions. The Secretariat has, however, revealed that this will change. The AU Executive Committee has instructed that PAP MPs must be recognised under AU rules as elected officials. This will allow PAP MPs to travel in Business Class when they are called up for AU missions.e)When presenters are sourced from outside PAP during meetings, the Secretariat must request the presenters to submit documents early so that they can be translated into the PAP working languages.f)The issues of conducting election observer missions under the direction of the AU must be brought to the plenary such that MPs can debate this issue and form a position on it.g)The ad hoc Committee on Finance and Administrative Mattershon. Members, the word "ad hoc" should be out. The Committee on Finance and Administrative Matters should be turned into a permanent committee of PAP. This matter must be debated in the plenary. The committee is a watchdog against impunity and wasteful expenditure in the Pan-African Parliament.Financial Domaina)There is need for PAP to create an office which will be responsible for following up the implementation of the recommendations of audit reports. The absence of follow-ups on audit reports hinders progress in terms of rectifying malpractices picked up by the auditors.b)Since PAP does not have an audit committee at the moment, it is recommended that the CAFE acts as an audit committee to minimise costs and avoid duplication of works.c)The PAP must re-engage DFID such that they can continue funding the Pan-African Parliament.d)The Clerk must ensure that recommendations adopted at the plenary are extracted and forwarded to the relevant departments of the Secretariat for implementation. This is meant to improve the networking and communication within the Secretariat.e)After receiving the Audit Report of the PAP Trust Fund, PAP must initiate actions that would ensure that wrongdoers are made to answer for the transgressions that occurred in the Trust Fund account.f)A whistleblower protection policy must be established in the Pan-African Parliament. This will protect staff members who wish to alert the committee and other audit organs about the malpractices that are taking place. Hon. Members, it is not the ad hoc committee but the committee. At the moment, staff who talk about malpractices taking place in the institution are vulnerable to victimisation.g)With regard to the travel agencies, PAP must come up with more cost-effective and transparent means of sourcing tickets. The method that is presently used to get tickets makes PAP vulnerable to abuse.h)Where possible, PAP must ask MPs to fund their air tickets and then refund them for the expenses incurred. This will help reduce the expenditure on air tickets.i)PAP must develop its own procurement manual. The AU’s procurement manual must be used as a blueprint document that should guide the formulation of the PAP’s procurement manual. The manual must also recognise that procurement should be done by the Secretariat of the Pan-African Parliament.j)PAP must adopt a code of conduct that will guide its MPs. A code of conduct will accommodate the creation of a disciplinary mechanism for the Pan-African Parliament. The code of conduct must also have a provision for the implementation of retrospective justice. A code of conduct will help PAP to address problems created by Members who abuse the offices they hold.k)On medical insurance, the Pan-African Parliament must speed up efforts to secure a medical aid provider that can service PAP MPs. This will allow MPs to access medical services when they are on PAP trips outside Midrand. However, it must be noted that PAP MPs are not full time at the Pan-African Parliament and that the MPs are supposed to be covered by their national parliaments when they travel. Therefore, PAP cannot provide them with medical insurance that covers them even when they are in their home countries.l)The intervention of the AU must be sought with regard to medical insurance of MPs. At the moment, the PAP is offering medical services without referring to any policy of the AU. This can possibly get PAP into trouble with the AU in future. If expenses on this facility escalate, the AU may question the procedures and PAP may appear in bad light because it did not seek any form of guidance on the matter.m)With regard to the staff shortage, the committee recommends that qualified staff be recruited in the shortest time possible, particularly in the Finance and Audit Department, so as to avoid poor financial management.n)The Internal Auditor’s report should be forwarded to the Bureau for consideration and comment. The Bureau must always make sure that they address the issues that are raised in the Internal Auditor’s report.Administrative Domaina)Efforts aimed at institutionalising the separation of powers between the Secretariat and Bureau must be prioritised. The Secretariat must be allowed to make decisions on technical matters. Most importantly, the recruitment of staff below the level of Clerk and his deputies must be left in the hands of the Secretariat. The Bureau’s role in administrative matters should be to check if procedures have been followed and to institutionalise transparency.b)The responsibility of running the Parliament on a day to day basis must be left to the Clerk. He must be recognised as the Chief Accounting Officer on all administrative matters. The Bureau cannot be the administrative authority because it is not full time at PAP.c)The issue of the former Clerk and Deputy Clerk-Legislative Business must be attended to as an urgent matter. Such matters, in future, must be addressed speedily. The issue may have a negative impact on the institution more so now that new people have been recruited to fill the posts. If the tribunal decides that the former Clerk and his Deputy were "unprocedurally" relieved of their duties and that they should be reappointed, the PAP may face a crisis.d)PAP must ensure that acting appointments are done in consistence with the AU Staff Rules and Regulations. Staff must be made to act in positions for reasonable periods. Also, staff who act in positions must be allowed to compete for those positions when they are advertised. This must be done in consistence with the AU rules and regulations on acting appointments.e)Also, staff promotions must be prioritised. PAP also needs to have a policy on staff promotion. When there are vacancies in PAP, priority must be given to staff that are in the system. External advertisements and recruitments must be done when the internal staff does not meet the requirements and qualifications required by the vacant position.f)The Protocol must be reviewed with the view of removing all clauses and provisions that create ambiguity of roles between the Bureau and the Secretariat of PAP. These revisions must also address all impediments that limit the efficient performance of the Bureau and the Secretariat of PAP.g)It is recommended that an audit committee be created.h)Since adverts and interviews for the 25 positions were done a long time ago, PAP should re-advertise for these positions when the structure of PAP is approved and adopted by the AU.Hon. Members, lastly, the committee would like to thank the Secretariat and the Bureau for their cooperation and assistance during the compilation of this report. And I must add that I must commend members of this Committee for their commitment during these very difficult times especially when the time factor was a problem.Hon. Members, I therefore move that this report be debated and adopted. Thank you. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Honourable Members please give a big clap to Honourable Jatta for a job well done.Thank you very much Honourable Jatta on behalf of the Committee on Administration and Financial Evaluation. This report was very clear, it is precise and has been very well presented. So, Honourable Members, I now open the debate on the report of the Committee on Administration and Financial Evaluation.I have a list of Members who have put their names down to contribute and they are in total eleven Members. Since this report is important, I will give four minutes to each person and... (Interruptions)... It is eleven that I have here, not thirteen. The first speaker on my list is Honourable Bernadette Lahai of Sierra Leone. You may take the floor please.HON. LAHAI BERNADETTE [SIERRA LEONE]:Thank you Madam President, this is a very important report and I agree with you that we need to spend time discussing it, in order to internalize the ramification of the actions under recommendations. Madam President, let me acknowledge the Chairman and his group for taking their time to put together this report. It is not easy to put a report on the recommendations of the extent to which PAP over the five years of its existence has adhered to the provisions on rules governing its existence. Therefore, I am sure a lot of seriousness was put into this report. Madam President, while I identify myself with the recommendations made, but for the implication of this Parliament and our partners - allow me to make a few concerns.On page 11 of this report, under problems encountered by the CAF during compiling of the report: considering the importance of this report, which is going to have an important bearing on the future work of PAP, and given the problems encountered in putting this report together, particularly with regards to the availability of some important documents, I want the Chairman in his response, to tell this House the extent to which these constraints actually affected the validity of the report. Also on page 15 of this report Madam President, on the issue of procedure: this paragraph says that we are yet to adopt these rules of procedure because we have not been able to meet a two-third majority that is required to adopt this document.Madam President, I think this is a very serious issue. The rules of procedure are our guiding document, and any deviation from it can bring a lot of problems. It is sad to note that having worked so hard on this document brought by the Committee and the plenary; this document is yet to be ratified because of the two-thirds. We appreciate the problems that have been highlighted here. Madam President, I see this problem continuing because the problem of availability of Members of Parliament, for one reason or another, continues even in our Parliaments. I think in the near future we must incite the ratification of this document because as we speak, some Members are on their way or have come and gone and others may be going before the end of this session. So, Madam President, this is very serious, but I did not hear any recommendation from the Chairperson with regards to what should be done. I want a response on that.Madam President on the issue of the Communication Committee that is on page 17(6), this Communication Committee was not able to meet because we are told one has left Parliament and the other two members are very busy. Madam President, selling the image of PAP is very important and serious. I want it noted, for the sake of the future that a three men committee can have a lot of problems in its way. I am recommending that the composition of this Committee be increased so that at any time this Committee wants to meet, we may have at least 50% of the Members in attendance.The issue of staff is very important. No matter how the quality of the Members of Parliament that are send from their national Parliaments to this Parliament, the staffing is very important because they can either contribute to the efficiency of this Parliament or they cannot and therefore, we should treat it will all seriousness that it deserves. I see that we only have one-fourth of the present requirements of Parliament in this Parliament, which is a very serious issue. The sooner we address it the better.The issue on page 32, is also a cause for concern. Page 32 is talking about the positions that have been advertised and elections made, but as of now, none have been recruited. Madam, this is also very serious. My question is since the result was not made public, what will happen to those applicants that successfully went through these interviews. Last but not least, it has to do with page 34 b and c, which is Institutional domain. That has to do with our Parliament encouraging us or putting modalities in place, especially our Speakers for us to attend. I am happy that the Speakers’ Conference is coming vey soon and it must be underscored that our attendance at this Parliament is very important. Sometimes we do not come because our Parliaments do not have money, and yet our Executives always have money to travel. You may say yes, we are the budget controllers or we approve the budget but Parliaments are different in the sense that there is always a curvet and our Speakers must understand our contribution in this Parliament. Therefore, my recommendation is, like the ECOWAS Parliament, where Parliaments are sponsored...HON. KPARKAR EUGENE [LIBERIA]:Madam President, thank you very much. I would like to add my voice to the previous speaker in commending the committee on administrative, financial evaluation of the Pan-African Parliament under the stewardship of Honourable Jatta of Gambia. His report pin pointed several issues; several malpractices and progress on the other hand, that have been realized in this parliament. But let me start with the first one; I would think that the lack of a legal advisor in this Parliament up to date is a complete mishap because the world-over, whatever parliaments do - they enact laws. In this case, the Pan-African Parliament is under acting laws, but we give advice. However, even the resolutions that we pass have legal implications, so the absence of a legal advisor is like playing a game without a referee, you know? So I think it’s high time those in authority should think about it and make a very quick decision.The other issue has to do with 4.2 financial domains; Hon Jatta, you indicated in your presentation that the financial situation at the PAP has improved. To me, while that statement may sound very nice, I think in my opinion, is vague because if you say the financial situation is improving, you should give us indicators. What are the indicators that should prove to us that the financial situation of the PAP is improving for example; we used to see ourselves in these televisions and all staff, but that is not happening anymore, the transportation issue is also very serious. So in the absence of the indicators that will convince us; to me I think that still remains an issue that I would like you to speak on.On the issue, you recommended that there should be an audit Committee. That also sounds nice, but in my own opinion on our rules of procedure we have Permanent Committees, and you have got this Committee on financial and monetary affairs. I think all these have financial implications, so instead of establishing new Committees, why not have a sub-committee under the Permanent Committee of financial and monetary affairs, instead of forming more and more committees. So I think you should also have that in mind.The other issue that I wish to speak on is a recommendation that has to do with a whistle blower protection policy here in PAP that will protect staff members. That recommendation brings to mind several things; it will seem that many staff members have been victimized in the past for their advocacy for exposing malpractices and inefficiency. If that is the case, I think you need to let us know, so that it will inform our judgment in curving such a policy.Otherwise most of the recommendations they proffered here are good, for example; the one that has to do with the protection of PAP members traveling on economy class. In my own opinion, I think that is quiet appalling for an Honourable Member to travel on economy on an AU mission.HON. MOLOBEKA ELIZABETH K. CHITIKA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you Madame President for giving me this opportunity to add my voice to this important motion on the floor.Allow me Madame President to thank your Committee for a detailed report touching on the three themes; the political, administrative and financial domains of the PAP.Madame President, when I went through this report, I found that many of the issues that are in this report have been raised before. They are old issues that they have come to this Parliament, to this Chamber though other relevant Committees. However, Madame President, emphasis on some of these important issues cannot be under estimated.My concern this afternoon Madame President is on the issue of the composition of this important Committee. I note that this Committee is among other issues mandated to carry out the evaluation of normal and regular operations of the PAP at administrative as well as the financial level. However, when you look at the membership of this Committee, some of the Members on this important Committee are also Members of the Permanent Committee on Monetary and Financial Affairs. I am not an Accountant Madame President, I am a Development Analyst but I find this to be anomaly, an affront and a breach of the principles of good governance. Why am I saying so? The person responsible for expenditure and budget preparation of the PAP cannot be the person to evaluate such expenditure. (Applause)Madame Chairperson, the Chairperson of this Committee enforced my fears when he mentioned in this report and I quote "that this is a watchdog Committee against impunity and wasteful expenditure in the PAP". So, if this is the Committee that is looking at this mandate and they have Members who are in the Permanent Committee on the Monetary and Financial Affairs, it is wrong. It is never done anywhere both in public as well as in the private sector. We should therefore as Parliament adhere to the principles of separation of powers as well as to avoid conflict in our roles.Let me emphasize Madame President that this is not health and I am recommending as Chair responsible for the Southern Region, that the regions that nominated Members who are already in the Monetary and Financial Affairs Committee should be able to withdraw them and be able to appoint new Members to this important Committee. Thank you Madam President. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much, Chair of the Caucus of Southern Africa. May be there are two ways of looking at it, if that has to be done, the Members could voluntarily leave one Committee and remain on another rather than being withdrawn. That is debatable and to be considered.May I now pass on the opportunity to Honorable Rene Radembino Coniquet of Gabon.HON. RADEMBINO-CONIQUET RENE [GABON]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente. Le travail qui vient de nous être livré a une très grande importance pour moi, parce que c’est la vie de notre institution.D’une manière générale, nous sommes un parlement et dans le monde entier un parlement se gère lui-même. Or, ici nous constatons que nous dépendons de fonctionnaires de l’Union africaine. D’accord, nous commençons mais, il faut tendre vers une véritable autonomie même si on n’avait pas le pouvoir législatif. Sinon, nous ne sommes pas un parlement. Nous sommes un organe consultatif de l’Union africaine pour certaines questions qu’ils veulent bien nous soumettre.Mais, nous ne serons pas un parlement tant que nous dépendrons de la Commission. Il y a la séparation des pouvoirs. Elle est valable ici. Elle est valable dans la mesure où nous serons amenés à faire des lois.Donc, ce rapport, pour moi, c’est un rapport à caractère politique, les idées sont très bonnes, mais pour la mise en œuvre, il faut absolument le soumettre à des experts qui connaissent aussi bien le plan juridique que le plan de gestion du personnel. C’est sur un plan plus général de l’organisation d’une Institution comme la nôtre. Mais nous, notre rôle parlementaire, c’est d’émettre des idées, de critiquer et de faire des propositions. La mise en œuvre c’est une affaire d’experts. Donc nous ne pouvons pas, non plus, en si peu de temps essayer de trouver des solutions qui sont immédiatement applicables parce qu’il y a des interférences au niveau de l’application sur le plan juridique, sur le plan de relation vis-à-vis d’autres services, d’autres lois ou d’autres textes qui existent déjà.Donc, j’ai pris la parole pour dire que dans ce qui va se faire, il faut absolument qu’il y ait un organigramme de notre parlement et, dans cet organigramme, on insistera pour qu’il existe un service juridique important, un service de communication suffisant. Je me suis rendu compte qu’il n’y a qu’un journaliste - je ne sais pas si c’est un journaliste - pour assurer la communication. Mais, ce n’est pas possible. Ce n’est pas nous les parlementaires qui devons assurer la communication du Parlement, ce n’est pas notre rôle! Nous rendons compte à nos électeurs. Mais, pour que le Parlement ait une audience nationale, africaine et internationale, il faut un service de communication. Celui-là n’existe pas. Donc, dans l’organigramme qui viendra, il faut absolument que cela soit fait.Je ne reprends pas tout ce qui a été dit avant puisqu’il y a évidemment des anomalies terribles en ce qui concerne le traitement qu’on ferrait aux parlementaires. Ils voyagent en classe économie, ils sont considérés moins que des fonctionnaires alors que parmi nous ici, il y a des personnalités politiques de haut rang, même des présidents d’institutions et on les traite comme des fonctionnaires! Pourquoi créer un parlement où on n’est vraiment pas traité comme des élus, alors qu’au niveau de l’Afrique, cela doit être un peu plus. Donc, moi je pense que le travail qui se fait doit se poursuivre dans ce sens -là.Alors, j’ai voulu faire ces propositions et, concernant la gestion financière effectivement, je rejoins ce qui a été dit. Il faut absolument qu’il y ait un budget autonome et qu’il y ait dans l’exécution de ces dépenses un contrôle financier qui fera en sorte qu’il y ait moins de dégâts et qu’il y ait moins de tricherie. C’est très important.Donc, je crois que le débat n’est pas assez long, il devrait être plus long mais, ce n’est pas notre rôle, ici. Il faut absolument que ce document dont j’approuve le principe soit remis entre les mains d’experts pour faire l’organigramme et faire une organisation qui est applicable et qui ne risque pas de poser d’autres problèmes, en relation avec d’autres organisations.Madame la Présidente, je vous remercie de m’avoir donné la parole.HON. ALI BAHARI [KENYA]:Thank you Madame President for this opportunity and I want to congratulate Honorable Jatta for the able manner in which he presented this voluminous report.Madame President, from the outset, I want to disclose that I am a Member of this Committee although I did not attend many meetings, but I want to agree with the report and discuss a few issues.One is about the responsibilities of the Secretariat and the Bureau. I think it is extremely important that going by history of these institutions and the future that perhaps it’s going to go through, it is important that this issue of the relationship between the Bureau and the Secretariat in terms of its responsibilities be clearly defined. And I think these are matters that can be debated for many hours before perhaps even we can reach a conclusion. But in my view the Secretariat should be responsible for day to day activities of the institution. The Bureau to do the policy and the oversight and to ensure that there is accountability and transparency on the part of the Secretariat. In my understanding if anybody is not checked, then that person has the potential to be a dictator and therefore there is need to do crosscheck.Secondly, I want to touch on the issue of partner agreements. I want to agree with what is stated in the report that the agreements with various partners or donors should be brought to the floor of the House for an opportunity to peruse and review generally so that they are sure that it do conform to the aspirations of this institution and that they are up to date on what kind of relationships and with whom this institutions has so that we are finally accountable as a team and as individuals.Finally, I just wanted to mention the debate about the membership of this Committee without seen to be defensive. If you look at this report, it touches on cross-cutting issues. There are institutional issues that related to the consultative role of the PAP, if you look at page 14. On page 15, there are issues on the rules of procedure, PAP relations on page 15 with AU organs, then there is the issue of publicity and communication of the PAP. There are issues related to so many including financial issues and the entire perspective of PAP as it was envisaged by the forefathers at the time it was put in place. So, I do not perhaps understand how the issue of finance is picked alone to be shown that the independence of this Committee is compromised. I want to hear anybody who from this report can justify how the independence of the Committee is going to be compromised because if you are going to remove Members of the Committees of Finance then you should remove the Committees on Communication, on Transport, on whatever the case; since the report is covering cross cutting issues.So, I want us to seriously think through to see how best. I have no problem as an individual to quit this Committee but perhaps one need to think through this properly so that you are sure you are doing the right thing. Because everybody here, every Member here belongs to a Committee and matters related to that Committee will be covered by this Committee on Evaluation.And in any case, a key significance of this Committee, among other things, is it brings all Committee works together and makes you to understand them in one perspective. You get to know the picture in its rightful way, so that you see the institution in its totality as opposed to the division of labour that we have put in place.With these few remarks, I want to say thank you very much for this opportunity.HON. MAKGALEMELE DIKGANG PHILLIP [BOTSWANA]:I thank you Madame President.First I want to thank the Committee for putting together a very detailed report, having clearly undertaken a very detailed assessment as per the terms of reference that were provided to them.But whilst I thank them Madame President, I have a question, I think it is on page 32, why the results were never released concerning the 25 positions that PAP advertised. I am quiet alive to the fact that as part of the recommendations there is something to the effect that given the time that it took before this vacancy could be filled, they therefore recommend that fresh advertisements be made but I think it is also worth appreciating why these results were never made public.I see clearly Madame President from the main body of the report that there are a quite number of issues that have been raised and one of the issues relates to the fact that we do not have a communications strategy that has been put into operation due to a number of factors including financial ones. But I have not identified any strong recommendation that is coming through where issues of communication are being addressed. I hold a strong view Madame President that currently PAP is under marketed as an institution and therefore, we need to find ways through which we can invest more and more on marketing and selling PAP through various media instruments that are available.I also want to agree with my colleague from Gambia and support his proposal on the need for PAP to have a Legal Advisor as he rightfully pointed out most of the issues that we deal with are of legal nature and therefore it is a resource that we need within PAP.Also I want to support the recommendations of the report on the need for us to have an Audit Committee. I don’t think that the Audit Committee responsibilities must be left with the Finance Committee as stipulated in our Rules. I think we need an Audit Committee, it is international practice Madame President that Independent Audit Committees are set up as an oversight instrument for various establishments. So therefore I want to support the recommendation as coming from the report that we need an Audit Committee.I do appreciate that the Committee is saying due to financial challenges, they are proposing that the Committee on Administrative and Financial Evaluation should actually act as an Audit Committee. I am against that Madame President; I think we need an Independent Audit Committee. This current Committee as my colleague from Kenya indicated a few minutes back is addressing crosscutting issues but therefore we need a Special Audit Committee that will look at the issues, especially those relating to finance.Madame President, while I appreciate the proposal on whistleblowers and the need for us to have a whistle blower policy and also appreciating the fact that may be it is something that is seen as progressive, whilst I support that move, I think it needs to be interrogated further because whistle blowers policy or where environments are created for whistle blowing there are times such opportunities can easily be abused so we really have to make sure that it is well packaged with proper safety nets.Madame President, on page 38 (c), there is the issue of matters relating to the former Clerk and the Deputy Clerk. I do agree with the recommendation but I also want to urge the Bureau that they should ensure that there is strong presentation of our case. It is very important that this matter should not be taken lightly, it is important that we put together a very strong PAP’s position to the AU so that this matter does not put us into crisis.Madame President, still on page 38(e), there is the issue stating that staff promotions must be prioritized and that where promotions are made, we should look at serving staff. Whilst I agree to that Madame President, it is always good as well and as part of cooperate governance to also test the market because new thinking is also very healthy to any organization to avoid a situation whereby certain negative cultures remain dormant or domain in any organization. Therefore there is need for us to consistently look at what the market is offering and bringing in new thinking or fresh thinking that is also very important.Lastly, Madame President, I note even from discussions this morning that as Members of PAP, we are very much concerned about the treatment that we get from the AU on Observer Mission trips and other assigners that are coordinated by the AU. But I also want to appeal to us as Members of Parliament that we should make sure that this issue becomes a matter for discussion within our respective Parliaments. For example we do approve budgets, that subscriptions be made to organizations such as AU, therefore I think this issue should also be raised in the context of analyzing how our subscriptions are actually utilized at organizations such as AU. So, I think there is still room that whilst the Bureau is negotiating directly with AU, we should also take it to our National Parliaments and debate it as an urgent matter.Madame President, with those words I thank you.(Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Member. The next speaker was supposed to be Honorable Sisa Njikelana of South Africa and since I don’t see him in his sit, I pass on the opportunity to Honorable Ambrose Dery of Ghana.HON. DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:Thank you Madame President for the opportunity to contribute to this debate and permit me also to commend my brother Honorable Jatta for a good report presented.Madame President, I intent to make few comments. First I will go to page 34 of the report and I want to deal with 5.1 (b) and (c).Madame President, 5.1(b) talks about engaging the National Parliaments to avail funds that will make it possible for PAP MPs to attend sessions. I think that is very important. What we also need to do is to put this request in context and the context is that this House is the bastion of the vision to involve African peoples and grassroots so that any government which thinks that it does not have money for this particular exercise, is getting its priorities wrong! I do not know of any government that is so poor that the Head of the Executive, the President or Prime Minister cannot go on duty. I do not know any Government that is like that. So, it has to do with priorities and when we do put this in context, I am sure they will take us seriously. And these might be indicative of those governments and states which are not getting the allocation of resources right. Probably, they are not thinking of the grassroots and the poor and therefore, we must put it in that context.So talking to the Speaker, I agree but and a big but. Let me read this 5.1(c), it says, "During the Speakers Conference, PAP needs to encourage Speakers to be more supportive of MPs who are PAP Members, agreed. But the next one, Speakers must encourage their MPs to attend PAP meetings and (the emphasis is mine) sit throughout the whole sessions".Madame President, this House must be balanced. Yes we deserve conditions but we also have obligations and the question is, look around, do we ourselves take the sessions seriously? Look around? Do we come to South Africa as tourists or for shopping spree or we come here to represent the downtrodden that we use as an argument to talk about business class tickets, to talk about all conditions and when it comes to our work, what have we done? Look around, how come we have one or two people from a particular country, where is the rest of the delegation? Do we need Speakers to tell us that? (Applause). If you want to check the Executive, we must set good examples ourselves.AN HONORABLE:Yes.HON. DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:We have to check ourselves and unfortunately I am not impressed. I do not think that we are doing enough; all of us are not doing enough. Yes, the attendance is poor but the attendance could be better.The question you ask yourself, why is that after some period of time certain governments do not give delegations support to come? When we go back, how useful our interactions here? Do we give reports to our various Parliaments? Are the various Parliaments enriched by our involvement here? This is the question. Introspection Madame President that we need to change the African mindset of always pointing a finger somewhere else and not doing our part. We need to do our part and we need to demonstrate that we deserve the trust that the common people have for us. Otherwise we are going to be the same people, then why do we go for independence? If you come here as a tourist, then you are the same person the Executive can send on a trip to Paris and you condone the Executive actions? If you came here and put shopping first, you are the same person that the Executive could give a few millions or thousands of dollars and say go to China, you are the same person who will be voting in Parliament to extend their term. So, let us and I want this part of the report amended to reflect this, that we are not just always looking away from ourselves but we set good examples. And I say this for good reason. Our founding fathers have set good examples and I can always refer to Nelson Mandela. I can always refer to him. We are all proud of him because he lived the principles, are we living in the principles Madam President?Madame President, let me go on, I hope that when I leave here I will not need security to protect me. (Laughter) But I tell you that I am not scared. That is just a joke.Madame President, we also look at certain parts, why does this Committee want to be permanent in a hurry, why? Let’s give it time. Most of these issues are transitional, if you increase our staff, if we get our structure established and we have more people to support the Clerk, these issues will become moot. So, this Committee should be working on the hope to make itself irrelevant. If you are instutionalising, one can set up Subcommittees. Yes, I agree with Ali, it is crosscutting, so let us have as a Committee or a division within it and a legal team. In my country, my Parliament does not have a Legal Officer, but we have Lawyers in Parliament and we offer services, it is proper for us to have a Legal Team in this PAP to begin to look at the issues or cases, which go to the Court of Justice against PAP? It is not a matter for the staff, we should avail our support.Finally Madame President, yes we are consultative or advisory at this stage, I saw some part of the report telling us that we should encourage the African Union to send matters to us to react. We have to be proactive. If AU Assembly goes for a meeting and gets a nice write-up on a pertinent issue on the Continent from PAP once, twice, three times. They would say these guys after all are not joking. Think about what we can do? We do nothing. This cannot be a talking shop only.Madame President, I know that there is an issue of Observer Mission; we will deal with it when it comes to the motion that you have graciously granted us time to deal with it. But let me say that in doing all these things, let us always remember we must be good examples but I am afraid we are not. Let us check ourselves, thank you Madame President. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you so much Honorable Dery for being brutally frank, you just have touched my nerves because I know that while we are pointing fingers at the Executive and so on, we ourselves are not doing our work and I can assure you, you do not need to be protected, that is the truth. So, we thank you so much and I now pass on the opportunity to Master Goya of Botswana.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Thank you very much Madam President for giving me the floor. Like other Honourable members who took the floor before me, commending the chairperson and the entire committee for the report, I would like to commend the committee for the report that they have just delivered to this House. However, Madame President, I must hasten to mention that I am a bit apprehensive about the report. Having listened to the report being read by the chairperson of the Committee, I think it suffices for me to say that the report is both methodologically and ethically flawed. On page 10 Madam President, under methods of investigation; it does not come out very clear about the system that the Committee was using to investigate or to carry out their investigation. There is no systematic approach of interviews to people that were called to come and answer questions before this Committee.Madam President, it is also apparent that the Committee did not have any preformulated questions. At least from what I have seen from the report and what has been read out by the chairperson of this Committee. There were no pre-formulated questions and I want to say with total equanimity, total calmness of my mind and temper; that in any kind or type of investigation or interrogation, if you don’t have pre-formulated questions Madam President, you are bound to leave out many important issues because you just ask questions off the cuff, just shooting from the hip; and by so doing, you are bound to leave out many important issues that could have helped you to come up with a more detailed report of what you want to investigate.The method of the investigation used by the committee therefore, leaves many questions unanswered. For example; were people being interviewed required to make statements to support assertions or answers they made? That is the first thing. Secondly; were they given enough time to prepare well thought out and comprehensive answers? That is the second thing. Thirdly, is the Committee in a position to provide any references or any quote of any authoritative instrument that they used when they were carrying out the investigation? That are the question that I would like the chairperson to also answer when he comes to the floor to respond to this.Also Madam President, there are so many things that were recommended by the ad-hoc committee. For example there is the issue of unfair promotion of some staff members during the previous regime. This issue has not been tackled by the CAFE committee, if I may call that in short. Madam president on page 38 of this report, they only talk about prioritization of staff promotions, but they don’t go deep to tell us what are they saying about those who were promoted during the previous bureau. Nothing is said about these staff members and that is very unfair Madam President.Madam President, in any kind or type of investigation, ethics are very fundamental, ethics are very important. They are of paramount importance as they are responsible for the validity and the reliability of information solicited by the investigating body. Again Madam President, I would like to mention that some staff were interviewed by this committee in front of, and in the presence of their bosses. How can that be? Obviously the responses that they gave to the committee are not correct. They are bound to compromise the quality of the responses for fear of victimization and intimidation from their bosses who were present when they were being asked questions by the Committee.Confidentiality, Madam President should have been granted to the staff members to provide answers in a very conducive and free manner. Ethically, a person investigated must be granted confidentiality and should be given enough time to provide answers. I doubt if this happened when this committee was carrying out this investigation.Again Madam President, the committee is very quiet on matters which are internal to the institution. For example, there is somewhere where the ad-hoc committee divulged information to the development partners, to the extent that development partners decided to part ways with PAP. And the Committee does not talk about this issue. They should have told us what they have done; they should have carried out an investigation to the effect of findings out that who divulged that information to the development partners. So much to the extent that PAP almost lost relationship with development partners. This is one of the things that I think the Committee should have touched base on Madam President.Madam President, I am totally against recommendation on page 35, and I want to go to that page, if you allow me. Under clause 5.2, financial constraints; and it says Madam President; there is need for PAP to create an office which will be responsible for following up the implementation of the recommendations of audit reports. This is totally unacceptable and administratively wrong. If I am head of a department or a unit, it is incumbent upon me as the head of the department, to make sure that all the findings, all the recommendations of the auditor are implemented. It is incumbent upon me as head of that department, not for a special office to come and implement issues that have been queried within my department. I think this is totally unacceptable and it’s unfortunate that the Committee is recommending something else, which I don’t think is procedurally correct. And at the same time Madam President the findings and the recommendations of the auditor; if the head of the department does not address those things, they should form the basis of the performance at end of the year when that head of department is being assessed and appraised. That should be the case. So there is no need for an independent office to be established for this. Madam President, I am asking you for two minutes please to wind up.THE PRESIDENT:I give you half a minute.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Madam President, I want to appeal in this August house that we should support the administration of Pan-African Parliament, not to question appointments that were made through a transparent and legitimate process. That should not be our job to do. Let’s make sure that we support this administration so that at the end of the day, they also support us as members of Pan - African Parliament. Madam President, I cry and crave that one of the responsibilities of this CAFE committee, should be to suggest ways to strengthen the Pan-African Parliament administration and not to cause panic and listen to rumours in the corridors. That should not be their responsibility, not at all.Lastly Madame President, what is the quorum of this Committee? If three members can hamper the Committee to meet as it is said in the report, they are only two members who were committed and one member who was absent, so that makes three out of ten. How couldn’t the seven meet and continue with the work. I think this should not continue like this and I totally disagree with this.THE PRESIDENT:Honorable Goya, thank you so much for that critical analysis of this report. I also want to say that I allowed you to go on because you are one of those members who are always present in the chamber and who take interest in the affairs of Pan-African parliament, so I thank you, but I cannot stretch time. The next speaker on my list is Honourable Sylvia Masebo of Zambia and I don’t seem to see her in her seat, so I will pass on the opportunity to Honorable Arnold Tihuko of Namibia. He is also not here, that could be an example of what Honorable Dery was saying just a few minutes ago. May I now give the opportunity to Honourable Isaac Steven Mabiletsa of Botswana.HON. MABILETSA ISAAC STEPHEN [BOTSWANA]:Thank you Madam President. I will speak briefly on four paragraphs.First of all, let me start by commending the Finance Committee for the job well done. Generally they faced a lot of challenges and the report before us is pushing a lot of challenges that needs some action from some quarters either of Pan-African or of AU. I thought I should start with that preface.Having said that Madame President, page 15 of the report, there is item 4.1.2 (i) and I wish to quote it briefly Madam President, it says, "the Relationship between PAP and the AUC has improved since the election of the current Bureau" End of quote.Madam President, I think the relationship between AUC and PAP must be there whether this current Bureau or any future Bureau or even past ones. It shouldn’t be just for the current one, maybe there is something that I don’t know, but I am saying the relationship must develop for PAP and not for a specific group. This is the point I thought I would make because let’s face this fact. In our National Parliaments when we are discussing serious matter pertaining to finance, there is a Minister from the Executive who is there ultimately to respond. And I think when we speak about the AU; we are talking about the office of the Secretary General, who has a variety of Directors as per Departments that pertains to AU.Madam President, as far as at this juncture there ought to be somebody from the finance, if it’s not the Finance Director from AU Department or somebody of similar standing here to respond because what we are saying here, I think from the way I see things, is a report that is going to go to AUC and they will also respond in the right manner by a report. But if we are talking eyebrow to eyebrow, face to face, he would appreciate and take us serious and give the proper report to the Secretary General. I am not suggesting that the current Bureau is not doing that but that this is how the relationship ought to be. So far, suffice for that point; let me move to the other one Madam President.Page 31 of the report, item 4.3.6 tells us that the required establishment for PAP is 190. Currently, filled positions are 45 and unfilled positions are 145. How do you expect efficiency under this circumstance because we are barely in a making the necessary requirement to run PAP and how do we expect the Clerk or even the Bureau to operate efficiently under this circumstances? We are failing them even before they start. This is point that is worth noting Madame President.If we agree that this was required establishment and let us supposed AU is fully aware of this and I wonder whether why we could go on advertise posts, call people for interviews when we don’t have the subvention to pay them. How did that come about, I don’t know. But all this argument I direct it straight to the office of the Secretary General of the AU. He ought to be here himself or his representative on a matter pertaining to the item under discussion by PAP because if PAP is to be taken seriously, this is my second time Madam President to attend the Second Session of this Parliament. Therefore, I don’t see how we can operate under these circumstances.Another point Madam Speaker pertains to page 20, the relationship with donors.THE PRESIDENT:You have one minute Honourable Member.HON. MABILETSA ISAAC STEPHEN [BOTSWANA]:Thank you Madam. The relationship with donors. I don’t see how we can satisfy the financial requirements to satisfy the needs of the donors if the Finance Department is not well resourced. We are creating room for abuse of funds, where the system cannot even detect them and ultimately we will say, donors have run away. And I think, this is one area that is the heart of PAP that must be fully resourced and staffed if we are to regain confidence of our development partners.Finally, Madam President, I want to speak to paragraph 5.2, page 36 where it says, and I wish to quote it Madam President with your permission. It says, it is (h) actually, it says "where possible, PAP must ask MPs’ to fund their air tickets and then refund them for the expenses incurred. This will help reduce the expenditure on air tickets". (Laughter)Madam President, I am wondering, after speaking to some of my colleagues the remuneration for them are so low, how do you expect them to finance tickets that takes so much from the coffers of PAP when Members don’t even earn the resources to manage that? I think Madam Speaker, this one is rather misplaced. Thank you for your time. Thank you. (Applause)HON. LABELLE MARIE NOËLLE FRANÇOISE [MAURITIUS]:Thank you Madame President.Madam President and Honourable Colleagues, it’s my pleasure as a member of this Committee to add my voice to this debate. I must say that I believe it was a wise decision in the last November, to go by the Rule 22(2) and set up this Committee, and this, may I remind the House following the work effected by the Ad-hoc Committee.Madam President, the Bureau as well as Honourable Members of this House are expecting this Committee, the CAFE to contribute effectively to enhance the financial and administrative management of PAP, and this rightly so.However, Madam President, I must point out that to achieve these objectives, appropriate means must be given to the Committee. For example appropriate personnel must be put at the service of this Committee. This applies to other Committees too.Madam President, some Members happen to ask the reason for this Committee. Evaluation must be an on-going process. For example Madam President, after this very plenary session we are having right now must we not go for an evaluation. Where we have improved and where we have deteriorated? What about the attendance? What about the services? What about the services offered by the personnel? We must do any evaluation so that we can make progress.Madam President, I would urge Members of this House to go at a later stage, through this report very attentively, to reflect on the issues mentioned in this report. Issues that have remained unresolved during the past years, namely; the problem of the staff.Madam President, if the 25 positions have not been filled it is because staff structure has not yet been approved by the AU. The shortage of staff, the Committee Clerks, the Translators and so on; because we always talk about the problem of documentation, but we have a problem of the staff. And presently we have some Researchers who are acting as Committee Clerks. These posts are being paid by donors; it is not even in the budget of PAP.We have the issue of the Trust Fund. Actually we are waiting for the AUC to provide us for the final copy of the Audit Report and most Members of the House, you know for how many years now, we have been talking about the management of the Trust Fund.There is also the issue of non follow ups or implementation of the Auditors or the Internal Auditor’s Report. If we have mentioned that maybe we need an office to see or to look into the follow ups, some Members had arguments against that, which are valid, saying that when the Internal Auditor make a recommendation, the Head of Department, must be the one who has to implement it. But who is the one who is supposed to see to it that the department concerned are implementing the follow-up? Who is the one? And we are talking about the financial malpractices.There are also other issues, for example Madam President, this question of documentary about PAP. I think my good friend Honourable Goya made some confusion between the Communication Committee, which was supposed to look at this issue and the CAFE at large. This was a separate Committee set up to see about this documentary project. But here to, this Committee has not met, who was supposed to see to it that this work is done? So, after one year, we are back to square one. We haven’t progressed regarding the image of PAP. There was a documentary to be done, there was a Committee set up to look into that, nothing has been done. And who was supposed to look at that?In this report, we talk about what must be the work of the Secretariat, what must be work of the Bureau. I think it is high time, it’s most urgent that things are cleared out. For us too, Members, we must know because many of us have the impression that may be the Secretariat, nor the Bureau, nor the Members are aware of what has to be done by Secretariat, what is to be done by the Bureau, and this brings a lot of confusion to all of us from Members, to staff and the Bureau.Madam President, we have learned that the Auditors Report, I will go very quickly on that, that the Auditors Report for financial years 2009/2010 have been submitted and I am surprised that these reports have not neither been tabled before the House nor sent to the CAFE. Who is responsible to put that on the agenda?Madam President, I am going to (interruption by a bell).THE PRESIDENT:You have one more minute, you can go on.HON. LABELLE MARIE NOËLLE FRANÇOISE [MAURITIUS]:I am going to end up by saying that if we want to get respect of the continent and the international community, we must be an example of good governance both on financial and administrative matters, and this is not achieved out of the blues. It is an urgent matter that all of us bring our contributions because it is the future of PAP and Africa. Thank you Madam.HON. KANTENGWA JULIANA [RWANDA].Thank you Madam President for giving me the opportunity to speak. Madam President, I joined this House right at its inception in 2004. I saw it coming up; I was here during and after the Accra Debate when some of the issues were beginning to be pointed out. It was a heated debate. I was present when the Now Now movement started and I cannot more than agree with the observations and some of the recommendations of this Committee. I wish to salute them. I wish to salute them because the report relates in a professional manner, objectively and in an exhaustive way some of the issues that have been seizing this House ever since its inception. So, Mr. President, who presented the report, Honourable Jatta; if only we could take note of Honourable Goya’s comments, I would assure you that your report enjoys my endorsement.Having said that Madam President; I would want to urge the Committee to remove a few phrases that may not be necessary, which actually water down the content of their report. Some superfluous phrases like financial management has improved. How has it improved when we do not have a finance officer, when there is no procurement unit, when the audit Committee is not there, the trust fund is dormant? How has it improved when we do not have all these systems in place? It sounds very contradictory. Then something that is rather illusionary that the relationship between PAP bureau and the AU has improved. How has it improved when we are complaining on how we are being mistreated by the AU? How has it improved when we are talking about our staff, we are missing the staff capacity of 125 members? I think it is a myth we are trying to attach on the improved relationship. The truth of the matter is the problem is not our bureau; the problem is that the AU has not yet understood the role of PAP or they have not yet given us our due space. That is why I am saying it is illusionary to start imagining that we have improved relations when we do not get what we want. When we do not have the space to do what we are supposed to do. We do not get what we request. How many Speakers from AU have we seen? We saw a paper on peace and security, where was the Commissioner? Did he present it? The relationship has improved!However, I want to touch on a few issues that are very, very serious. There is a looming crisis that they alluded to; concerning the Clerk and the Deputy Clerk issue. We were all part to the recruitment, directly or indirectly, inadvertently or advertently to the recruitment of the staff that we have in the name of the Clerk and his Deputy. They are now here. We are talking about what happens if the ruling comes out that those people were unprocedurally removed. What happens? A looming crisis! Should we allow it to progress? I urge the bureau to move very fast and do whatever is necessary so that we do not find ourselves in a crisis we did not create. We allowed them to get engaged.Then Honourable Dery brought out the issue of attendance here. Where is our bureau? We elected five members, we constantly see two and this is not the first time. The core business of the Bureau and why we elected five people is to have five people in front of us [HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Here, here]. Where are they? I wish to take this opportunity to thank you Madam President and your colleague the first Vice President. At least you are constantly here. I am proud that you are from my Caucus, where are the other Caucuses Presidents?Madam Speaker, I also want to touch on the way forward, and the way I see these things happening. If we want PAP’s image to come up, I would want to appeal to the bureau, five not two, to go and visit the AU Chairperson as a political person and explain the problems we are facing as a young institution; and the need for recognition of PAP into its rightful architecture of the AU. Madam President, this is the way I see it.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Kantengwa for your remarks. But I just wanted to make a clarification on the issue raised on where are the other three Members of the Bureau because I feel I have the obligation to do it. I am not the presenter of the Committee Report.Now, we did communicate late last week that there was an urgent matter for the President to attend to in Chad. He has just returned but he could not have come to the Chamber immediately he arrived in the country. So, he will be here to the end starting tomorrow.Now, the other two members of the Bureau, the First Vice President, Honorable Amadi and the Third Vice President, Honorable Hammi Laroussi, they were sent on a mission to Libya. There is a summit, the AU Arab Summit, and I think the President probably communicated that last week. They will be returning this week but they are not absent from the work of PAP.You realize there is so much around the continent and around the world that PAP needs to be involved in. So that is why we have been here the two of us and I think we have been religiously here so that the Bureau is well represented and I hope it has been. Everything that is taking place is well recorded and will be dealt with accordingly.May I now take the opportunity to invite Honorable Saleh Kebzabo of Chad to give his remarks?HON. KEBZABO SALEH [TCHAD]:Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.Madame la Présidente,Je voudrais commencer mon propos par féliciter la Commission, pour le travail qui a été fait. Ayant été moi-même membre du comité ad hoc, je sais ce que cela représente comme travail, aussi bien dans la recherche que dans le temps qu’on y consacre.Je voudrais ajouter que notre Parlement a besoin d’une Commission comme celle-ci. Comme dans tous les Parlements, il y a toujours une commission interne qui vérifie le travail et qui fait des propositions d’amélioration.Ce que je voudrais dire par rapport à ce qui nous a été livré dans ce rapport, c’est que, en termes de dépenses et d’économie à faire, je pensais que nos collègues auraient observé, comme moi qui suis ici, depuis quelques années, que nous sommes véritablement une machine à consommer beaucoup de papiers, et cela fait beaucoup d’argent. Et, je suis surpris que, à l’heure de l’électronique, on continue à consommer du papier alors qu’on peut faire beaucoup d’économie ici au PAP, en réduisant la consommation du papier pour faire la plupart des documents avec l’électronique, que ce soit dans des clés USB ou dans l’ordinateur, puisque chacun d’entre nous a un bureau et que nous avons des ordinateurs. Je pense qu’on pourrait faire beaucoup d’économie en réduisant la quantité de papier qu’on consomme.L’autre poste que j’ai trouvé aussi très consommateur, c’est celui des billets d’avion. Cette remarque, je l’ai faite pour la simple raison que j’ai fait une comparaison, avec les billets d’avion que j’achète, ceux achetés par le PAP sont au moins de 30% plus chers. Il y a donc là beaucoup d’économie à faire. Il faut peut-être s’organiser en interne pour faire en sorte que les agences de voyage avec lesquelles vous traitez soient un peu plus à côté des vrais tarifs. Je crois qu’il y a là un problème de tarifs et il y a aussi celui du suivi qui se pose, Madame la Présidente. J’ai lui dans le rapport, qu’il y a parfois des doubles paiements de billets et que quand c’est fait, le remboursement traîne en longueur, car l’agence de voyage ne veut pas rembourser rapidement. Donc, voilà pour ce qui concerne les économies à faire.Maintenant, je ne peux pas terminer mon propos sans revenir sur le Trust Fund, Madame la Présidente.Les anciens parlementaires se rappellent ici qu’on a fait venir notre vieux père Mandela pour parrainer cette opération, qui a eu beaucoup de succès. Nelson Mandela a accepté de venir parrainer l’opération du Trust Fund, à telle enseigne que nous-mêmes parlementaires, nous avons été subjugués. On nous a demandé notre contribution et je crois que chacun de nous a apporté, devant tout le monde ici, soit 100 dollars, soit 100 euros. Ainsi, moi, j’avais donné 200 euros.Mais aujourd’hui, Madame la Présidente, je suis en train de vous dire que je vais créer un mouvement au sein du PAP pour ceux qui ont donné leur argent et qui savent qu’ils ont été volé. On va porter plainte. Si le PAP ne veut pas porter plainte, nous en tant que membres, ayant donné de l’argent, nous allons porter plainte contre le PAP, pour que le PAP nous dise où est passé notre argent.Tout le monde sait, ici, que le Trust Fund a été mal utilisé, a été détourné. On veut faire cela comme les Africains, c’est-à-dire, on constate bien que les gens ont volé, mais on se dit que cela ne fait rien et on continue la route. Mais, nous allons continuer ainsi jusqu’à quand?Je pense qu’il faut arrêter cela, il faudrait que l’audit sur le Trust Fund soit remis rapidement, que les responsabilités soient établies, et que s’il faut porter plainte, s’il faut poursuivre les gens, que cela soit fait sans discernement. Je ne pense pas qu’il y ait quelqu’un à protéger dans cette affaire.Enfin, j’ai entendu dire aussi que l’audit 2009 a été fait et que le rapport serait disponible. Je suis de ceux qui pensent que, pour une bonne transparence de la gestion au sein du PAP, il faut que chaque audit qui est fait soit disponible et que tous les parlementaires qui le souhaitent reçoivent un exemplaire de l’audit pour qu’ils puissent voir eux-mêmes comment notre argent a été utilisé, quelles sont les erreurs qui ont été commises, quelles sont les fautes qui ont été commises; puisque chacun de nous aujourd’hui est appelé à être là-bas ou ici, il faut donc qu’on sache comment le PAP est géré. Si l’audit de 2009 est disponible, comme on le dit, mettez-le à notre disposition pour qu’on voie quelle a été la gestion de notre Parlement en 2009! Je vous remercie, Madame la Présidente.HON. CHARUMBIRA FORTUNE [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Madam President. I should also thank the Chairman of the Committee for the manner in which he presented this report, and thank all the previous speakers. I am a member of this CAFÉ, as it has been referred to. So, I will not raise questions, but just raise some issues. The issue of the Now Now movement that has been referred to by Honourable Juliana - and that movement to which I would want to associate myself - was pushing for good governance, transparency and everything that is good for Africa. So, I will raise three or four issues to do with transparency and good governance. The first one, which has been referred to earlier on is the issue of separation and clarity of role boundaries between the secretariat and the bureau. In the previous bureau, this area got us into trouble because the bureau would sign employment contracts for staff who were subordinate to the Clerk; so, basically they were taking over responsibilities of the Clerk and other staff. Madam President, we are saying let us correct this. We are today in trouble with the AU Tribunal because, all the cases that are pending before the AU Tribunal have nothing to do with the Secretariat at PAP. It is the bureau that caused them. Now we hear of Martha Muleka who was director of the Bureau that her case is also at the Tribunal, we are aware of the issues, the issues had to do with the bureau and not to with the secretariat. So, please, let us address this one as a matter of urgency.The next issue is to do with our Honourable Members themselves. We sometimes contradict ourselves by talking of good governance to anything that is extended to this Chamber. When the report of the Ad hoc Committee came out and even today, when it mentions certain irregularities on finance and then we hear of partners withdrawing, then we blame those in the Committee and say why did you mention these things? Then it is contradictory, you want to be a good governance House, but when the issues are exposed you say no, you should not have exposed them because we are losing money. So, where do you belong? Which test can you pass? And then the issue that I see that it creating confusion is the issue of audit. The previous external auditors have said there is need for an Audit Committee at PAP, we do not have one. The issue is how can it be structured? There has been a debate here of how this current CAFE can be converted, but I just also want to add that if you read the reports by Ernest and Young, they look at cross cutting issues. It is not the old audit that you see recorded figures in finance. A good audit today looks at performance issues also, so the performance cum financial audit. Which means any good report will not only look at money, they will look at the application of those monies including staff matters. So, we should urgently look at how best we can come up with a well structured Audit Committee along the lines of Ernest and Young Report and others.The last point is to do with the emptiness of the Chamber, which I want to reinforce also. I think it is high time we came up with rules where we ask people how many hours they have spend in the Chamber, like in our national Parliaments, if you are absent for so many days, you actually can lose your seat, but in PAP you can be away for the whole year but nothing happens to you. I want to support Honourable Dery if we go to Boulders right now or even to Sandton, you will find that a greater number of Mrs. are out there doing whatever they are doing. So, please, let us walk the talk as they say. Thank you.DEPUTADO FERNANDO JOSÉ DE FRANÇA VAN-DÚNEM [ANGOLA]:Muito obrigado, Senhora Presidente, por me dar a palavra. Devo dizer com toda a franqueza que nâo gostava de falar. Mas parece-me que sou compelido a dizer alguma coisa porque há inverdades que foram ditas aqui, que me tocam profundamente.Lembro-me, muito bem, quando começamos este Parlamento, nós, os membros da Mesa tínhamos que vir aqui, a qualquer momento, para tratar dos problemas do Parlamento. Ainda eu mal tinha saído do aeroporto já estava a ser convidado para vir assistir a uma reuniao da Mesa. E, naquela altura, nâo tínhamos sequer fiincionários. A maior parte dos documentos que vocês têm hoje foram feitos por nós, pessoalmente; Traduçoes foram feitas por nós, pessoalmente; Muitas vezes, colocamos dinheiro dos nossos bolsos. Por exemplo, o chamado trust found foi inaugurado na presença do Madiba, o ex- Presidente Nelson Mandela. Lembro-me de ter posto no fundo 2000 mil dólares norte-americanos. Eu gostava de saber, onde está esse meu dinheiro?Bom, mas esse nao é o problema que me preocupa mais. Falou-se aqui, muitas vezes, da Mesa. Quem era a Mesa? Eram os cinco membros eleitos do Parlamento, e nós fizemos das tripas coraçao, mesmo para que este Hemiciclo tivesse a forma que tem.Onde estavam os outros camaradas enquanto eu estava no Protea Hotel, a espensas do meu Parlamento, a gastar e a fazer os documentos? Mas nao é isso que me preocupa! Simplesmente, é preciso saber como se faz.Devo desde já dizer que dou um satisfactory ao Relatório desse documento, mas gostava de chamar a atengao para um aspecto muito particular: enquanto o Regimento Interno diz que o Parlamento realiza pelo menos duas sessoes ordinárias durante um período de 12 meses, eis que a nível do Comité dos Representantes Permanentes, em Addis Abeba, decidiram que essas duas reunioes deviam limitar-se a 10 dias cada uma. E mais, apareceu uma famosa Resoluto Executiva 98, etc., colocando uma série de problemas. E mais, que os deputados eleitos para a Mesa nao deviam viver aqui na África do Sul. Entao, pergunto: como é que os membros da Mesa, que eram responsáveis pela gestao do Parlamento tinham que gerir o Parlamento se estavam a milhares de quilómetros daqui? Quer dizer, nós tínhamos que ter uma espécie de remote control para dirigir o Parlamento!Entretanto, o Secretário-Geral e aqueles a quem nós tínhamos feito passar pelo crivo do concurso, eram os que geriam o Parlamento. No entanto, me parece que a Mesa era a responsável por isso.Por outro lado, também levantamos problemas que aqui foram levantados, por exemplo, em relagao ao meu país, apesar da guerra que houve durante muitos anos, sempre me foi permitido viajar em primeira classe. Aqui, a Comissao achou que nós nao devíamos viajar em primeira classe, devíamos viajar em classe económica, diminuindo assim, desgraduando o perfil dos membros da Mesa. A mim, como mais velho que sou - devo ser dos mais velhos aqui - devo dizer que isso nao se passou senao de uma espécie de luta de influencias, ver quem é que mandava no dinheiro, quem é que podia dizer isto, aquilo e aqueloutro.Senhora Presidente, nao vou falar mais, porque a mim me magoa, porque sinto na carne, sinto na pele a operagao cirúrgica a que fui submetido aqui, no South African Hospital, que o meu país pagou. Nao houve nenhuma contribuigao do Parlamento Pan-Africano. No entanto, fala-se aqui de seguro médico, etc., mas eu nunca tive esse benefício. É evidente que nós decidimos atribuir certas subven?oes, até porque o trabalho era penoso. Mas, de qualquer maneira, Senhora Presidente, é só para lembrar que ninguém pode gerir uma empresa a milhares de quilómetros de distancia.Muito obrigado, Senhora Presidente.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Fernando for that clarity on issues of the former Bureau. There is no doubt that the first Bureau that established this Parliament worked so hard, there is no doubt. I don’t think that anybody would contest that. I must say that I am sure that the report of this committee did not intend, did not have the motive of hurting you or hurting anybody, but I think it is to tell us what the status is and to guide us where we need to improve. That is my view. But thank you for shading light and I think that also keeps us aware of what happened in the past; and also gives us the institutional memory. We thank you so much. May I now take the opportunity to invite the Honorable Jata to respond to the issues raised, please?HON. JATTA FABAKARY TOMBONG [GAMBIA]:Thank you very much Honourable Madam President. Let me first of all seize this opportunity to thank all those who have contributed and those who have listened for their very constructive criticism. They will definitely add value to our report. We are appreciative. On behalf of my Committee, I would want to thank you. Equally, some comments seem to indicate that some of us come to Parliament prejudiced on issues. As I said in my introduction, when this plenary set to establish this Committee, reading from the motion; it is with a view to ensure that this Parliament inspires the African peoples; so that this Parliament can be an institution that will serve as an example to all institutions in Africa. I am happy that some of us are bold enough to look inward, to look at ourselves first. With these few remarks Madam President I will attempt to clear some doubt. We will accept some other comments because they will only add value. Some comments need clarifications, which I will attempt to do.Honourable Madam Speaker, the recommendations for lack of quorum here, the first speaker wanted to know whether we have made any recommendations on it. Those recommendations can be found on page 34 (b) and (c) of the report. And two of the comments made by her are important; the need to increase the Communication Committee etc. I don’t want to dwell onto those recommendations. (Applause) Okay. All issues that we agree with, we have taken. I just want to clarify certain issues.Regarding the 25 staff members’ interviews, some members asked why it was in confidence after two or three years now, approximately. And I think some other members tried to definitely clear that out. At the time of the interview when the budget was finally prepared to take care of those 25 possible employees of the Pan African Parliament, it was not approved. It was then that PAP was asked to submit its structure for approval before we can make employment. So, we could not just inform them when you could not employ them.Lack of legal advisor, I must agree. Somebody said a Member said it’s just like playing a game without a referee. A Parliamentary institution should always have legal minded people to guide it. People asked, we said financial management has improved, why? Why did we say that? We have said in the report that PAP now adheres strictly to the financial regulations of the African Union. You will remember that in the past allowances were paid when they had not been approved. We used to pay for communication allowances; we used to pay on a lot of things. There were a lot of things happening, which were in contravention to the AU rules and regulations. But as a Parliament we believed and adopted that we should do them, but AU believed that they were in contravention of the AU regulations. Since the inception of this new Bureau, we have observed that they have managed to ensure that we adhere to the AU Rules and Regulations. Adherence to that means we have improved financial management.As regards functions of Committees and on Members of the Finance Committee being Members of this Committee. I think this has eloquently been dealt with by my brother Honourable Bahari.Issues in this report and responsibilities and the mandate given to this Committee are cross cutting. It will therefore mean that anybody to be a Member of this Committee should not be a member of any of the Permanent Committees of the PAP because at the end you will find something to deal with that affects your Committee. But, the onus is on plenary; it is this plenary that established this Committee for a purpose. So the decision on this is for the plenary. We can only express opinions, so that we don’t make errors when we take these decisions.Honourable Madam President, the Member from Rwanda, Honourable Juliana Kantengwa in her contribution said, she is very much in support of this report. if I can respond to Honourable Goya’s comments; It is unfortunate that the Honourable Member whatever reasons best known to him has been misinformed and has very little basis for the comments he made. First of all the quorum of a Committee of three unfortunately he is referring to a different Committee; that is the Communication Committee I quoted for you, that there were three Members, two were constrained, and one lost his sit in Parliament. We are a Committee of ten and the minimum we have to meet is six and therefore, he was referring to that committee unfortunately. That’s why I said his vision might have been blurred, and because of many other misstatements I will give examples.I have not read in the other Committees reports for which he asked us to give who did it. That somebody told the donors, informed the donors about the details of this report. I am not aware, but what I do know is that the report was laid here, debated here, media personnel were here and therefore the donor partners came to understand or hear of the report. I am not aware that individuals went to them to give them reports, unless the Honourable Member has any idea about that he can tell Parliament. The Honourable Member further said that whether we have promulgated questions, prior questions to put to the Secretariat and the Bureau members we interviewed. In his presentation it will look as if we had not prepared ourselves. Honorable Members was not there, and that’s why I noted that as Parliamentarians, we must be independent, focused and not allow ourselves to be influenced by side issues or, what I call groupings to protect each other. This Committee, and in my introduction I said that we had limited time and we were called here for 4 days to prepare this report in July. Let me just refer you to page 5 of the introduction, that’s paragraph 7. CAFE held its first meeting from 26 to 28 July at the Seat of the Pan African Parliament in Midrand, and due to this, we limited ourselves. We could not go into new areas or investigate new areas. We thought it important that the recommendations adopted by plenary should be implemented. So, we limited ourselves because of the time constraints and financial constraints to assess the status of implementation of the recommendations of that Ad-hoc Committee. That’s was the best we did.As a Committee, we prepared ourselves and asked relevant questions to clear the air and give us information on the status of implementation.There were key people who were present. If you are dealing with finance, an Internal Auditor was present. But mostly, we only dealt with Heads of Departments whom we asked if they intended to bring in their support staffSo, where do we talk of bringing people, interviewing them in the presence of their bosses? There is also no mention of those who were promoted during the former bureau.Honourable President, we are not a committee on a witch-hunt. We are a committee, I believe created by this plenary to be able to add value to the management of the Pan African Parliament. We have stated in clear terms that promotions should be prioritized. We made specific recommendations on that. And we are also aware that the whole structure of PAP is yet to be approved. So some staff related issues can only be addressed if the structure of PAP is finally approved. Who knows, it may need a restructuring of the whole Pan African Parliament in terms of staffing.Members also spoke on the relations between PAP and AUC insinuated that it is rather based on personalities. And the other question is; have relations seriously improved as reported in our report. From the facts obtained during the interviews and an assessment of the situation against the backdrop of the past. Further cemented by the report of the President himself to the Pan African Parliament plenary here and series of events that had taken place between PAP and AUC and with the intended retreat between the PRC and the Pan African Parliament with the view to iron out some of their differences to allow the PRC to better understand the peculiar nature of Parliament. We have said, and it has been confirmed that relations between the Pan African Parliament and the AUC have reasonably improved.You talked about the cost of air tickets, we even talked about where Members could be asked or their Parliaments could be asked to pay and they will be reimbursed. And there were comments on it. It only needs a little bit of clarification. We have observed that if PAP is to buy a return ticket for you for instance; from Algeria, it is usually 6 thousand dollars plus. When you ask the MP to pay from Algeria a return ticket, he pays almost half the amount, 3.5 thousand dollars. And that happens in most other countries, where if the purchase is done here by PAP, you almost pay twice or so, but it will be half of that amount when it is purchased in national countries. So, we thought it wise to put it to you that in order to save funds that could better be utilized in other issues, National Parliaments or MPs can do that, for us to save costs.Others also have said that there is need for the Trust Fund to be audited. We have said that, since the coming of the new bureau, the President of the Pan African Parliament suspended operations on the Trust Fund and has asked the AUC to send auditors to audit the Trust Fund. This Trust Fund has been audited. The bureau only awaits the report of the auditors.I cannot agree more with the fact that once we talk about the needs of PAP in terms of staffing being 190 and currently, PAP is staffed by only 45 and the member remarked how do we expect efficiency? Honourable Member, I cannot but agree with you.On page 35, 5.2 (a), where we talked about the need for PAP to create an office, which will be responsible for following up the implementation of the recommendations of audit reports. The absence of follow ups on audit reports hinders progress in terms of rectifying malpractices picked up by the auditors.Honourable Goya asked, why a special committee? Why an office when managers are supposed to implement recommendations of the auditors? True. But we are told that most of the recommendations of the auditors are not picked up. In fact even this plenary itself, some of the recommendations adopted here are not even known to the various managers for them to be able to see how they can better implement them. That’s why in our recommendations today, we stated that the Clerk should extract adopted recommendations of the plenary, and then distribute it to the relevant managers for possible implementation. When you have audit reports, for effective implementation of audit reports and ensuring that it happens, it must be at the top level. That’s why we believe that there is need to take people permanent here, because audit reports can come out as often as possible.On audit observations: we thought it fitting that if audit report is critical about one’s department or one finds it difficult to implement it, who is there to check whether it has been done? That’s why we said we have an office probably composed of one bureau member and a Clerk or whatever to make sure that audit reports are tracked and implemented. It is not necessarily creating a new office.The issue of whistle blowing; I cannot agree more that it should be well packaged and effective and proper safety nets put in place so that it is not abused. But I think also, we can have complaints box where people can drop in whatever they observe or whatever complaints they have to enable people to express themselves without being necessarily afraid of being victimized. And I do agree that in order to prevent it from abuse, we should have a good package and safety net to prevent abuse.I cannot agree more with my brother Ambrose Dery when he touched on two of the recommendations and said that it is important that countries prioritize PAP related issues or meetings. It is difficult to believe that some countries cannot afford to buy tickets for Parliamentarians. It is more on how much do they prioritize Pan African Parliament work. And I share his ideas that if we are to check others, we must ourselves make sure that we are not found wanting. I agree. In our report we said we could not adopt amendments to the protocol and rules, because we don’t have a two thirds majority in Pan African Parliament. We have traveled all the way from our countries to Midrand, and then we go about our personal and individual, private businesses at the expense of PAP plenary. These are facts, and it affects all of us. Therefore, I think it is important that this serves as a lesson to all of us.Honourable President, I have tried to answer to the best of my ability, besides I acknowledge several other constructive comments, which surely will add value to our report as I said earlier. Some of the issues raised needed commenting on, and that’s what I have done. With these remarks Madam President, I once again seize this opportunity and thank on behalf of the Committee all those who contributed. I therefore, submit this report to you for your consideration and adoption. Thank you very much. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honourable Jatta for that elaborate response. Honourable Members, before we conclude I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome our President to the Chamber. Welcome back Mr. PresidentI believe this has been a very lively debate and the response was thorough. As far as I can remember, almost every issue that was raised has been responded to. So I thank you once again for your articulation. Now, unless the President has anything to contribute; if there is nothing, I want to say on behalf of the Bureau, that this is the purpose for which this Committee was set. I feel that you have achieved the objective for which the Committee was set. The Committee is supposed to keep us all accountable, the administration, the bureau, even the Committees in your own work and as you go about your work. I thank you so much and keep up the work. So, I would like to put the report to you Honourable Members, there is a hand up, yes, the Honourable from Rwanda,AN HONOURABLE MEMBER:Thank you Madam, I have been looking around and I have not seen our President and our Vice President, from the Committee of Transport; in charge of Communication. Somebody has just said before me that we should reduce the number of papers used in PAP. I would like to tell the House that we have been working on a document; we call it Communication Plan, we are planning to see how we can reduce the use of papers in PAP and the plan itself, either today or tomorrow, will be on the table of our President. Thank you Madam.THE PRESIDENT:Okay, thank you Honourable Member. I now want to move and put this report to you for adoption [HONOURABLE MEMBERS: Clap hands). Thank you so much, thank you for adopting the report. So, Honourable Members I do not see anybody from the AUC to present the Budget report of the AUC as has been indicated on the Oder paper. So that brings us to the end of our business. The Clerk has some announcements to make.
4.0 – ANNONCES
MR CLERK:Thank you Honourable President. Honourable Members we would like to announce that as scheduled, the retreat between the PRC and the PAP, which will take place on the 15th and 16th, PIC members arriving on the 14th in the evening is going ahead as planned. So the budget plans who have been indicated in the invitations that were given to you, you are expected to attend. Any other information that may have come in between has since been laid to rest. So the retreat is going ahead. So we ask you please to continue with the arrangements that you had made for attendance.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Mr. Clerk for that communication. That is very, very important because we are aware that some information had been coming saying that the PRC had postponed the meeting. Now, this is communication from us, the meeting has not been postponed, it will take place as had been scheduled. Honourable Members, we have now come to the end of our business for today, therefore this House stands adjourned until Tuesday, 12th 0ctober, 09.00hrs.La séance est levée à dix-sept heures vingt-six minutes jusqu’au lendemain, mardi, 12 octobre 2010 à neuf heures
Tuesday, 12th October 2010
1.0 – MESSAGE DE LA PRÉSIDENCE
LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres, conformément aux dispositions de l’article 9 du Règlement intérieur, j’invite l’honorable Maria Aurora Sano de Guinée Bissau à prêter serment.(Silence observé)L’Honorable membre n’est pas dans la Chambre.Honorables membres,Conformément aux dispositions de l’article 38.1.g du Règlement intérieur, j’invite le Docteur ABEBE Haile-Gabriel, Directeur de l’Economie rurale et de l’Agriculture de la Commission de l’Union africaine et le Docteur Sylvester MPANDENI, Conseiller spécial sur l’adaptation au changement climatique et conseiller du Président du Conseil des ministres africains en charge de l’eau à entrer dans la Chambre.(Entrée des invités dans l’hémicycle).J’invite Monsieur le Secrétaire général à donner lecture du 1er point inscrit à l’ordre du jour.THE CLERK:Presentation and debate on Climate Change.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie.Dr ABEBE Haile-Gabriel, Directeur de l’Economie rurale et de l’Agriculture de la Commission de l’Union africaine, nous vous souhaitons la bienvenue en plénière et vous invitons à faire votre présentation.
2.0 – PRÉSENTATION ET DÉBAT RELATIFS AU CHANGEMENT CLIMATIQUE
DR. ABEBE HAILE GABRIEL:Honorable President of the Pan African Parliament, Honorable Members of the Pan African Parliament, good morning. It is a pleasure and an honor for me to make a presentation on the report on Climate Change, representing Her Excellency, Mrs. Tumusiime Rhoda Peace, Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture of the African Union Commission.My presentation focuses on three areas. The first one is a background which I will not dwell much. The paper that we have prepared has been circulated to Honorable Members of PAP. The second one is on the involving role of the African Union in Climate Change Negotiations. The third one will be on the outcomes of the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen and preparations for the next round of negotiations and the role of the AU and that of the African Union Commission in this whole process.By way of background, the papers that we circulated is intended to give some introductory highlights on the UN framework, Convention and climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, the ad hoc working groups that have been working on the two tracks of negotiation. The first one on Kyoto Protocol and the other one on long time cooperative actions popularly known as the Barley Road Map as well as a practice to the Convention and Kyoto Protocol and the various kinds of strategic alliances that exist and that have been imaging in the course of the negotiations. Suffice to say that the African Union has a status of observer, so it is not a part to the Convention or to the Kyoto Protocol and therefore at the moment it is in the process of being acceded to the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol decisions have met to that respect. I will report on progress.Honorable Members of Parliament, the role of the AU has been evolving as you may have been following in the global climate change negotiations. Other groups such as the European Union, for example has been negotiating from an established common position. This was not the case for Africa. African countries they are parties to the Convention but as the group the African Union has not been part to the Convention. Lack of a common platform has made the African negotiators particularly vulnerable and rendered their voice unheard. Absence of a political process to provide guidance, reinforcing the technical negotiations process has made the situation worse. It is in realization of such a deficiency that the African Ministerial Conference on Environment called for an articulation of an African common position and support from African political leaders. This gives the impetus for the subsequent decisions and actions taken by the African Union.I would like to mention a couple of the relevant decisions in this respect, it started with the 12th Ordinary Session of the Assembly, the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government that was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in February 2009, which adopted the decision on the African Common position on Climate Change. This decision met a watershed in the African Union participative on approaches towards this climate change negotiations. The decision was based on the imperatives for making concerted efforts towards this articulating Africa’s common position on Climate Change. Negotiating this common position with one voice and the necessity of providing political guidance and direction to technical negotiating process as well as on the importance of providing organizational, institutional support and backstopping to the negotiation process.You may recall that the key elements of these decisions include number one, the need for climate change in negotiations to give Africa an opportunity to demand and get compensation for the damage to its economy caused by global warming. Second, the need for Africa to be represented by one delegation empowered to negotiate on behalf of all member states. The decision mandated the EU Commission to work on modalities for the implementation of that decision.In its 13th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government that was held in Sirt Libya in July 2009. The decisions were adopted to strengthen and elaborate the previous decision on climate change negotiation. This decision is called the decision on the Africa’s common position of climate change including the modalities of the representation of Africa to the Summit on Climate Change which approves the Executive Council decisions notable two.The first one is a provision for the establishment of the Committee of Africa Heads of State and Government on Climate Change, comprising the following countries: Algeria, the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mauritius,Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, the Chairperson of the AU which rotates every year, the Chairperson of the Commission and the President of AMCEN. It also decided for the updates, Algiers Declaration on African Climate Platform to Copenhagen that was adopted in Kenya, in May 2009 to serve as a platform of the African common position and mandates the Committee of ten which is called CAHOSCC. AUAmbassadors and Africa negotiators to make use of the African common position on climate change. It also decided that a unity for climate change and desertification control should be established at the Commission. Moreover the Executive Council decided which was adopted by the Assembly providing for African Union to accede to the UNFCC and the Kyoto Protocol meaning requesting the AU to become part to the Convention and to the Kyoto Protocol.Second item I would like to brief Honorable Members of Parliament is on the Africa in the Climate change negotiations up to the Copenhagen Conference. Africa’s main concerns and expectations are underpinned by its vulnerability and weak capacity to adapt to climate change. While Africa has contributed the least to the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it is the most vulnerable Continent to the impact of climate change and has the least capacity to adapt. Africa’s priorities are to implement climate change programmes with a focus on adaptation in such a way as to achieve sustainable development in particular to alleviate poverty and attain the Millennium Development Goals with emphasis on the most vulnerable groups especially women and children. It has a number of concerns including to transfer and development of technology on capacity building and on the inadequacy, complexity and fragmental nature of the existing financial mechanisms to respond to the challenges hence concerning African countries from gaining full access full access to these resources.The Members of Ten which is called CAHOSCC elected His Excellency Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia as their coordinator who subsequently represented Africa in the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change Negotiations. Africa was put on the limelight soon after it was known that Africa has decided to negotiate from a common position and fielding a single team of negotiators in Global Climate Change Negotiations. It has aroused interest among major negotiating practice and groups because Africa’s united voice will have influence in the outcomes of the negotiating process. It was cleaved that Africa has now evolved to become a force to beacon with that can influence the process and outcomes through its share numbers as it contains 53 out 194 parties to the Conventions and 190 parties to the Kyota Protocol which can no longer be ignored easily.What was the outcome of the Copenhagen Conference? After a serious of negotiations sessions that took place in 2008 and 2009, many observers felt that the working group on long time cooperative action have met satisfactory progress on adoption on technology and capacity building but still, deep divides remained on issues of mitigation and certain aspects of finance. The focus of the working group on Kyoto Protocol as is known on members, namely the Annex 1 countries, these are countries in the developed world as well as some in transition, aggregate and individual emission reduction beyond 2012 which the Kyoto Protocol first commitment period expires. Many observers felt that insufficient progress been made in Annex 1 practice aggregate and individual targets and differences also surface between the developed and developing countries concerning whether the outcome from Copenhagen should be an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol or a single EU agreement under both working groups. Therefore, it was clear that the possibility of a legally binding climate change deal coming out of Copenhagen Climate Conference was nonexistent.The UN Climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark which took place from 7 up to 19 December 2009 was attended by over 110 world leaders especially high level segment from 16 to 18 December. Between the high level segment informal negotiations took place in a group consisting of major economies and representatives of regional and other negotiating groups including Africa. The talks resulted in a political agreement which is known as the Copenhagen accord which the Conference of parties took note of by 29 July 2010, 137 countries had indicated their support for the accord. The Conference also agreed to extend the mandate of the two working groups requesting them to present their respective outcomes to the Conference of the parties, the 16th Session in Cancun in Mexico in December 2010.The post Copenhagen scenario and the run up to Cancun, the coordinator of CAHOSCC, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia presented his report on the conduct and outcomes of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference to the 14th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in February 2010. The Assembly subsequently adopted a decision on the 15th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol which, among other things, endorsed the provisions of the Copenhagen Accord and encouraged all member states that may wish to do so to make individual submissions to the UNFCCC Secretariat supporting the Accord. It also endorses the extension of His Excellency Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s mandate to lead CAHOSCC for the next two conferences of Parties the one in Cancun December 2010 and the second one in South Africa which will take place in 2011 and requested the CAHOSCC to establish a streamlined single negotiation structure at the Ministerial and Expert levels to replace the current coordinating mechanism.Subsequently, based on the report of the CAHOSCC on progress achieved to implement the Assembly decision on establishing streamlined single negotiating structure at the ministerial and expert levels, the 14th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly of Heads State and Government endorse it. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has the Chair of the African Group of Negotiators which was already selected through the UNFCCC process to coordinate at expert level with the Federal Republic of Nigeria as core coordinator for smooth and effective coordination at expert’s level. Similarly Algeria was endorsed as a coordinator at Ministerial levels with the Republic of Mali the new President of AMCEN as core coordinator. Membership of the CAHOSCC was also expanded when the Assembly endorsed the inclusion of DRC as member of CAHOSCC taking account of its role as Chair of the African Group of Technical Negotiators as well as the extension of membership of the Republic of South Africa which was a member due to its role as the President of AMCEN which is now taken by Mali. Taking into account the fact that South Africa will be the host of the Conference of Parties Session 17.I would like to briefly touch on the role of the AU Commission on implementation of the Assembly decisions on climate change. As the Secretariat of the African Union, the Commission follows up the implementations of the AU decisions. Accordingly, the Commission has been facilitating the implementation of the decisions on climate change.Number one relates to facilitation of the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on climate change engagement. As could be noted, the Commission supports and facilitates the work of the CAHOSCC. It is through the Commission that the CAHOSCC conducts its business and in this respect it is a Commission that had put up a proposal to CAHOSCC Ministers for streamlining of the coordination mechanism at ministerial and expert levels, which was later adopted by the Assembly in July 2010 in Kampala Uganda.On the Establishment of a Climate Change and Desertification Control Unit. Pursuant to the decision to establish a Climate Change and Desertification Control Unit at the Commission, the Commission submitted an elaborated proposal as an institutional base to facilitate the work of African negotiating process to the PRC (Permanent Representative Committee), which has yet to pronounce itself on this proposal.On accession of the AU to the UNFCCC and UNCCD, the Office of the Legal Counsel of the Commission and the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture has been consulting with the Office of the Secretary General of the UN on how to expedite implementation of this decision. This is expected to be accomplished in the next few months. The implementation of this decision is that AU once acceded; it will become a part to the Convention, which will facilitate its role of coordination of efforts of the AU Member States and advancing the African composition on Climate Change.On elaboration of an African strategy on Climate Change, the Commission is also seized with elaboration of an African strategy on climate change pursuant to the decision that requested the Commission, in collaboration with partners to do the same.In areas of advocacy, partnerships, programme implementation, resource mobilization, the Commission has been engaging in advocacy, building partnerships and strategic alliances in support of Africa’s common position. For example, recently, taking into account the role that agriculture plays within the economy and livelihood processes of the majority of Africans, it has been engaging partners in an initiative to bring agriculture concerns into the climate change agenda. The Commission has also been spearheading programmes and projects that have bearings on the climate change concerns whose primary purpose is to support the capacities of Member States and Regional Economic Communities. Some of these include:The African Monitoring of Environment for Sustainable Development;The capacity building programme for the Multi-lateral Environmental Agreements;The climate information for development programme that is being jointly implemented with UNECA and ADB;The Great Green Wall for Sahara and Sahel Initiative;The disaster risk reduction strategy and so on.Finally, Honorable President, Honorable Members of Parliament, I would like to touch on the current status of negations and prospects for Cancun and beyond. After Copenhagen, few rounds of climate change talks were going on. The very recent and the last one before Cancun being the Tianjin, China talks which took place from 4 to 8 October, 2010. This was expected to focus on preparing the draft decisions for possible adoption in Cancun, Mexico which will take place early December, 2010.So far, the general observation and understanding is that more legally binding instrument will come out in Cancun. This is largely because of lack of progress in climate change legislation in the USA and as a result the EU making this as a precondition for them to come forward and make real commitments. However, there is a possibility of reaching some decisions in Cancun on architecture of implementation that include, creation of a climate fund, development of an adaptation framework, creation of a technological mechanism, definition of a mechanism to support REDFD (Reducing Emission through Deforestation and Forest Degradation) and more positive debate about the role of market mechanisms. This implies that the expectations for a possible legally binding agreement are to be postponed for the 2010 Climate Change Conference to be held here in South Africa. It also implies that Africa needs to restrategise based on lesson learnt from the processes and outcomes that have been followed that far.I would like to thank you for your attention. Thank you. (Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Dr. Abebe Hailé-Gabriel, Directeur de l’Economie rurale et de l’Agriculture de la Commission de l’Union africaine, nous vous félicitons pour cette brillante présentation. Vous avez fait l’historique et le rappel, en passant par le Protocole de Kyoto, la feuille de route de Bali, le rôle de l’Union africaine dans ce processus, le rôle particulier de la Commission de l’Union africaine, la position connue de l’Afrique sur le changement climatique, les conclusions de Copenhague, et maintenant l’après-Copenhague, les attentes du continent. Nous nous félicitons que le département de l’Economie rurale et de l’Agriculture de la Commission de l’Union africaine joue très bien son rôle de coordination et de secrétariat, et nous nous félicitons que votre département associe le Parlement panafricain et l’ensemble des organes de l’Union africaine à toutes ses activités.Je vous remercie, encore une fois, de venir nous entretenir de ce sujet à la plénière du Parlement panafricain.A présent, honorables membres, je vais inviter le Dr. Sylvester Mpandeni, conseiller spécial sur le changement climatique et conseiller du Président du Conseil des ministres africains en charge de l’eau à faire sa présentation.DR. SYLVESTER MPANFEMI:Honourable Parliamentarians, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I am standing in front of you representing Honourable Mrs. Biella Patience Sundinka, Chairperson of the African Ministerial Council on Water and South African Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs.Colleagues, my presentation is about the National Climate Change Policy Response Document that we are busy working with in this country. I am going to cover the general overview and also include the Cabinet Policy Directions that we undertook as a country and the progress to date, background information, the compilation of the Green Paper that we are busy with, and the areas of policy divergence, and lastly it will be the summary and conclusion.Just trying to recap from my colleagues who presented first, we are all aware of the fact that what had started as an environmental related issue has now been turned into economic and political issues. However, several international and local concerns around the climate change and variability in Africa focus on adaptation and vulnerability and the fact that climate change and variability varies from region to region. However, climate change has got no boundaries and it is going to affect all of us irrespective of whether we are in the South, North and so on.Without adaptation, climate change may reduce the wildlife reserve network significantly by altering ecosystems and cause species migration and extinction. Other risks include changes in agricultural production. In most of the fora, we are all raising concern about the food security in our continent. Despite these efforts African countries are particularly vulnerable to climav0te change because of limited adaptive capacity. The recurrent drought and floods that we normally experience year in year out are indicative of the climate changes that are taking place. The socioeconomic conditions such as HIV/AIDS, incorrect agricultural practices, land reform programs that we sometimes implement in incorrect ways.However, a shared approach between countries may strengthen adaptation strategies.Coming back specifically to the South African situation, cabinet policy direction, just for as a brief, background information. The process that we undertook five years ago is now yielding positive results. In 2005, we had the first National Climate Change Summit here in Midrand at Gallagher Estate wherein we tried by all means to convince our skeptics. There were a lot of people who were arguing about the fact that climate change is a myth; that there is nothing like that. That climate has been changing and so what is it all about?After that summit, in 2006 we undertook a study, the long term mitigation scenario where the information or the results from that document were used to come up with six translated policy directions and we took those six policy direction themes. The first one is the greenhouse emissions, reductions and limits, wherein we are saying we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as a country. And the second point is the fact that we need to build on the strength and scale up our current initiatives. We are all aware about the fact that we need to reduce our emission activities, but at the same time we cannot compromise our sustainable development ideas.The third point is the implementation of the business and mutual call for action. The fifth one was on the preparation for the future. This is also in our Constitution and it is also on our Foreign Policy. The fifth one was about the vulnerability and adaptation because if you recall, especially at international negotiations level, Africa has identified four components that is mitigation, Africa is going to focus on mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology and capacity building.The last point about our fifth policy direction is the alignment, coordination and cooperation. Because whatever policies that we are going to develop related to climate change, we do not want to make that policy document a stand-alone. We need to make sure that we align with our existing policy documents and strategies. We need to make sure that we align that document with our regional initiatives; we also need to make sure that we align that policy with some of the initiatives undertaken by the Secretariat for example.Where are we as a country?Progress to dateThe 2009 Climate Change Policy Summit was formally initiated and as a result of that we started to come up with policy development processes. The climate change policy summit was also held here in Gallagher Estate.However, there was relatively slow progress with limited sectoral inputs and I will also explain what those sectoral activities are. Although there was sort of slow progress we thought maybe after the COP15 in Copenhagen maybe we will incorporate some of the information based on the outcomes. However, we are all aware of what happened in Copenhagen and I do not want to dwell much on that.On 17 May 2010, National Climate Change Response Policy Development Roundtable was held here with various stakeholders, including the business people, research organizations, academic, advocacy groups, and so on.July 2010, we developed the background information document and I am just going to give you a framework or a skeleton structure. Well in that document we developed the purpose of the document in the introduction, including the South African Climate Records and Trends. If I can refer you to the long term mitigation document that we have developed and the South African Second National Communication Document that we are supposed to submit to the United Nations Framework Convention, there are results which show that the Western part of South Africa is going to be dry and the eastern part is going to be wetter as time goes on. And as result of that, we need to come up with contingency plans to make sure that we counter whatever natural vagaries.In that document, besides the fact that we have also done our own studies, we also need to make sure that we benchmark our activities with UNFCCC report of activities.In that document we also assess the current status of negotiations, key issues under discussion and what is achievable.However, we have managed to identify various sectors that are really affected by the impact of climate change and the reason why we have decided to call them sectors not departments, is based on the fact that last year, after our general elections, we increased the number of ministries as a result of that. For example the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is one ministry with three sectors and we have decided to treat- (Interruption)THE PRESIDENT:Interpretation in Arabic.DR. SYLVESTER MPANFEMI:Shall I continue?THE PRESIDENT:Yes.DR. SYLVESTER MPANFEMI:Okay. I was still saying that one of the reasons why we have decided to call them sectors instead of departments is based on the fact that we have realigned some of our ministries and as a result of that we thought it is better to call them sectors rather than departments.So, at the moment we have managed to identify the following sectors: that is the water sector, and what we are expecting these sectors to do is to come up with information related to climate change and also the potential adaptive response measures.The document that we have at the moment is not a big document, but the good thing is that those sectors have also managed to come up with some cross-sectoral linkages, crosscutting issues, transboundary implications and information.The second sector that we have also identified is the forestry, followed by terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem, ocean and coastal human, rural livelihood, urban risk prevention, disaster management and the health sector.The point here is that we are trying to gather information from both natural resource sectors, economic sectors and science and technology sectors. As a result of that we have managed to come up with a draft document wherein the first section of that document, section 1, is the preamble, where in a one to two page encapsulation of the core climate change issues through the justification of why do we need national climate change policy? And this section, we are also going ask why do we need to respond to climate change impact?Again, after section 1, we have also put section 2 about the objective and a clear and unambiguous description of the objective, desired outcome of South African Climate Change Response based on the studies done by our scientists in this country.The third section is about the principle. A concise list of the key principle guiding the proposed response to climate change, and this is where we are trying to answer the question, how do we achieve the desire outcome of the policy?The forth section is the policy directive. As I have indicated to you that I am in Cabinet, he has identified six broad policies and those broad policies are within this section 4 which is policy directive. This is the meter of the policy which is divided into key impacted or affected economy sectors arranged in alphabetical order as I have mentioned to you earlier. The sectors are specifically chosen, so as not to align with the national department portfolios. Once you start to align these sectors with specific government departments, that is where you will have a lot of problems because of internal politics. But if you call them sectors, that is where you are trying to be inclusive and also bringing in National Research Organisation, Public Enterprises, NGO’s and so on.As I have indicated to you the policy directives, for each sector, there is a brief introductive paragraph describing the sector climate change relevance. All those sectors that I have mentioned, they have come up with these messages. And the other issue is the fact that, they have managed to come up with a concise bullet points on the sector impact on climate change mitigation or climate change impact on the adaptation and the broader social economic, social political, climate change implications for the sector, including opportunities.So, colleagues, I know that when we talk about climate change issues, we are only thinking about negative things. But we also need to try to identify positive opportunities.The other issue that is in the green paper document that we have just developed is the fact that we have managed to come up with the response to this climate challenges for the sector. And we have asked those sectors to say, how are they going to respond to the impact of climate change? And we have also requested them to make sure that, they have to come up with a directive and concise description of what we will do as a nation in meeting the objectives. As I have indicated to you, policy directives include sectors of Agriculture, Biodiversity, Building and Construction, commercial forestry, commercial and retail, disaster management, education, energy, financial, fisheries, health, manufacturing, mining and mineral resources, tourism, transport, western water. Besides the fact that we are busy developing this National Climate Change Document, we are also running in parallel and developing the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan because we are asking them in those sectors to say, how are they going to come up with some interventions in terms of adaptation activities. Adaptation is a key priority in this country.In section 5, we have defined and identified the roles and responsibility. We have also asked those sectors to provide a brief overview of who should be doing what in respect of the policy directives.And then section 6 is the institutional framework for the coordination. Provide a brief overview of the structures responsible for ensuring coordinated, consistent, align, cohesive, coherent integrated approach to our climate change response.Colleagues, we are trying by all means to make sure that as a country, whatever activities we do, we should try to align them with regional activities. So, there is need to try to make sure that we align those activities with continental activities.And section 7 in that document is the monitoring and evaluation and review. It provides guidelines on the progress in meeting the objective and implementing the directives and also the measured, reportable and verified, (the MRV) from this. How this policy will be reviewed to ensure its continued relevance. However, it is a well known point that when you are developing policies, you will always have people who are vocal and who are concerned about certain issues. During the stakeholder consultation, some of the stakeholders raised the fact that we need to identify areas of policy divergence. And as result, here are some of the messages that we have obtained from those stakeholders; the nature of their countries, energy mix, the meaning of cleaner energy, the transparency of integrated energy planning and operational institutional arrangement.Let me point it out that at the moment the Department of Energy here in South Africa is busy addressing the integrated resource plan for electricity. They have sent that document for public comments until end of November.The other issue, which was raised by various stakeholders is the transparency in the decision making process. What was stressed by most participants with several calling for an independent review of ESKOM, your building programme in light of climate change consideration. We know that when we talk about ESKOM, there are a lot of big issues there.The other issue is on economic instruments. Most participants felt that taxes, emission, trading, incentives, subsidies could play a role. Some felt that the double dividend both green house gas emission reduction and social economic benefit could be achieved by recycling the revenue of carbon tax or auctioning allowance for domestic greenhouse, gas emission trading.Let me point it out that South Africa has already started implementing the carbon tax and this process started last month, 1st of September, where 2.5 percent has been ordered on whatever vehicles that dealers are going to sell to the clients. So, it is going to be interesting and there are people who are raising concerns that it is going to hit hard on our pockets and so on. But we need to do something.My concluding remarks are that in South Africa, we need to support the sound and rational development while minimizing adverse effects on the environment. And we also need to change our political thinking and strategies if we will like to reduce the problem of climate change. Colleagues, at the moment, in our department, specifically the Department of Environmental Affairs, we have decided to make sure that some of our programmes need to be linked, for example with regional initiatives. For example the SADC Secretariat Climate Change Programme so that at the end of the day, we mustn’t be like we are running our activities as a stand-alone. We need to make sure that we collaborate with our SADC countries. We need to make sure that we support Africa as a whole; we also need to make sure that we exchange ideas; we network with our neighbouring countries.The last point is the effective management of the natural resource while contributing to the social economic well-being of our citizens, is therefore essential. This information is also in our Constitution. We also need to ensure that we conserve and preserve our natural resources. We also need to make sure that we look after in our natural resources, we also need to make sure that we take care of the African resources. And lastly, we also need to make sure that globally we will play an important role.Colleagues, this is my presentation. I thought it is better if we shared these ideas with you so that you have an overview on what is South Africa doing at the moment. There are various activities, but this is what we are doing as a lead department when it comes to climate change issues.I thank you. (Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Nous vous remercions, Docteur Sylvester MPANDENI, conseiller spécial sur le changement climatique et conseiller du Président du Conseil des ministres africains en charge de l’eau.Nous avons apprécié votre brillante présentation. Nous avons également noté que vous êtes devenu un des nôtres, pendant votre présentation, parce que, à plusieurs reprises, vous nous avez appelés ‘chers collègues’.A présent, j’appelle l’honorable Augustin IYAMUREMYE, Président de la Commission permanente de l’Economie rurale, de l’Agriculture, des Ressources naturelles et de l’Environnement à faire sa présentation.HON. IYAMUREMYE AUGUSTIN [RWANDA]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président de me donner la parole.Honorables membres du Parlement panafricain,Honorables invités,Au nom de la Commission de l’Economie rurale, de l’Agriculture, des Ressources naturelles et de l’Environnement, je voudrais tout d’abord féliciter les présentateurs qui viennent de nous entretenir d’un sujet très préoccupant.Monsieur le Président,Je voudrais d’abord rappeler que la principale mission de la Commission de l’économie rurale, de l’agriculture, des ressources naturelles et de l’environnement est d’assister le Parlement dans sa mission de surveillance et d’assistance à l’harmonisation des politiques de développement rural et agricole et de promouvoir la politique de développement et la mise en œuvre des programmes de l’Union africaine, en matière de ressources naturelles et d’environnement. C’est pourquoi notre Commission a inscrit à son ordre du jour, et comme préoccupation majeure, le problème du changement climatique.Le changement climatique a un impact négatif sur les écosystèmes, la biodiversité, les ressources en eau, les terres, l’habitat, bref sur la vie sur terre. Les impacts des changements climatiques vont s’aggravant et, surtout, sur le continent africain qui, pourtant, est le moins responsable de la pollution qui entraine le réchauffement climatique.Des recherches montrent que la température de la terre augmentera de 3 à 4 degrés, à la fin du 21e siècle, avec des conséquences drastiques sur le développement socio-économique et l’environnement, surtout pour notre continent.L’irrégularité des pluies et des saisons accroîtra l’insécurité alimentaire et les risques d’épuisement des ressources hydriques.Dans la prochaine décade, 75 à 250 millions d’individus en Afrique seront exposés à un risque de manque aigu de l’eau, à cause des changements climatiques. Les coûts de l’adaptation au changement climatique en Afrique sont évalués à peu près entre 5 et 10% du PIB et les perspectives de solution radicale et effective ne sont pas évidentes.Le problème est de savoir, donc, comment l’Afrique va affronter les menaces d’insécurité alimentaire et de pauvreté, de résurgence des maladies et de toutes les catastrophes prévisibles, sans oublier les conflits qui sont provoqués par la rareté des ressources naturelles, foncières et hydriques.Monsieur le Président,Les conséquences des changements climatiques vont au-delà du domaine de l’environnement et de l’agriculture. Elles concernent le développement socio-économique et touchent à la paix et à la sécurité des nations. Rappelez-vous des guerres qui sont liées au partage des eaux, des pressions sur les terres, etc. Nous y reviendrons dans notre rapport d’activités, Monsieur le Président, parce que notre Commission envisage et a déjà commencé des activités liées à l’atténuation des conséquences des changements climatiques sur notre continent.Notre Commission ne peut donc que se réjouir des décisions prises au plus haut niveau de l’Union africaine notamment pour harmoniser les points de vues et adopter une vision commune pour le continent africain en vue des négociations relatives au changement climatique notamment pour exiger une compensation et une aide accrue de la part des pays les plus grands pollueurs en vue d’adapter et d’atténuer les effets des changements climatiques.Quelle est et quelle doit être la position du Parlement panafricain? La Commission que je dirige croit en la nécessité d’une plus grande sensibilisation de chaque parlementaire africain pour que dans chaque pays qui compose ce continent, il y ait un programme et une stratégie bien conçus pour l’atténuation des effets des changements climatiques.Le Parlement panafricain a déjà fait plusieurs recommandations dans ce rapport sur la 15e Conférence des parties de la Convention cadre des Nations unies sur les changements climatiques, après la réunion qui a eu lieu à Copenhague, au Danemark, du 17 au 18 décembre 2009. Il a, entre autres, recommandé que le PAP initie une sensibilisation à l’échelle du continent, en organisant notamment des conférences sur les changements climatiques. Il recommande aussi que le Parlement panafricain s’engage à lancer des campagnes ainsi qu’à suivre de près, à évaluer et à réviser les programmes de la Convention cadre des Nations Unies sur les changements climatiques, parce que cela va dans la droite ligne de sa mission de surveiller et d’évaluer les programmes de la Commission de l’Union africaine. Le PAP doit participer à l’harmonisation des lois relatives à l’environnement.Dans le même rapport, il était préconisé et recommandé que le PAP prenne des dispositions administratives et logistiques et choisisse le personnel d’appui technique en temps utile notamment pour la préparation des COP 16 et 17, je veux dire les réunions au Sommet à Cancun et, en 2010, en Afrique du Sud sur les changements climatiques, parce que notre Commission trouve que notre Parlement doit être représenté au plus haut niveau au Sommet de l’Union africaine, même s’il n’est pas membre du Conseil du CAHOSCC, qu’il ait, au moins, un rôle d’observateur. La Commission avait recommandé aussi que le PAP soit partie prenante pour faire un audit des politiques, des programmes et des lois relatives aux questions environnementales.Monsieur le Président,Avant de terminer, je voudrais encore une fois féliciter les présentateurs et demander que le débat qui va suivre mette en exergue, surtout, la participation de chacun de nous en ce qui concerne le partage d’expériences dans nos pays. Nous venons de partager l’expérience de l’Afrique du Sud et nous devons nous assurer aussi que, dans chacun de nos pays, il existe un document de politiques et de stratégies.Monsieur le Président,Certains aspects des changements climatiques commencent déjà à se faire sentir sur les ressources naturelles de notre continent. C’est ainsi que la Commission a eu à débattre du problème d’accaparement des terres, qui est une des conséquences des changements climatiques et de la crise qu’on voit dans le monde, parce que le continent africain, malgré tout, reste un continent - j’allais dire vierge - qui regorge de ressources naturelles en matière de forêts et d’eaux et c’est pour cette raison que nous devons absolument faire valoir ces richesses. Le Parlement panafricain doit être le garant et la voix des peuples africains pour protéger le patrimoine de l’Afrique.Sur ce, je voudrais, Monsieur le Président, vous remercier. Ce sont là les commentaires que j’avais à faire. Je vous remercie.(Applaudissements).LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, honorable président, pour votre présentation. Vous avez complété valablement et brillamment nos deux hôtes qui nous ont fait de très belles présentations.A présent, les débats sont ouverts.J’ai une première liste de 9 intervenants et le temps accordé à chaque intervenant est d’un maximum de 5 minutes. Au bout de 4 minutes et demie, l’intervenant va entendre une sonnerie au niveau de son pupitre et il saura, à ce moment, qu’il ne lui reste que 30 secondes.Le premier inscrit sur ma liste est l’honorable SANTOSH VINITA KALYAN.HON. KALYAN VINITA SANTOSH [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Mr. President. Colleagues as you have heard, the global climate presents one of the most significant of the world’s environmental challenges facing man. While the African continent contributes the least to global emissions of green house gases; it is the most vulnerable to its effects. You have heard from Dr. Gabriel that the AU had no voice at COP 15; it is my considered opinion that the Pan-African Parliament has a huge role to play, because managing climate change is primarily a governance issue. To this end, I took the initiative in October last year, to propose in a motion on the formation of a climate change interest group. And the reason for that is that, while climate change is logically in the portfolio committee or the permanent committee of environment agriculture and rural, the reality is, it is a cross cutting issue and it overlaps across many portfolios and therefore I proposed the formation of this climate change interest group. And the main idea, around us was:To provide a platform for parliamentarians to discuss issues and share information regarding climate change.To help parliamentarians in both in PAP and Africa to understand changing planet by looking at the dynamics of oceans and complex internal earth systems.To encourage you to deduce your carbon footprint by information sharing on waste minimization methods and technologies, conserving bio-diversity and equal systems.To help you to campaign for the adaptation of life styles and economic activity in respond to rapid and extreme environmental changes including challenges of water and food security.To facilitate awareness about the need for a green environment and a green economy and to facilitate appropriate legislation on climate change for Africa.The idea is for us to communicate regularly, exchange, share information and hopefully not only when we are here but via face book and twitter.Yesterday I called a meeting of the 66 persons who had indicated that they wished to be part of the climate change interest group. Regrettably only five people attended. I hope that after today’s debate, many of you will be further energized to participate in the activities. What is it that we Parliamentarians can do? We can use our various platforms to ask questions, pose motions and use any other mechanisms in Parliament to highlight the important issues regarding climate change. We can assist; perhaps this could be the first thing that the Pan-African parliament does in terms of legislation, draft legislation around climate change for the whole of Africa. The UK model is very good one, and we could learn from it. In your Parliaments you could possibly submit private members Bill on climate change related issues.Parliamentarians should encourage public private partnerships to tackle the challenges of climate change, you could establish climate change interest groups in your constituencies and if you have certain committees dealing with this, you can hold public hearings. These are just some of the things that I hope we will be able to discuss and become pro-active about. It is pointless getting all hyped up just because a conference is happening in Copenhagen or in Cancun. We have got to personalize it to yourself, your Parliament and your constituency.Before I conclude, I would like to just share with you one point that came out of a conference that I attended in Addis Ababa recently, on drug control and crime prevention. I would be remiss in my duty if I didn’t share this with you; there is a new form of environmental crime that is pervading Africa, and this is the growing of cannabis. May I have a few minutes please; many countries reported that their constituency would rather grow cannabis than carrots and potatoes. And I am asking you to become aware of this, because what is happening here is that; deforestation is happening in order to grow the cannabis, the drug problem is escalating. What is actually happening is that the land that has been used to grow the cannabis cannot be used for five years after that to do anything profitable with it. So I am asking you to go back and declare the cultivation of cannabis an environmental crime, I thank you.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup honorable Kalyan. Votre résolution a été l’objet d’une adoption et nous avons, maintenant, le réseau des parlementaires sur le changement climatique. 500 parlementaires se sont inscrits; d’autres attendent de le faire.L’honorable Kalyan et le secrétaire ont organisé, au mieux, la rencontre pour que tous les inscrits puissent participer.Le second sur ma liste est l’honorable Bernadette Lahai de la Sierra Leone.Honorable Bernadette Lahai!HON. LAHAI BERNADETTE [SIERRA LEONE]:Thank you, Mr. President. I also want to acknowledge the presentation made this morning on this very important life threatening topic of climate change.Mr. President, colleague Members of Parliament, the skeptics of climate change have argued that there is no climate change, and that the climate is nearly the same as it was maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago. They are of the view that the search for the causes of the many phenomena or disaster that is happening over Africa or the world over has to be looked at from the spiritual point of view. But the good news is that there are more converted persons than the skeptics and that is hope for us to challenge head on, this seeming situation, because to ignore that climate change does exist and to do nothing about it is to actually deny our own very existence and that of the future generation and those yet to be born.Mr. President, I am happy that at last Africa has found it justifiable and imperative that we speak with one voice, especially on this important issue, particularly from the fact that although Africa is the least emitter of Carbon, we suffer the most. Therefore, given our rich natural resources, our rich mineral resources and our rich heritage, we can be a formidable force, if we come together to speak with one voice. And I give my heart to the Committee on the African Heads of State on Climate Change that has been formed and I think we should give them all the moral, financial and technical support for them to position Africa appropriately along the discourse on future climate change debates.Mr. President and hon. Members; let me say that the contribution of Africa to climate change is minimal as has been said, but Africa has actually failed to take advantage of the various financial and technological incentives. Africa has failed to take advantage of the clean development mechanism provisions and as we talk about REDD+ that is, Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Degradation, Africa will even further fail to reap this benefit if we do not position ourselves, because the conditionalities under which African countries can be REDD ready are very onerous because it needs a lot of data and a lot of statistics. And while you are preparing to be REDD ready you have to stop doing those things that will contribute to climate change for example deforestation. And given the paucity of information and data generation in Africa, we stand to lose out on these new financial provisions under the REDD +.I wonder how many African countries have actually positioned themselves by having their NAPAs, that is, National Adaptation Plan of Actions. This is very important because according to the stern Commission Report, not doing anything now will cost us tenfold of what we need to invest if we are to mitigate.So, I encourage us in this Parliament to ensure that our governments have in place appropriate NAPAs. I also would encourage us in Parliament, at the national level and the sub-national level, to come together and form our parliamentary networks on climate change.In Sierra Leone, I chair the African Parliamentarians Network on Climate Change and I am also a member of the E-Parliament. The EParliament is a forum of Parliamentarians across Africa and the world that exchange information on best practices on technology, clean energy access as well as climate change.Mr. Chairman and hon. Members, Sierra Leone has also enacted the Sierra Leone Protection Agency, which is now responsible for ensuring that all activities across the sectors are environmentally friendly and in fact without a certificate to ensure that your activities are environmentally friendly, hardly any of those activities will go on.So, let me conclude by encouraging us who have appended our signatures to form this working group in Parliament here, to actually take it very seriously because we can also contribute in our own way by positioning ourselves and the PanAfrican Parliament, and taking advantage of the benefits that will accrue to us having such a parliamentary network. I thank you very much.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Thank you very much Honourable President for giving me the floor.Like my colleagues who spoke before me, let me also take this opportunity to thank and appreciate the three presentations that we have just received from the presenters.Honourable President, the advent of climate change, like economic recession, took the whole world by storm. The climate change issue took us by surprise and caught us unaware.Mr. President climate change is a very important issue, which needs to be taken very seriously and I will urge Honourable Members in this House that every time when they bow down to pray; whether in their homes, churches or offices, they should meditate about this issue because it is very, very, serious.Climate change is a reality and even where we are right now, we are feeling it. During the course of the day the heat is just too much, it is unbearable. Summer temperatures, especially in the southern part of this Continent, can be very scorching.Mr. President, I do support the idea of adopting a common position for the African Continent on climate change as earlier on alluded by the presenter in his presentation. I think our continental mother body should take a lead in this issue. They should craft a Charter on Climate Change and this Charter should be crafted in the same vein, context and tenacity like the Charter on democracy, governance and elections. We Members of PAP should ensure that our governments sign this Charter on Climate Change, ratify it and domesticate it accordingly. As Members of Parliament, we should also play a role by ensuring that we enact specific legislations that are pertinent to the issue of Climate Change.Mr. President, every time when I speak about climate change, I develop some stomach pains. (Laughter) This is a clear sign that this issue has to do with hunger. We are told agricultural production might become costly as a result of climate change. We as Members of Parliament like I said we should play a major role on this issue.Mr. President, Africans need to have an understanding of the interaction between climate, society and the environment. The African states should be asked or persuaded to purchase infrastructure that will project the climate so that our people should be in a state of preparedness on what is going to happen the next hour or the next few days or the next month in terms of climate change.Mr. President, I do not have much to say, I would just like to urge Members of Parliament to make sure that we take this issue very, very seriously. I thank you Mr. President.HON. NJIKELANA SISA JAMES [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Mr. President. I would like to echo my friends and colleagues’ admiration and commendation of the various inputs from our guest and from Chair. Let me beginning by expressing my strongest support for the inputs that have been made by other Honourable Members on the actions that should be taken in order to strengthen our participation as the Pan African Parliament, on issues regarding climate change.From my side, I would like to emphasize and highlight one thing. Mr. President, there is need to be a paradigm shift in the way that we, as Africa are engaging in issues of climate change. We are held at ransom by the Unites States because they have not done legislation in time. I am just wondering the appropriateness and the rationale of one country in the whole world, holding other countries at ransom by taking its own time whilst people are dying, unemployment and all the negative effects that occur due to climate continue. Hence my emphasis on the need for a paradigm shift on how we engage in climate change issues.Furthermore, support by African peoples has to be quite visible and particularly expressed through organized Civil Society. In other words my appeal is that let’s make sure that as Members of the Pan African Parliament in our own respective countries, we spearhead in the action of Civil Societies. At the end of the day, no matter how much you can engage in COP 16, 17, 18, 19, 20; if we do not display support for our people, those who are intransigent will still strive and fist harvest from current economic activities that devastate the environment.I would like to reinforce my colleagues’ voice around the role and contribution of Pan African Parliament. In fact it should multiply, particularly with regard to issues or institutions such as the APRM and NEPAD. It is high time we ensure that the issues of climate change are included therein, but I have made reference to APRM, amongst other issues that countries should be assessed in their performance, governance and other issues, should be climate change.Once again, let me reinforce what has been said in Copenhagen and previously in our report in May. We should make sure that Parliaments have an observer status in the UNFCC as well as the Council of Parties meetings. We should ensure that the Pan African Parliament use its National and Regional Parliaments in this effort because it is massive and usually challenging. The strength of African in addressing climate change is not only in African Union and its organs, but also in the people themselves.Lastly, Chair, my colleagues have already articulated it, but let me re-emphasize; let us make sure that we are all champions of climate change in our respective countries and let us support the interest group as led by Honourable KALYAN. Thank you.HON. BUNDU KOMBE FLORENCE [SIERRA LEONE]:Mr. Speaker, honourable members, I take this opportunity to address this house on this very important issue, which I happen to have been part of as a PAP delegate to the cops 15. The issue of climate change is a very serious issue that needs to be looked at from the perspective of the following point I have observed. As we are all aware, climate change is already happening and it is one of the greatest environmental, social and economic threats facing our planet today.As we are all aware, sorry, Mr. Speaker, allow me to say that PAP needs to speed up the process of attaining legislative powers. it is only then that the information will reach the grass roots level of the African continent. We have to take domestic actions in our own regions, countries and furthermore, develop our very own African strategy for adapting to climate change. In 2009, Mr. President and since inception, we have remained on track and follow issues of this important matter.Mr. President, it is worrying to note that according to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the earth’s average surface temperature has raised by 0.76 oc. This is just a tip of an ice-berg. The emission of carbon dioxide and other green house gases from human activities is just another threat and without appropriate actions and I emphasize appropriate actions Mr. President, these emissions are likely to raise the temperatures to escalating figures.In conclusion, it is good that there are other collaborative partners who are also working on the same, such as the European Union and others. Therefore, collective partnerships with the European Union and other stake-holders who are already working on this important matter are highly recommended. It is envisaged that through this type of approach, we should as the PanAfrican Parliament accelerate the decisions enshrined in the UN climate change Treaties to which the African Union is a signatory and thereby achieve the objectives of the Kyoto protocol. I thank you Mr. President.HON. EL-HOUDERI MOHAMED ELMADANI [LIBYA]:شكرا سيدي الرئيس على إعطائي الكلمة،أوال باديء ذي بدء، أود أن أحيي السادة الموقرين، الذين قدموا لنا عروضا حول موضوع التغير المناخي. والالفت في هذا أن الجهود اإلفريقية، لمواجهة آثار التغير المناخي، ال زالت متأخرة جدا، بالمقارنة بالكارثة الكبيرة التي نعيشها اآلن. والتي ستتفاقم يوما بعد يوم وعاما بعد عام. مازلنا، نحن األفارقة، نتعامل مع ظاهرة التغير المناخي وكأنها أمر افتراضي لم يحدث بعد. ولكنه هو اآلن واقع معاش. وإفريقيا، التي تعاني من الفقر والجهل ومواردها البشرية تعاني من االحتقار من قبل األخرين ومواردها الطبيعية نهبت ويتكالب األخرون عليها حاليا. وهي، أعني أفريقيا، من أكبر المتضررين من ظاهرة التغير المناخي وهي الضحية الحالية والضحية القديمة لالستعمار ونهب الثروات.ولذلك فإنه من المفروض، لمواجهة التغير المناخي، أن تتخذ إفريقيا موقفا سريعا وعاجال. وأن تعقد قمة استثنائية، لهذا الغرض، وتفرض شروطها على العالم الذي لم يستجب إليقاف الصناعات، التي تبعث الغازات المسببة للتغير المناخي، وأن تدعو إلى فرض عقوبات على الدول التي ال تستجيب.وقد تكون بعض المواد الخام األولية الطبيعية اإلفريقية، التي تصدر لهذه الدول، للصناعات قد تكون سببا في هذا التغير المناخي أو في انبعاث الغازات المسببة للتغير المناخي. ولذلك إفريقيا، باعتبارها مصدرا للمواد الطبيعية وأكبر المتضررين، ينبغي أن تقف وقفة جادة وسريعة، وأن تصيح صيحة خطيرة تبدأ من المواطن العادي وتفعيل كافة االمكانيات، لدرء األخطار المحدقة بالقارة اإلفريقية، والتي بدأت تظهر آثارها. وأنا أعيش في منطقة صحراوية، يعرفها الجميع، جنوب ليبيا وشمال التشاد والحزام الشمسي الكبير، في العالم، حيث درجة الحرارة تصل إلى 47 أو48 درجة.إن التغير المناخي سيزيد من تفاقم وارتفاع درجات الحرارة وستكون الحياة، في هذه المناطق، متعذرة لإلنسان. ولذلك فإني أطلب من البرلمان اإلفريقي أن يتخذ موقفا حازما ونداء دوليا عاجال، التخاذ مواقف جدية، وليست وعودا وكلمات وتمنيات. فهذا أمر ال يحل بالتمنيات.من ضمن ما سمعت في العرض إنشاء السور األخضر. باللغة العربية يقولون: السور األخضر. كلمة السور األخضر ال تقال في هذا المقام، المقصود الذي ترجم ترجمة خاطئة، يقال الحزام األخضر الذي يمتد من شرق إفريقيا إلى غربها، في منطقة الصحراء الكبرى. ولكن هذا أمل منذ سنوات ونحن نسمع به. هل هناك فعال إمكانيات إلنشاء هذا الحزام األخضر اإلفريقي؟ هل درس هذا األمر؟ أما كونه يمول من اإلتحاد األوروبي، فإنني ال أعتقد بأن ذلك سيتم في المستقبل القريب.وشكرا سيدي الرئيـسHON. GBONE YAWOVI HONAM HENRI [TOGO]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je voudrais, à mon tour remercier les présentateurs pour leurs riches exposés.Monsieur le Président,Il y a seulement quelques années, on parlait des changements climatiques et de leurs impacts comme une vue de l’esprit, une sorte de phénomène imaginaire inventé par l’esprit fertile de certains chercheurs activistes. A preuve, aujourd’hui encore, on assiste hélas, dans certains pays développés, à une négation regrettable des changements climatiques par des chercheurs de notoriété mondiale. Or, les changements climatiques sont là, Monsieur le Président, ils se manifestent tous les jours dans nos pays et ailleurs même dans les pays d’origine des chercheurs contestateurs.Des mutations profondes se produisent, chaque année, au niveau des cycles des saisons climatiques dans nos pays, tant et si bien qu’il est devenu aujourd’hui presque impossible de dire quand commence la saison des pluies et quand elle finit.Pire, ces changements engendrent des phénomènes imprévisibles, destructeurs, d’ampleur incommensurable, du genre des inondations à grande échelle, qui entrainent les pertes des récoltes agricoles acquises au prix de durs labeurs, l’anéantissement de villages entiers parfois, voire de plus en plus de quartiers entiers, de nos villes et de nos capitales.Monsieur le Président,En dépit des positions révisionnistes des chercheurs contestateurs, on ne peut nier une prise de conscience générale des changements climatiques et de leurs impacts dans le monde. Et, je voudrais saluer ici le combat que mène l’Afrique pour se positionner dans cette lutte. En dépit de sa responsabilité mineure dans la genèse de ce phénomène, l’Afrique se bat, et beaucoup, pour se faire entendre et réclamer des droits.Mais, Monsieur le Président, si j’ai demandé la parole, c’est pour attirer l’attention de chacun de nous et celle des dirigeants de nos pays, en particulier, sur une dimension importante des actions à mener, que nos pays ne prennent pas suffisamment en compte et qui mérite plus d’attention; je voudrais dire la nécessité d’entreprendre, de façon urgente, systématique et durable des études aux fins d’une identification préalable des zones d’impact probable de changements climatiques, sur l’ensemble de nos territoires, de façon prévisionnelle, en vue de définir et de mettre en œuvre des mesures préventives.Lorsque les catastrophes se produisent dans nos pays, on entend souvent les gouvernants lancer des critiques en direction des sinistrés, des critiques du genre: « Vous avez choisi vousmêmes de construire dans les bas-fonds, et ce qui doit arriver est arrivé ».Cela étant, Monsieur le Président, que font les gouvernements pour parer à ce mauvais choix? Et, que peut-on reprocher aux populations d’un village tout entier qui existe depuis des siècles et qui sont tout d’un coup emportées? Les gouvernements attendent, lors de l’avènement de ces catastrophes, de venir présenter leurs condoléances aux sinistrés et repartent sans rien faire, en attendant la catastrophe prochaine.Il me paraît urgent, Monsieur le Président, d’instituer dans nos pays des organes spécialisés de haut niveau, en vue de mener ces études prévisionnelles d’identification aux fins d’alléger les souffrances de nos populations et d’arrêter le pénible obstacle qui bloque le développement de nos pays.Je vous remercie.HON. KPARKAR EUGENE [LIBERIA]:Mr. President, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to give my take on this very intriguing topic on the effects of climate change. Allow me also to convey my compliments to Dr. Abebe Haile of the Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture at the African Union.The importance of climate change cannot be overemphasized. Mr. President, I wish to say that this issue is crosscutting and more than that, as indicated in the report, Dr. Abebe articulated that more African countries are vulnerable. Yes it is true that more countries are vulnerable, but in my own opinion that was not reflected in the just ended Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change. I thought the African perspectives were not actually incorporated in that conference. It is my hope however, that at subsequent conferences, African perspectives will be incorporated.At the same time, I also wish to say that one of the disastrous consequences in my opinion is the issue of food shortage. Already African countries cannot feed themselves and we are told that major food producing countries like China and Canada might reduce the exportation of food, meaning that there will be a very serious problem for Africa. There is an African adage that says, "Hunger does not respect principles." If you are hungry anything can happen. The man who feeds you controls your mind. So we will continue to be vulnerable and susceptible to Western powers. It is high time we as African parliamentarians took this issue of climate change very seriously.Another issue I wish to pinpoint here is the issue of a blueprint. We Africans accordingly are very good at putting together blueprints, strategies and good ideas. Fine. But our major deficit is the issue of implementation and practicality. We think that this issue will affect Africa seriously, so we have to be practical. We have to implement those blueprints. They are fine.I think this issue should be taken to our various Parliaments and to our various national bodies. It is one thing drawing up and making these conventions; it is another thing domesticating those conventions in your national parliaments in your countries.As African Parliamentarians, we should carry the message back to our countries, so that the issue can be amplified. Thank you very much.HON. RASHID ABDUL PELPUO [GHANA]:Thank you, Mr. President for the opportunity. Mr. President, the presenters were very apt in their presentations; very forthright. And I noticed two things in their presentations. First I noticed fear and secondly I noticed disappointment. Fear for the whole of Africa, fear that climate change is going to reduce our capacity to live worthwhile lives; and disappointment that we are unable to respond to the great effects of climate change in Africa. The possibility of us failing is seen in our inability to make appropriate laws to respond to the difficulties that are awaiting us and to mitigate the dangers of climate change.Mr. President, there is reason for this. Whilst in the temperate regions of the world where most developing countries are located, we have snow melting, ice melting, in Africa we have rivers drying up and as a result, agriculture is affected. Once agriculture is affected, the very living sustainable enterprise in Africa is also affected, and so our people become more vulnerable. So, it is important that whether we like it or not, we respond to the challenge of responding to the dangers of climate change affecting our various economies.But, we have to notice and we have to accept that climate change is a natural, logical consequence of our living. As we live on earth, we need to develop ourselves; we need to produce in order to live and as we produce all over, no matter how small we produce and no matter how much technology we apply, the consequence is that we affect the ecosystem; and thus affect the climate. The greenhouse effects will then become a problem on us. Whilst we see this as a logical consequence of our living, we have to, without any negotiation at all, make adjustments to ensure that we mitigate these issues by the laws we make and by the behaviours we put up in making life worthwhile for ourselves.Mr. President, there is a doomsday prediction for Africa that the next round of conflicts in Africa will be because of fresh water. It is sad because the danger of climate change is going to affect Africa the most. Because we have the harshest climate, we suffer the most when climate change becomes a problem to the world. So, when rivers begin to dry, fresh water sources will also begin to dry and Africans will then begin to compete with each other for fresh water.In order that we do not reach a point where we begin to compete with each other and fight over fresh water, we have no option, but to take one of the two things that are happening today; that we respond by adjusting our environments and by adjusting ourselves to the climate change situation so that in the end we are not the ones who will suffer the most.Mr. President, there are two issues. One is the internal position that climate change is; because we are able to mitigate it by our own policies and our own arrangements and our own thinking and arrangements to ensure that we eventually mitigate the situation. The other is that we are unable to respond to climate change because we are not the ones who are responsible. It is the externality and the climate change itself is an external factor that influences our economy. And so we have two positions of internal and external situations, but I believe very strongly that both are important and relevant and we need to train ourselves to understand to be able to reach out to the world to negotiate and be able to resp- (Member timed out.)HON. FARHAT LUTFI MOHAMED [LIBYA]:شكرا سيدي الرئيس إلعطائي الكلمة،لدي بعض المالحظات، بشأن تغير المناخ، وهي كما يلي: أوال المالحظة األولى تتعلق بأن إفريقيا ليست سببا رئيسيا في تغير المناخ، حيث إن الدول الصناعية وبخاصة في أوروبا والواليات المتحدة هي المسؤول األول عن هذا التغير، سأعيد the{ interpretation is not there. It is O.K, it is coming}سيدي الرئيس،لقد قلت بأن لدي بعض المالحظات، بشأن تغير المناخ، وهي كمايلي:أوال: إن إفريقيا ليست سببا رئيسيا في تغير المناخ. حيث إن الدول الصناعية، وبخاصة في أوروبا والواليات المتحدة، هي المسؤول األول عن هذا التغير. حيث إن الصناعة فيها تعمل على تلويث البيئة واألجواء، صباحا ومساء وبدون توقف، منذ بداية ما يسمى بالثورة الصناعية. كما أن انبعاث مختلف الغازات الناتجة عنها، يؤثر في الحياة البشرية والحيوانية، في كل مكان من العالم. ونحن في إفريقيا نتأثر بالنتائج السلبية لكل ذلك.ثانيا: من حق إفريقيا أن تطالب بالتعويض عن األضرار، التى تلحق بها، ومن واجب الدول الصناعية أن تعترف بمسؤوليتها عن األضرار التي تلحق بالقارة اإلفريقية. ولذلك ينبغي علينا، في هذا البرلمان، أن نساند القرار الذي اتخذه اإلتحاد اإلفريقي، بشأن التعويض، الذي ينبغي أن يكون كافيا وعادال لمالحقة والتخلص من جميع األضرار، التي تلحق بالقارة اإلفريقية، الناتجة عن تلويث البيئة بسبب تغير المناخ.ثالثا: البد إلفريقيا أن تدخل المفاوضات، بشكل موحد وبموقف موحد وصوت واحد، حتى يكون لصوتنا صدا مدويا في هذه المفاوضات، التي تجري في كل مكان، مع ضرورة تطوير قدراتنا التفاوضية حتى نحافظ على مصالحنا في القارة اإلفريقية. شكرا سيدي الرئيس.HON. SUAD EL FATEH AL-BADAWI [SUDAN]: بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيمThank you, Mr. President for giving me this opportunity. My response to the first and second presentations is that they are mostly administrative accounts of the climate change. They presented a list of agreements and dates and places and players. What I expected was a brief to us on the causes of climate change. The real dangers, real causes, what is it to be done by all the people, the real victims.Use of arms, bombings, nuclear weapons, factory pollution etc has got anything to do with it. And if so, why do we not face it and combat it with courage?As for the third presentation by the Committee, I want to congratulate the Committee on raising very important issues and I think that what we want them to do is to lead us in PAP to respond to the world’s means of facing this coming catastrophe.I must say here that this is not the responsibility of governments and policymakers only. It is the responsibility of the implementers, namely, NGOs and civil society as well as Parliaments. Here I would like to highlight a project, which I started at my organization in order to combat desertification and climate pollution. By planting a forest 3,780,000 million sq. meters. They have given us the land, and we ask every Sudanese man, woman and child to contribute a tree to our forest. We are planning to make it a resort and a breath of fresh air to our people. We hope that all our colleagues here in PAP will follow us and make the same things or similar things in their countries. This is what I am really worried about, and I think that it is going to make an addition to combat this very serious catastrophe that is facing Africa and the world. Thank you very much. (Applause)HON. NJOBVYALEMA JOSEPH [MALAWI]:Thank you Honourable President for giving me this opportunity. Let me commend the presenters of this important subject matter. Since I don’t have much time, I will go straight to my points.Honourable President, I am becoming increasingly conscious of the effects that humans have on their environment, particularly in relation to pollution, the ozone holes radioactive waste, the artifacts that people make and live behind them, things created on purpose, prehistoric cave paintings, through medieval cathedrals to stylofoam containers for takeaway pizzas, litter and graffitti garbage, residue, etc.Honourable President, the atmospheric conditions continue to deteriorate in Africa - rainfall, temperature and cloudiness - but according to the agreement, the decisions made, which they call the common position made for Africa, this doesn’t seem to come out clearly. And the presenters did not mention whether there were any positions at all taken regarding pollution. I am wondering whether they are in a position to talk little more about this.My second point Honorable President is on page 5, of the English Version of the briefing. There is item 2.6 (e) where they are talking about advocacy partnerships and things like that. There is a statement there which says, the Commission has also been spearheading programmes and projects that have bearings on climate change concerns, and they move on to say that includes, on the other page, the disaster risk reduction. My concern is how much; to what extent have they done this?Honourable President I am aware of a country in Africa, which after receiving persistent earthquakes, the Traditional Authorities in that country believed that the cause is a big snake. They resolved that they must offer that snake a virgin and a cow. (Laughter) And they did that, they arranged that they would like to buy a virgin from a poor family. So, if the African Union is spear heading projects and programmes, which have to do with sensitizing Africa in terms of climate change, why do we have such beliefs? Why do we have such undertakings? Can they say something about it?I am sorry, I don’t have much time. I thought I could talk a little more because I have several points that I would like to make. However, I am particularly concerned with those two issues. Thank you Honourable President.HON. KINGSLEY NAMAKHWA. [MALAWI]:Thank you Mr. President for according me this opportunity to say one or two words on this important topic, and to take a break from the usual political statements that we normally take. Africa is here facing the climate change, which actually has an adverse repercussions on our environment and even our own economy. As we all know, most of our countries if not all of them, heavily depend on agriculture for our livelihood as well as our economies. Now, with the coming in of the issue of the climate change, it is good that the presenters have outlined whatever discussions have been taking place in different forums, but the concerned is that these forums - we have heard about the Kyoto protocol, lately the Copenhagen, soon will be the Cancun in Mexico - we are not translating this to the local man in the village, because in Africa, the majority - she is reminding me women as well. The majority of our people live in rural areas. These are the people who are supposed to know what climate change is. When we go out there to our constituencies, let’s talk about climate change, the causes, because the impact of climate change is actually being experienced by the poor people, because they will tell you of the erratic patterns of rainfall that we are experiencing.For instance, when we get the rains, it doesn’t come at the right time and when it eventually comes, it comes in abundance or it doesn’t come at all. So, if we don’t come up with one voice as Africa and take the issues of climate change as one continent, really Africa will perish. Let me urge our technocrats that as you discuss issues pertaining to climate change, please translate these big words to understandable patterns to our people. The countries that are putting themselves as annex one; really they have to pay us back. They are the ones who exploited us. Now they are talking about our natural resources because Africa is very rich in natural resources. We have to consider ourselves lucky; it’s time that we have to protect our natural resources. As Pan African Parliament, we need to come up with deliberate policies that will safeguard these natural resources, because when we go back to our governments, when we go back to our countries, really we need to have a stand as African Parliament because we are an organ of the African Union. The heads of State should come up with a definite policy on climate change for Africa not individual countries’ policies, because climate change has no boundaries.AN HONOURABLE MEMBER:Mr. President, I would like first of all to present my greetings to you, Members of the Bureau and to all Honourable Members present today in this House. I would like to be very brief on this issue and say that what concerns me most is that Africa has got great potential. True it is that we have been a victim of Climate change due to the acts and doings of European countries, but the situation in Africa is not that catastrophic. In fact the speaker who just preceded me did mention that we have got great potential in terms of natural resources and in the field of agriculture. I agree that we should be pro-active as we need first of all to think in terms of making an inventory of the needs of our people with regard to food security. Resources that are needed must be for the mid and long term. What concerns me Mr. President is that in years to come, we should become strangers in our own continent. Our land should not be used to produce food for other countries. Our natural resources should not be used to drive economic development in other parts of the world.There is a need for the PAP to send a clear signal to Heads of State that there should be concerted action in the way that our resources are being used regarding the future of this continent. I conclude Mr. President by stating that climate change is an issue that is trans-territorial, and as PAP, we have got an important role to do. I subscribe and support the speakers who suggested that there should be a Charter and also that we should try to harmonise laws in relation to environmental issues Mr. President. Thank you.HON. MAKGALEMELE DIKGANG PHILLIP [BOTSWANA]:I thank you, Mr. President.Mr. President, I would like first to indicate that I do appreciate the presentations by the three colleagues on the progress made by the AU, progress made by South Africa in terms of developing a climate change policy, and progress made by our Committee on Rural Economy, Agriculture and Natural Resources.Mr. President, it is given that our response as Africa has been slow, but we should not give up but rather double our efforts, restrategise and find ways that can assist us to move forward at a much higher pace.Mr. President, there is an urgent need for us to lobby our respective countries to undertake relevant assessments, especially geared towards the poor. The poor, are very vulnerable to climate change and therefore, there is an urgent need for proactive interventions both geared towards the poor in the rural areas and the poor in the urban areas.Mr. President, I think part of the assessment must be directed at the millennium development goals to assess the extent to which climate change challenges will affect our attainment of the millennium development goals, as we are currently assessing them.The reason why I am making this point, Mr. President, is to reinforce my earlier point, given that our responses have being quite slow and given the fact that we have all agreed on the MDG’s. I think it is very important that we assess the extent to which climate change is going to frustrate our efforts of attaining the MDG’s and obviously be able to restrategise.I think, in the same breath, Mr. President, the MDG’s goal of developing a global partnership for development presents opportunity for us to enhance on our way forward. We must unpack that goal and see how we can repackage our interventions going forward.Mr. President, I note that the Republic of South Africa’s apart from proposing policy is also to looking at the positive components that can be brought about or opportunities that can be brought about by climate change. I think we should take leave from that, and also find opportunities in our respective countries, home-grown opportunities that can be presented by climate change.In conclusion, Mr. President, I want to support proposals by colleagues who spoke before me, Honourable Goya from Botswana, who proposed a Charter and earlier on a colleague had also proposed that there is a need to come up with a model law on climate change. I think that if we can move along those lines, Mr. President, we will begin to address this issue more seriously.I thank you. (Applause)HON. VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Monsieur le Président,Nous parlons des changements climatiques? De quoi s’agit-il, Monsieur le Président? C’est un gag! Comme c’est bizarre, mais il n’y a pas de changement climatique. Un changement climatique, vous voulez parler des tsunamis, des coulées de boues qui emportent des populations et des habitations? Vous voulez parler des incendies tous azimuts, qui emportent toutes les forêts? Par exemple, cet été l’incendie qui s’est abattu sur Moscou avec une épaisse fumée qui a failli noyer tous les moscovites qui ont eu leur vie, pour certains, en allant dans les métros et pour d’autres, en allant dans les Datchas, c’est cela le changement climatique? Le changement climatique, cela dérive des glaciers, Monsieur le Président?Nous apprenons que notre globe, avec le fleuve Amazone qui, paraît-il, est le poumon d’oxygène de l’humanité, n’existera plus. C’est cela le changement climatique?Monsieur le Président,J’ai appris que nos gouvernants qui sont presque des dieux et certains d’entre eux qui sont d’un cynisme épouvantable ont refusé de signer le Protocole de Kyoto et que la Conférence de Copenhague s’est terminée en queue de poisson.Alors, je me rappelle subitement que Dwight Eisenhower avait lancé contextuellement à ses compatriotes: « Méfiezvous du complexe militaroindustriel », nous sommes en plein là dedans.J’entends aussi que nous sommes en quête d’une autre planète pour éviter de ne plus rester sur cette vieille bonne terre. Alors, Monsieur le Président, comme je suis d’un "cynisme" aussi, comme nous sommes tous dans la même galère et comme nous n’irons pas sur cette nouvelle planète, nous allons tous, dans cette galère, sur cette bonne vieille terre, mourir tranquillement à moins que Dieu en décide autrement.Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.HON. HASSABO MOHAMMED ABDUL RAHMAN [SUDAN]:بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيمشكرا سيدي الرئيس،إن التغييرات المناخية والبيئية تعتبر من أكبر المهددات، في العالم، لما لها من تأثيرات إقتصادية وإجتماعية وإنسانية. وهذه التأثيرات لها تأثيرات مباشرة في مجال الزراعة، ونقص الغذاء، وزيادة معدالت الفقر، وزيادة الهجرات. وهذا سيدي الرئيس، يؤدي أيضأ للنزاعات ألن هذا التغييرالمناخي هو {issue cutting-cross{ واألمر يحتاج إلى ترتيبات وتشريعات وطنية وتشريعات قارية وعالمية. ولكن، نحن في إفريقيا، نعتبر من الضحايا والمتأثرين بهذه التأثيرات العالمية.انيا، في مجال الزراعة، إن إفريقيا لها موارد طبيعية كبيرة من أراض وأمطار ومياه جوفية وأنهار، ولكنها تعاني من نقص الغذاء. وإفريقيا تواجه تحديات كبيرة، استعمارا جديدا أكرر إستعمارا جديدا، في مجال االقتصاد والبيئة، خاصة ما يسمى بالغذاء المعدل جينيا {food modified Genetic {الذي له تاثيرات، في المدى البعيد، على البيئة وعلى األراضي. وهذا يجعل إفريقيا مستهلكة وغير منتجة.أقترح السيد الرئيس أن يكون للبرلمان اإلفريقي حملة كبيرة، في مجال التغيير المناخي، في االطار المحلي والقاري والعالمي. حيث إننا نحتاج إلى سياسات قوية في مجال: المحافظة على البيئة وزيادة الغطاء النباتي والثورات الزراعية والتوعية المجتمعية وإدخال البيئة والتغيير المناخي في المناهج الدراسية وتحريك المجتمع المدني والمنظمات لقيادة حملة، مع القارات األخرى، التي تعاني مثل إفريقيا. ألننا كلنا نعرف هذا التأثير من الصناعات العالمية من أوروبا و أمريكا.وشكرا جزيال سيدي الرئيس.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, honorables membres. Vous avez fait d’importantes contributions; vous avez apporté des interrogations sur le sort de notre planète, et vous avez soulevé également quelques questions à l’endroit des intervenants.J’invite à présent le Dr. Abebe Hailé-Gabriel à répondre.Oui, honorable membre?UN HONORABLE MEMBRE:Monsieur le Président, je me suis inscrit pour demander la parole.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je n’ai pas vu votre nom mais, je vais vous accorder deux minutes.UN HONORABLE MEMBRE:je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je tiens à remercier les trois orateurs pour leur présentation, et exprimer ma fierté que, enfin, nos pays africains parlent d’une seule voix dans les conférences internationales, en attendant de parler d’une seule voix dans d’autres institutions.Monsieur le Président,Dans mon pays la Tunisie, nous avions, lors de notre indépendance en 1956, deux barrages de retenue d’eau uniquement, permettant de retenir 170 millions de m3. 50 ans après, nous en sommes à plus de 20 barrages et plus d’une centaine de nappes collinaires permettant unemmagasinement de plus de 1,5 milliards de m3. Nous avons ainsi pu mobiliser 90% de toutes les ressources hydriques du pays. Notre stratégie actuelle est de relier ces barrages entre eux pour ne pas perdre une seule goutte. Ce qui nous permet actuellement de supporter trois années successives de sécheresse légère, à savoir donner de l’eau potable à 95% de nos concitoyens, à travers le réseau d’eau potable, et irriguer 300 000 hectares de périmètres aménagés.Nous sommes actuellement en train de faire une étude prospective sur l’eau, à l’horizon 2030. Ce qui nous fait peur actuellement, c’est comment arrêter la hausse de la température et l’avancée du désert, et comment éviter le manque de pluies. Si on ne fait rien, à l’horizon 2050, il ne resterait en Afrique du Nord (Tunisie, Algérie, Maroc) qu’une bande de terre fertile large de 100 km le long de la méditerranée, insuffisante pour nourrir nos 130 millions d’habitants attendus.C’est pourquoi plusieurs projets régionaux, entre les pays concernés, sont en train d’être réalisés (création d’oasis, réalisation d’une ceinture verte d’orientation est/ouest). Ces projets intéressent les pays européens, surtout ceux du Sud, car pour eux aussi, s’ils ne nous aident pas, ils auront des répercussions du type, perturbations du cycle hydrique et augmentation de la température, la ville de Marseille par exemple, au Sud de la France, aurait en 2050 la température actuelle du terroir au centre de la Tunisie.Malgré cela, il reste toujours important et vital d’avoir une politique interrégionale qui engloberait les pays du Nord et du Sud du Sahara (alimentation du Lac Tchad et du Sud de l’Algérie par un prélèvement minime de moins 5% à partir du fleuve Congo). C’est un projet pharaonique nécessitant la création d’un fleuve artificiel de 4500 km empruntant le lit d’un fleuve préhistorique asséché entre le fleuve Congo et des Lacs en Afrique du Nord, renflouant au passage le fleuve Chari et le Lac Tchad, qui a perdu durant les 40 dernières années, plus de 50% de sa superficie et fertilisant des millions d’hectares au Mali, au Tchad, au Niger, en Algérie, en Tunisie, etc.Le financement de ce grand projet pourrait être fait avec la participation de l’Europe qui cherche, actuellement, la possibilité de réalisation de centrale solaire dans notre Sahara, pour la production d’électricité.Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie pour cette importante contribution, même si elle est arrivée en retard.HON. SIRMA MUSA [KENYA]:I do not know where names of some of us that we have sent to you have disappeared to because, we do not know why we are not being called.THE PRESIDENT:Secretariat, do you have any names? Honourable Musa Sirma you have two minutes.HON. SIRMA MUSA [KENYA]Thank you Mr. President; first and foremost I have to say I went to Copenhagen, as part of the team of the PAP. I want to say the Kyoto Protocol, which was actually to reduce emission by 5.2 is not even real because we are saying that in terms of figures. But, in practice we do not know how much these industrialized countries emit. Secondly Mr. President; it was a sad day when Copenhagen actually achieved nothing out of all the expensive meeting which was held in Copenhagen. We are also shocked by some of the big countries in the world, especially the USA for refusing to be part of and to give commitment on climate change, and the ICC as well, because they are actually the biggest example of people who practice impunity. They do not want to save the Continent; they do not want to follow the rule of law. All of us are sad about it because they want to practice impunity.I also want to say Mr. President that the united position or the African position, surely was there in terms of words or statements, but in heart and spirit, everybody was for himself. It was a very sad issue; we want to thank the Minister from Algeria who was leading the African negotiating team, but the people who actually were supposed to have given the solution were the African Heads of State, but each one was going on his own. I also want to say the grouping of G77 with China; China is the biggest polluter in the world, and yet they want to say we have not polluted enough more than the European countries who are now interested in complying. China wanted to be given more time to pollute, so that they can pay. How do we agree on that? We want to say, the countries which are emitting must accept to reduce their levels, and pay their dues to support the carbon fund for aforestation purposes.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much I now give the floor to the first presenter, Dr Abebe Haile to respond. Thank you.DR. ABEBE HAILE GABRIEL:Thank you Madam President, thank you Honorable Members of Parliament for the various comments that you have made.I would like to limit my intervention on some few items. Number one, by way of making a little correction regarding the comment made by one of the Honourable Members of PAP, in relation to AU having had no voice in Copenhagen, I think we need to be clear on the fact that, yes, AU did not have any voice before Copenhagen. And the very reasons is that the AU Assembly mandated certain countries to negotiate on behalf of Africa, on behalf all Member States in Copenhagen is to make sure that, that gap was addressed. So, those countries who were leading the negotiation process at different levels, as experts, administrative and as Head of States and government level did have the mandates of all African countries and they were representing the common position of Africa and not their own respective countries. So, this is very important.Having said that, yes, the AU is not even up to now a party to the Convention or the Kyoto Protocol. We are working on that, as I have indicated in my presentation.Another item raised, which is very important; the extent of preparedness of Africa. That we have lost a lot of opportunities and the example of the clean development mechanism and the rate plus reducing emission through the deforestation and force degradation has been mentioned.Let me just give you one example, how we are losing, how we have not been benefiting from opportunities. On CDM, the data in 2009 indicates that there have been about 1600 CDM projects, of which thirty (30) were in Africa. Thirty (30) out of 1600, most of the beneficiaries are the Asian countries. Of this thirty (30) if we see the distribution of these projects in African, fifteen (15) are in South Africa, in this country. The remaining 15, 10 are in Northern Africa, Egypt 4, Morocco 4, and Tunisia 2. The remaining 5, two are in Nigeria, so we are left with three and these have been shared between Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in East Africa. Of course about 23 countries have been preparing CDM projects. But this is to show to you that Africa has not really been benefiting from CDM and because it is a complex process, that’s why we are pushing for support in capacity building, support in finance, support in technology, etc.The same thing on forestry. Forestry, the way it has been treated in the climate change negotiation is focusing on preservation of existing major forestry, the so-called lungs of the world, the Amazon, the Congo Basin, the forest in Indonesia and of course we have no problem with that. One of this is located in Africa and we would like to promote that. But we don’t want it to be reduced to this, we also want to incorporate, introduce issues of afforestation and reafforestation. Why is it that African families are engaged in clearing of forests? I mean it is linked to their livelihood, it is their part of livelihood processes and we have to answer, we have to respond to the question of livelihood in a sustainable manner before asking families not to engage in deforestation. So, the issues are more complex and the interests of Africa unfortunately are not the same as the interests of the major negotiating practice but we are pushing.Agriculture is the same. The Great Green Wall for the Sahel and the Sahara, this was an initiative of first time introduced by former President of Nigeria, His Excellency Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005 at the Sunset Heads of State meeting, the Sahel and Saharan states. And after that the Commission was requested to work on it, it was launched in Abuja in 2006 or 2007 and we are working now with those countries starting from Mauritania in the West up to Djibouti in the Far East. Those countries that are included in this part of the project.The point raised by Honourable Member of Parliament, I think, if I am not mistakes please forgive my mistake, Honourable Suad Al-Badaoui on expectation from my presentation that Honourable Member was expecting me talk more about the impacts of climate change than enumerating the various decisions and the processes. Perhaps the terms of reference that I received in preparing this note was more to speak on the climate change negotiation and what has the African Union Commission been doing and where do we stand. That was how I framed my presentation. Otherwise I would have given you a lot of information on the various impacts of climate change. And I think that can be done may be in the future with your permission.On pollutants, I have mentioned it, the Multilateral Environment Agreements. We have a lot of Multilateral Environmental Agreements and the Commission is hosting, actually is the hub for the Africa component of the Africa-Pacific and Caribbean (ACP countries) capacity building programme and we are working with the United Nation Environmentally Programme (UNEP) to support member states who are parties to this various Multilateral Environmentally Agreements. And the agreement on pollutants is one of them. So, there is work in that area.On the other risk reduction, our approach is helping countries and regions move away from Disaster Crisis Management towards Disaster Risk Management. There was a conference of Ministers responsible for Disaster Risk Reduction held Nairobi, Kenya in May, 2010 where they have adopted an African Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction. We have also proposed kind of concept of Disaster Risk Pool, which is a kind of insurance scheme that would assist Member States to plan and respond to disaster situations in a planned manner. That was presented to the Ministers of Finance, Economy and Planning held in April, in Lilongwe, Malawi. They have adopted a resolution towards putting that into practice.I would like to mention on the comment made towards the end of the debate regarding the position of China and other developing countries including South Africa. The argument is that this large development countries, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and so on, they are required to reduce their emissions but on voluntary basis. There is a clause as you may know that the reduction emission of greenhouse gasses is based on common but differentiated responsibilities. Those countries in Annex 1, have used the opportunity of development, developing through emission. They have achieved a certain level of development now, the standard of living of their people have achieved a certain limit, so if we demand, if we make it mandatory to reduce, for them to achieve substantial reduction, cuts, the impact on the livelihood and lifestyle of their people will be less.Take for example China, by the way China, you know Africa has created an alliance with China. The case for China or South Africa or Brazil is different, they are in the process of development their economy but the livelihood of their people at the moment if we require them for mandatory deep cuts is going to be affected dramatically, it means lower employment, etc. So they want sometimes toward this move, towards a cleaner development path. So it is not the same. Yes, it is true China is one of the biggest emitters globally, but the direction that is being taken is a little bit different. By the way, that’s why the United States is using this argument that China should also engaged in mandatory cuts, substantially cuts in emissions.Finally, Excellencies, Honourable Members of Parliament, we are organizing a conference of Ministers of Agriculture from 26 up to 29 of this month. You may recall that the AU Assembly in July 2010 adopted a decision to commemorate the African Food and Nutrition Security Day on 30th of October every year and this Ministerial Conference is planned around that time. We are also among other things launching the framework and guidelines for Land Policy in Africa which was adopted by Assembly in July, 2009 in Sirt Libya. A high level panel is organized to debate on land based, foreign direct investment in Africa. We have invited high level panelists from Government, Civil Society, partners, from research organization, from farmers to share their views on this very topical and sensitive issue which is at times called Land Grabbing in Africa.Thank you. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Dr. Abebe Haile-Gabriel. Now, I invite Dr. Sylvester Mpandemi to respond.DR. SYLVESTER MPANDEMI:Thank you honourable chair, Parliamentarians, ladies and gentlemen.There are several comments which were made here, but I am just going to outline mainly seven points. The first one is about air pollution that somebody raised. I am going to use the South African example. Those who are familiar with Gauteng Province, if you are driving towards Johannesburg, before you approach the off ramp towards Sandton, there is a sort of small fence between the Ben Schulman Highway and N3. That is the air quality monitoring system, which has been installed by the Department of Environmental Affairs together with the city of Johannesburg. We are up-scaling those activities to all nine provinces. Yesterday, the Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs was in Limpopo Province, dishing out equipment to local municipalities. So, we are doing something as a country, to make sure that we monitor air quality activities. There are few companies that have been fined previously, especially around the Ben area. That’s point no. 1.Point no.2. Colleagues, the crux of the matter is that, yes, in Africa, we are very good at coming up with policy formulation and some strategies and so on, but the implementation is being a challenge. The point here is that we need to create a platform, where the policy-makers, scientists need to come together and start to speak with one voice. Gone are the days where we will start throwing stones to each other, to say ‘O.K., fine, you have developed this policy but it has got nothing to do with science’. In South Africa, what we are trying to do is that whatever policies we are coming up with are based on science or research, or the information conducted by national entities academic institutions and civil society.The third point is that it is a fact that, in Africa in general, we don’t have enough climatic data. I think that it is up to our Parliamentarians to start to make sure that we invest in our infrastructures. It is very important to make sure that we start to put a certain percentage of our GDP towards research and development activities.As a result of that, some of our good scientists are immigrating to European countries, to the US, South America and so on. We need to have some sort of skill programme, where we retain our scientists, making sure that they remain within the Continent.The other issue that I would also like to raise is the fact that, as a country, we are also trying to make sure that some of our national programmes, for example the food security and land degradation programme, we are trying to streamline those programmes with sub-regional programmes or regional programmes, making sure that we collaborate with other countries within the region.Besides that, we have also identified sectors such as health, wherein for example the malaria mapping programme. We are running the malaria mapping programme with few countries, for example Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi and so on.The other point is the fact that we are also investing in infrastructure, especially on a new warning system with other sub-regional countries, because South Africa is a country and it cannot run the show alone. We need to make partnerships; we need to collaborate with other countries in the region.The other issue, which was raised, is the fact that we are not translating climate change into simple language. I think we need to share some sort of responsibilities, especially with civil society, advocacy groups and so on, making sure that we disseminate this information in order to make sure that it reaches the end users. As a result of that, we have created a platform; especially the Department of Environmental Affairs in this country, trying to make sure that there would be strong relationship with the civil societies, especially the Climate Change Adaptation Network Group, so that some of those guys would disseminate climate change information.The last point is the harmonisation of the institution within the region. We have got various institutions that are focusing on climate change activities, but the point is that we are not coordinating or making sure that there is coherence. If institutions like, for example, the SADC Secretariat, has got climate change programme, why can’t it be so with African Union and the Secretariat, making sure that they align some of the activities; they can do joint initiatives?So, these are my points, but I would also like to thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to come and present on behalf of our minister.Thank you.HON. IYAMUREMYE AUGUSTIN [RWANDA]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Il n’y a pas eu beaucoup de questions qui ont été posées, mais au nom de la Commission que je représente ici, je voudrais, encore une fois, me réjouir du débat très enrichissant et fructueux qui a caractérisé les présentations de ce matin et j’espère que cela nous aidera à remplir davantage notre mission.Monsieur le Président,Je vais commencer par là où mon prédécesseur a terminé, à savoir l’harmonisation des politiques. Il s’agira de la mission principale du PAP, de surveiller la mise en œuvre des programmes de la Commission de l’Union africaine et de promouvoir l’harmonisation des politiques. Je pense là qu’il s’agit d’un challenge, d’un défi qui est lancé à notre Institution.Monsieur le Président,Nous nous battons pour que le Parlement panafricain devienne un organe doté de pouvoir législatif, et le changement climatique et l’environnement, en général, constituent un domaine de prédilection pour l’exercice de ce pouvoir. Je pense donc que nous sommes bien servis par ces débats, parce que là, il y a de la matière pour le jour où nous commencerons à exercer le pouvoir législatif.Il y a une question récurrente, à savoir l’importance que l’on doit accorder, que l’on peut porter au changement climatique. On a même parlé de certains pays ou de certaines personnes, ou même de chercheurs, de pseudo-chercheurs qui pensent que c’est un problème fictif.Monsieur le Président,Il est évident, que le changement climatique est un phénomène naturel. De tout temps, il y a eu interaction entre la terre et l’atmosphère avec des variations de température, etc. Nous avons appris à l’école qu’il y a une période où la terre était entièrement couverte de glace, etc. Mais, il ne s’agit pas de cette spéculation, parce que maintenant les changements, les variations en température et les cycles des eaux connaissent un rythme accéléré. Je pense que c’est à cela qu’il faut accorder beaucoup d’importance, le rythme accéléré et son impact sur la vie des populations, surtout, en Afrique.Donc, les changements climatiques sont graves et réels, à cause de la vulnérabilité de notre continent. Donc, pour ceux qui doutent encore, je pense qu’il n’y a pas lieu de douter. Quelqu’un a parlé de la peur et, plus ou moins, d’un pessimisme qui ont caractérisé nos présentations.Je pense que ce n’est pas une question de peur ni de pessimisme. Il faut être clairvoyant. Comme l’a dit le représentant du ministère de l’Afrique du Sud, il y a aussi des opportunités. Evidemment, on ne peut pas ici parler de tout cela, le temps ne nous le permet pas; mais comme on a dit, l’Afrique regorge de ressources naturelles, c’est pour cela d’ailleurs que les autres pays se ruent vers l’Afrique, vers les terres africaines, vers les eaux africaines, pour subvenir à leurs besoins.Je pense donc que si les Africains saisissent l’opportunité du changement climatique pour exploiter mieux, par une meilleure technologie, en ce qui concerne l’agriculture, la reforestation et l’énergie, il n’y a pas lieu d’être pessimiste; il faut être plutôt clairvoyant.Je reviendrais, Monsieur le Président, au rôle du Parlement panafricain. Je pense que nous, dans la Commission de l’économie rurale, nous sommes déjà conscients des problèmes liés aux conséquences des changements climatiques. C’est pour cela que nous avons adopté et programmé des actions pour la sensibilisation des parlementaires, non seulement au niveau du Parlement panafricain, mais aussi au niveau de nos parlements.Nous avons programmé un atelier, par exemple, sur l’eau et sur les ressources hydriques. Nous sommes en train de chercher, avec votre appui, Monsieur le Président, le financement. Cet atelier pourrait concerner toutes les Commissions, parce que je pense que vous avez tous été unanimes pour constater l’interrelation entre les problèmes liés au changement climatique. Comme disent les Anglais « cross-cutting issues ».Quelqu’un a parlé même d’un comportement dramatique, où on sacrifie une jeune vierge pour pallier à un problème physique. Cela montre que le changement climatique est un problème très grave, même pour ceux qui sont dans la Commission des conflits. La plupart des conflits en Afrique sont liés aux ressources. Vous ne pouvez pas vous imaginer des populations qui s’entretuent pour la possession d’une rivière ou pour des pâturages.Je pense donc, Monsieur le Président, qu’un tel atelier pourrait être d’une très grande importance pour la sensibilisation des honorables parlementaires.Je voudrais terminer, Monsieur le Président, en vous remerciant, encore une fois, en remerciant le Bureau et tout le staff technique pour l’appui accordé à notre Commission dans ce domaine assez technique. Nous devons avoir à notre disposition des techniciens et des personnes à la hauteur. C’est pour cela que la Commission propose une coopération de plus en plus intense, entre le Parlement panafricain, les universités, la société civile. Et, nous sommes heureux de commencer la collaboration avec le Ministère de l’Eau en Afrique du Sud. Nous avons eu des contacts avec le Ministère des Terres. Je crois que c’est un bon début, et nous sommes fiers, dans la Commission, de pouvoir bénéficier du soutien du Bureau du Parlement panafricain.Je voudrais finir par me réjouir du consensus qu’ont manifesté les honorables parlementaires sur l’importance de sensibiliser, jusqu’au niveau des populations locales. Je pense que si nous faisons de bons textes, si nous prenons de bonnes résolutions et que les populations africaines ne sont pas concernées, ne sont pas sensibilisées et ne prennent pas parti, nous n’aurons rien fait. C’est un défi pour nous, une fois retournés dans nos pays, de continuer ce travail. Je vous remercie.(Applaudissements.)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, honorable Augustin Iyamuremye, président de la Commission de l’Economie rurale et de l’Agriculture.Honorables membres,Nous sommes venus au terme de notre séance de cette matinée. Je voudrais, en votre nom à tous, féliciter et remercier les trois intervenants. Je vous demande, une fois de plus, de les applaudir comme il le faut, aussi bien pour leur présentation que pour les réponses qu’ils ont apportées aux quelques questions.(Applaudissements)Vous avez remarqué que les honorables parlementaires sont bien informés et bien préoccupés par les questions du changement climatique. Ils ont apporté beaucoup de contributions.Le changement climatique constitue une préoccupation de la planète entière. Comme l’honorable Vieyra Soglo disait tout à l’heure, comme boutade, il faudrait chercher une autre planète. Effectivement, au-delà de la boutade, on peut s’interroger. Où va-t-on?Pour ne pas se mettre à chercher une autre planète. Il faut que ces questions de changement climatique deviennent les questions de nos populations. C’est pour cela que la contribution des parlementaires, qui veulent qu’on ramène aux populations ces questions de changement climatique, est d’une grande importance.La transformation du Parlement panafricain en un organe législatif est dans son processus, et pour le changement climatique aussi bien en termes législatif qu’en proposition de loi modèle, le continent est d’accord que cet errement-là soit l’un des premiers errements pour le futur Parlement législatif.Sur ce, je vais donner la parole au Secrétaire général, s’il a des annonces.THE CLERK:Thank you honourable President. I would like to make the following announcement.The Chairperson of the Southern African caucus is requesting to meet the members of the caucus immediately after the adjournment. Members are requested to remain in the Chamber.Thank you.LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres, nous allons maintenant observer notre traditionnelle pause-déjeuner.Conformément aux dispositions de l’Article 32 du Règlement intérieur, nos travaux sont, par conséquent, suspendus jusqu’à 14 heures 30 très précises, cet après-midi.Je vous remercie.(La séance, suspendue à onze heures cinquantedeux, est reprise à quatorze heures trente-deux)LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres, notre séance est reprise.J’invite, conformément aux dispositions de l’article 38.1(g) du Règlement intérieur, S.E. Mme BIANCE GAWANAS, Commissaire aux Affaires sociales de la Commission de l’Union africaine, à entrer dans la Chambre.(Entrée de S.E Mme GAWANAS dans la Chambre)J’invite le Secrétaire à donner le programme.LE SECRÉTAIRE GENERAL:Presentation and debate on the report on progress on the implementation of MDG’s.LE PRÉSIDENT:J’ai l’honneur d’inviter S.E. Mme BIANCE GAWANAS, Commissaire aux Affaires sociales de l’Union africaine, à faire sa présentation.
3.0 – PRÉSENTATION ET DÉBAT RELATIFS AUX OBJECTIFS DU MILLÉNAIRE POUR LE DÉVELOPPEMENT
H.E. BIANCE GAWANAS [AUC]:Your Excellency, President of the Pan-African Parliament, hon. Members of the Pan-African Parliament, it is indeed an honour and privilege for me to present the MDGs to you.As you know, the African Union Commission, the Economic Commission for Africa and the African Development Bank have over the years presented progress reports on the MDGS and Africa. The last report that they prepared was the 2009 report and my presentation is going to be based on that report.Basically, the report on achieving the MDGs at the UN Summit showed a bright and positive picture of Africa. We have made steady progress on the MDGs through innovative policies, strategies and actions. The MDGs targets are eight and internationally agreed and aimed to reduce poverty, hunger, maternal and child deaths, disease, inadequate shelter, gender equality, environmental degradation by 2015. I will present each of the goals and then also give an overview of the situation in Africa. I will start with Goal 1 that deals with eradicating extreme poverty.It is noted that there has been great progress in reducing poverty worldwide in the last two decades. This has been largely due to rapid economic growth in Asia, especially China and India.However, Africa as a region, according to the available evidence, has not contributed significantly to this success. Some countries in Africa and an example is given of Ghana, are making progress on poverty reduction but as a whole, we are unlikely to meet this target unless additional policy efforts and resources are made.As we have said, apart from the fact that some countries could have moved closer to achieving the target, we must also recognize that the food price volatility, the issues of climate changes and recovery from the global financial and economic crises are challenges for our continent that is struggling already to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, especially food security for all.We also note that there is high unemployment especially among our youth and discussions are already underway to make sure that we have got strategies and plans in place to reduce youth unemployment on our continent.On the question of safe drinking water, it was noted in 2008 that Botswana, Comoros, Mauritius, Namibia and South Africa reached over 90 percent coverage.Sanitation still represents a difficult area with the number of people lacking access to improved sanitation facilities representing about 50 percent of the population on the continent.Goal 2, in terms of universal primary education: African countries generally have performed very well on most of the education targets. The 2010 report reflects a 76 percent net enrolment in primary education.However, the rate of progress made in primary enrollment has not been matched by a commensurate increase in the primary school completion rate. In other words, we still suffer from a high dropout rate and especially access to higher education.Good quality primary education across Africa remains a major challenge.Goal 3 on Gender Equality and empowerment of womenFrom the latest available data that we have in 2007, again overall progress in gender equality and the empowerment of women, gender parity in primary education is likely to be achieved. Unfortunately, parity decreases in secondary education with many women or young girls dropping out at secondary education level and the gap is getting wider at tertiary education level.Changes in women’s representation in national parliaments have been impressive. There are countries in Africa notably Rwanda, etc that have made tremendous progress both in terms of parliamentary representation as well as at the level of the cabinet.I recently attended the Beijing +15 and in the report they showed that yes, there is progress in terms of representation but much more can be done in order to meet the targets also set by the Beijing Platform for Action.Goal 4 is to reduce child mortality. Africa continues to show progress, albeit slow, in reducing especially the under-five mortality ratio. The under-five mortality ratio declined by 21 percent from 168 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 132 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2008. The rate of progress being made is insufficient to attain this target by 2015.The proportion of deliveries attended by skilled personnelthat is also an indication of especially children that die at birthhas only marginally increased from 1990 to 2008.The under-five mortality rate expresses the probability of a child born in a specified year dying before reaching the age of five, subject to the current age-specific mortality rate. The IMR measures child survival. It also reflects the socioeconomic and environmental conditions in which children live, including health care.We come to Goal 5 which is to improve maternal health. This is undoubtedly one of the goals that are hard, and have generally been noted as many of the countries really lagged behind. The high mortality rates still persist throughout the continent except obviously for countries in the North.The reasons why maternal mortality rates are still very high can be because of the average age of marriage.Basically some of the progress that has been noted: the average family size is falling; the efforts aimed at preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS which are also factors that contribute to the high maternal mortality rates including the use of condoms, are also having an impact on pregnancy rates; Africa’s rising divorce rate may be having a reductive effect on the number of pregnancies that a woman experiences during her lifetime,; the rising per capita income; better nutrition, and a rise in the number of girls who have completed primary education.Three of the six countries that account for 50 percent of all maternal deaths globally are in Africa: Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa stand, out as well as the falling MMR in countries such as Ethiopia.In Southern Africa, the high rate of prevalence of HIV is an important contributory factor to the elevated MMR.Antenatal care coverage across Africa has seen steadily improving. Of the total 53 African countries, 18 countries reported a rate of 90 percent and above for at least one visit and only four reported a rate below 50 percent.Improved maternal health: nonetheless, of the total 53 countries, 19 reported a rate above the WHO regional average of 24.3 percent while 17 fell below this average. Eighteen countries failed to report data on this indicator. I will come back to that goal and basically explain what we are doing but that also ties in with my presentation that I will make tomorrow on maternal and child health.On Goal 6, that is to combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other major diseases, progress is being made in a number of countries but there are constraining factors. The one that definitely is the need for increased financing and civil/violent conflicts that continue to beset our continent.Mali, Senegal and Togo are on track on the HIV and AIDS target, driven by leadership, awarenessraising, voluntary testing and free ARVs.Africa has sustained the progress made in tackling HIV/AIDS.The decrease in HIV prevalence and mortality rates reported in 2007 persists and the HIV/AIDS- related mortality rate has not increased since the last report, but appears to have stabilized.ART for HIV patients has expanded in most countries, especially countries at the epicenter of the epidemic. Aggressive prevention programs combined with increased access to treatment and behavior change are main drivers for those improvements.Nonetheless, the number of people living with HIV remains high, in part due to the paradox of success: increased access to treatment is reducing HIV/AIDS mortality and increasing the number of people who are living with AIDS.As of December 2008, some 3 million Africans were estimated to be receiving ARVs, representing 44 percent of the estimated total in need of such services.In terms of Malaria, in 2006, there were an estimated 247 million episodes of Malaria worldwide, resulting in 88 million deaths. Of these, 91 percent were in Africa and of them, 85 percent were of children under the age of five years.There has been significant reduction in Malaria deaths in a number of our countries: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Zambia and Zanzibar.Insecticide-treated bed nets are a proven intervention against Malaria and there has been a major effort both at national and international levels to augment their use in Africa.The success rate of the Directly Observed Therapy (DOTS) increased considerably from 1995 to 2007. Although the target is 85 percent, success in this regard will have to be 100 percent being constrained by the emergence of MultiDrug-Resistant TB which is difficult and expensive to treat and fails to respond to first-line drugs.From the evidence presented above, Africa as a region is unlikely to meet the TB targets by 2015. This is especially due to the rising prevalence and mortality of HIV and we know the linkage between HIV and TB.In terms of Goal 7, that is environmental sustainability, many of Africa’s environmental and natural resources are being degraded at a worrying rate. Rapid economic growth is likely to present African countries with a serious dilemma: whether to concentrate on short-term gains to be made through rapid economic expansion or whether to lend greater weight to protecting the environment for future generations.An ECA study based on MDG planning in 15 African countries shows that many countries have yet to fully include environmental sustainability in their national development plans.In Africa, excluding North Africa, the proportion of the population deprived of shelter decreased from 71 to 62 percent between 1992 and 2005.And finally on Goal 8, that is developing a global partnership for development, it is noted that the partnership has remained strong and even peaked at the crises of2008-2009.Net official development assistance (ODA) to Africa rose in 2008 in spite of the global financial and economic crisis, although it fell far below the commitment of 0.7 percent.Progress on improved access to essential drugs is difficult to measure as countries do not routinely collect such data. Evidence from many African countries suggests that there are significant supply gaps in both the public and non-governmental healthcare provision sectors.The high price of many essential drugs has led to a booming market in many African countries resulting in fake and expired drugs that are procured from outside of Africa and resulting in many preventable deaths.At the African Union itself, as far as access to essential drugs is concerned we have developed a pharmaceutical manufacturing plan for Africa in order to increase local production as well as improve procurement and thereby lower the prices of drugs.In conclusion, broad interventions to create an enabling environment for inclusive growth are definitely very essential. We must adopt development strategies based on the MDGs, enhance efficiency of service delivery at all levels of government, improve ability to monitor the goals that are set as well as the progress that we have made and continue to mobilize partnerships with the private sector, civil society and development partners especially from the South.Although the goals are set out one by one, I think what is very important is to recognize the interlinkages that exist amongst the eight goals and therefore we propose to adopt a holistic and comprehensive approach to all MDGs.In our intervention so far as the African Union, as far as maternal and child heath is concerned, we have realized that maternal mortality is not just an issue of a woman that dies while she gives life but it is also a question of the environment within which women live on our continent and the value that we attach to women and their status within our societies.Mr. President, hon. Members of Parliament, this is the presentation on the MDGs and I stand ready to answer whatever questions hon. Members may have. I thank you. (Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, Excellence, Commissaire GAWANAS pour cette brillante et synthétique présentation sur les Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement.Honorables membres, les débats sont actuellement ouverts. J’ai une première liste de 13 intervenants. Je vais citer les inscrits pour qu’on ne se retrouve pas avec des noms qui ne seraient pas inscrits. Le premier de ma liste c’est l’Hon. HOUDERI MOHAMED de la Jamahiriya, Hon. Bernadette LAHAI, Hon. Eugene KPARKAR, Hon. Santosh VINITA KALYAN, Hon Ambrose DERY, Hon. Augustin IYAMUREMYE, Hon. Master GOYA, Hon. Elizabeth AGYEMAN, Hon. Juliana KANTENGWA, Hon. KOKERAI RUGARA, Hon. Sylvia MASEBO, Hon. ALI BAHARI, Hon. Agnès MUKABARANGA.Hon. MOHAMED EL-HOUDERI. Il n’est pas en chambre? Hon. Bernadette LAHAI, vous avez la parole.HON. LAHAI BERNADETTE [SIERRA LEONE]:Thank you Mr. President.I want to commend Madame Gawanas for her presentation on assessing progress in Africa towards Millennium Developments Goals. Indeed this is a very important topic, particularly for Africa, Africa has come a long way to where it is today and yet we are still faced with challenges. It is a good thing when in 2000 African states met to determine and to chat a ways for African development by putting benchmarks or targets. These targets have been implemented to various degrees by Africa while some countries are on target, some countries are away from targets, the financial implications of let’s say in these development goals are indeed enormous because these goals are being implemented within an environment of many challenges.Mr. President, in the discussion, I will leave out Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 that is child mortality and maternal mortality because tomorrow’s proceedings great part of it will be allocated to these two targets. The target 1 that ensuring that we reduce the number of persons living below 1 Dollar and poverty is a very challenging one. Poverty with regards to access to food, poverty with regards to availability to food, poverty with regards to income that will be needed to provide food or with regards the resources to provide such food. We have come a long way and especially in the effects of climate change this goal, I am surprised still that this goal lag behind among many of the other goals.We are told that goal 2 which is universal primary access, have seen a lot of improvements particularly with regards to girl child education. In Sierra Leone for example although it is difficult for us to meet goal 1 and 2 but tremendous efforts have been made. We have the girl child support program in Sierra Leone, girls entering junior secondary school have free education and in fact the very fact that we have also enacted the universal primary free and compulsory education, has seen that a girl enrolment has increased. What we need now so far is to ensure that we reduce the dropout rate of both boys and girls stay in school.Mr. President, Millennium Development Goal 3 that is gender empowerment particularly with regards in reducing the gap between boys and girls enrollment, it’s one that most countries are on track or very close to achieving. Particularly when it comes to gender empowerment measures that is the number of women sitting in Parliament, a lot of achievements have been made particularly due to policies that have been enacted both nationally, internationally and regionally and today we dove our hearts to countries like Rwanda, South Africa, Kenya who have actually put in place modalities to ensure that we have more women in the legislature and also may be in the lower levels of the Local Government which is advocated to be the breeding ground for women getting to higher politics.With regards to Millennium Development 5 that is HIV/AIDS, malaria and other opportunistic disease, we are on track. I am happy to know that the recent Summit Meeting in America, Sierra Leone was singled out has having done so well especially coming from war.Mr. President, Honorable Members, but the big challenge is that do the proliferation for small arms and light weapons seem to actually affect all the gains we are making in Africa in terms of the Millennium Development Goals and we should actually look at the combating of small arms and light weapons which is fueling conflicts because it is likely to wipe out all the effect of the MDG’s. Therefore I will urge that for countries that have not signed the Treaties on Small Arms and Light Weapons we do so. In Sierra Leone we now have legislation on small arms and light weapons and it is going a long way to ensure that with this in place we achieve the Millennium Development Goals.I thank you very much Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to make my contribution on this important topic. Thank you very much. (Applause)HON. KALYAN VINITA SANTOSH [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Mr. President. I would like to preface my remarks by saying that while the review in September, 2010 is most welcome, there appears to be an emphasis on achievement of quantitative goals as opposed to the achievement of qualitative goals. It is my considered opinion that this is not a good sign if we become fixated on numbers. The countdown to 2015 Decade Report found that only 19 of 68 countries are on track to achieve MDG 4 - that is child mortality. And the progress on MDG 5 is very slow. We have heard the Commissioner refer to the high dropout rate at secondary and tertiary level.Now, in South Africa there are two main contributing factors for this. First of all the HIV/AIDS pandemic has resulted in the phenomenon called child-headed households and regrettably, it is the girl child that usually has to bear the burden. Yet another phenomenon and this, I am quite ashamed to speak about it, but I think it needs to be spoken about is that teachers at high school level exploit the girls for sexual favours. Fortunately, our government has realized that this is becoming a huge problem and has embarked on a massive awareness and disciplinary programme.Gender equality and empowerment of women is vital to the achievement of MDG 3. There has been slow progress in this area and many women still remain marginalized. We have to realize that women are agencies of development and investing in women and girls will have a multiplier effect.This morning we spoke about climate change. Climate change causes serious risks and challenges to all countries, and addressing climate change will be of key importance in safeguarding and advancing progress to achieving the MDG 7.Mr. President, the Global Fund has played a key role in terms of international financing to fight TB, malaria and HIV and AIDS. At the end of December, 2009, 2.5 million were getting Anti Retrovirals, 800,000 women were on the prevention of mother to child treatment and 4.5 million children - we call them AIDS orphans - were getting basic care and counseling.At the recent replenishment meeting of the Global Fund on the 6th of October, donors fell far short of investing the 20 billion rand needed to fight the three pandemics. Colleagues, without a fully replenished Global Fund, at least 3.1 million people in need of life saving, HIV drugs and more than 2.9 million in need of TB treatment will not have access.Mr. Ban Ki Moon pointed out that without a fully functional Fund; the world is at risk of backsliding in the fight against the three diseases, which means that we will not be able to meet the MDG targets. I, therefore, urge all Parliamentarians here to engage with donors urgently to close the funding gap because the deduction of or even the stagnation of funding will led to reversal of recent progress and put MDGS out of reach.I thank you. (Applause)DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:Thank you Mr. President, let me begin by appreciating the excellent presentation by Her Excellency Gawanas, and to make this statement; that the success of Africa in the MDGs depends on its achievement of goal three. Goal three holds the key to all the other goals for two reasons:1Women are the majority in Africa, they constitute 51% of the population2Women are central to the achievement of all the other goals as I shall demonstrate within the limited time that you have given me.If that is so, then the report that we have received of impressive performance as far as goal three is concerned, I dare say is exaggerated because Her Excellency referred to Beijing platform. Fine, but we are taking it to a different level now in Africa, because the African Charter on Democracy Election and governance, which is the blueprint for Africa moving forward at Article 29, states clearly that, when we talk of gender representation, we are talking of parity, we are not talking of increasing the representation. So, if we look at Article 29(3), it says; state parties shall take all possible measures to encourage full and active participation of women and ensure gender parity representation at all levels including the legislature. Now, if you look at primary education, we appear to the achieving the goal. How about the end? We are still facing challenges because traditional obstacles to educate the girl child still remain a problem. My South African colleague talked about exploitation by teachers, but it is because we tend to put girl child education on the back banner. We have traditions that want us to marry away girls before they are ven twenty and those are the things that we need to look at. We have to look at it through the whole educational process.In saying so, I think Rwanda is a shining example. Rwanda has shown that it can be achieved, gender parity can be achieved and if they can, we should do that. Being a Ghanaian, I might be flattered by the fact that we seem to be doing well on Goal 1, but I tell you that if we do work on empowerment of the women, we will backslide, it is not sustainable. Now, when we look at hunger, what are we talking about? Who are the managers of the home? Women. When we talk about safe water and sanitation - women. When you talk about under five mortality; I can give you my experience when I was privileged in 2005 to be Minister of the Upper West region in Ghana; I met under five mortality at 208 per thousand live births. I then decided to launch a programme for two years targeting women. Education wise, I went to UNICEF got $1.6 million, I went to DANIDA, got $1.4 million, and between 2006 and 2008, we reduced under five mortality from 208 to 113. So, we can see clearly the impact of women.Now, if you go to the other goals as well; talking about maternal mortality. If we make women central to our policies and therefore, it is not just resources which I agree with, but it is the change of policy. How come that up to this time in Africa, we do not have ante-natal care for most women? It is because they have no access, and we need to decentralize into rural areas, we need to empower traditional birth attendants with superior techniques and tools which was part of the approach that we used. If we do that then maternal mortality rate will be reduced. I can challenge anybody that when you have a literate and educated lady their children do not die of those basic diseases because they understand nutrition. When you come to the environment, they are the people who engage and are directly on the environment, and thus know the importance of the environment. I think that we should change this mindset. I come to the diseases HIV and AIDS, we have to empower women with their sexual rights so that they can say no, and can insist on the use of condoms. But, we know that some men have ‘military’ systems where women have no rights. When the man gets up, the woman must lie down. All these are the problems; if we do not change that attitude then HIV-AIDS can never be checked.Let me sum up by saying Goal 3 holds the key, so let us work on Goal three and all the other goals shall be added unto it. Thank you Mr. President.HON. IYAMUREMYE AUGUSTIN [RWANDA]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président, de me donner la parole.Monsieur le Président,Les Objectifs du Millénaire sont des objectifs, à mon sens, minimaux. Je considère que, quand on se réfère à la mesure qui devait être prise dans ce domaine, c’est vraiment le minimum que nos gouvernements peuvent faire pour les populations.Quelqu’un a dit qu’on ne doit pas regarder seulement les chiffres. Monsieur le Président, notre Commission a eu la chance d’avoir une présentation sur les statistiques en Afrique. L’une des difficultés de savoir et de mesurer les progrès réalisés, c’est de ne pas avoir des unités de mesure sur lesquelles tout le monde est d’accord. La Commission avait fait une recommandation de soutenir le renforcement et la promotion des statistiques en Afrique.Quand on va dans nos pays, on se demande, quelquefois, comment on a pu calculer le taux de mortalité des enfants, celui du nombre de ménages qui mange une fois par jour. On n’a pas de statistiques fiables. Je pense, donc, qu’on doit faire la promotion des statistiques pour qu’on parle de la même chose.Deuxièmement, Monsieur le Président, je pense que l’atteinte des Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement est une question de financement.Nous ne devons pas nous le cacher. Personnellement, je loue le comportement des chefs d’Etats qui ont promis d’allouer une certaine partie du budget national à certains objectifs.Je rappelle que, si, en Afrique, tous les pays allouaient 10 % du budget national à l’agriculture, à l’éradication de la faim, cela serait possible. Si tout le monde allouait, au minimum, 15 % du budget national pour le secteur de la santé, l’éradication de la mortalité infantile serait atteinte; sans parler de l’éducation qui doit, au minimum, recevoir 20 % de nos budgets nationaux.Monsieur le Président,Ces chiffres paraissent énormes, mais si on calcule les bénéfices qu’on peut en tirer, on trouve que ces chiffres ne sont pas si élevés que cela. Parce que si la population a de quoi manger, les maladies diminuent, la mortalité des enfants diminue, les femmes qui ont des enfants peuvent les nourrir et les garder en vie. Si les filles vont à l’école, elles n’auront plus de grossesses à risque, elles seront plus éduquées et elles apprendront à espacer les naissances. Tout cela, Monsieur le Président, je crois que ce sont, en retour, des bénéfices considérables.Enfin, pour terminer, je voudrais revenir à l’aspect interrelationnel entre les Objectifs. Nous avons parlé, ce matin, du changement climatique et de ses conséquences. Je pense que, là aussi, il faut vraiment y revenir et souligner l’importance de l’environnement, en ce qui concerne l’atteinte des Objectifs du Millénaire, parce que pour combattre la faim, pour combattre les maladies, nous devons vivre dans un environnement sain, où l’eau est disponible et propre à être bue, à être utilisée dans les ménages.Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Thank you very much Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to say a word or two on this very important topic, which was topical at the recently held United Nations General Assembly.Mr. President, the MDG’s as we all know are a set of eight time-bound, concrete, specific objectives or targets aimed at significantly reducing or eradicating poverty by the year of our good Lord 2015. They were crafted and proposed in 2000 by the United Nations and 147 Heads of State signed the Millennium Development Declaration.Mr. President, in this modern world when you craft an objective, you craft it along the lines of being smart and smart being an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. When these MDG’s were brought into being, there was no doubt that they all met this criterion of being smart; they were indeed specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. The anxiety to achieve them was unbelievable among Head of States especially in Africa. We saw some countries pushing their national budget to the limit and some even beyond the limit, all in an endeavor to achieve this Millennium Development Goals.These MDG’s created some sort of competition among countries because no Head of State or no country wanted to be seen to be left behind in terms of achieving this MDG’s. But then, around the years 2004, a progress of some sort or analysis, was made by countries to make an assessment of how they fared in terms of achieving these MDG’s and there was positive progress around the years 2004 that indeed countries were online to achieve these objectives by 2015. But thereafter, the world gave birth to an animal called economic recession. This phenomenon or this animal jeopardized, hampered and retarded all the efforts that have been put in place by countries since the year 2000. As if that was not enough, a twin sister to economic recession called climate change was born by the world. Mr. President it is a fact that these two sisters, the economic recession and climate change are frustrating and hampering progress on MDG’s. And it is going to be pretty difficult for some countries to achieve all this MDG’s by the year 2015. Economic recession and climate change are like two sides of the same coin. Their impact on MDG’s is the same. And if you look at what is happening right now in the world, we are still not yet out of the woods in terms of economic recession and one wonders that, if we are proceeding in this manner, are we going to see ourselves achieving the MDG’s by the year 2015.Climate change is also a problem Mr. President, because we are told that, projections suggest that the rainfall season will be shorter and it is going to be less reliable. My suggestion Mr. President is that all Heads of State and world leaders must just swallow their pride, sit down and say that we need to make an adjustment, a re-adjustment of the target of the MDG’s. Those that are likely to be achieved by 2015, the target should remain at 2015. Those that are not likely to be achieved by 2015, re-adjust the target to year 2020, say five year, give a period of five years and align them to that year, 2020. Hear how it sounds, twentytwenty, two zero, two zero, isn’t that a good year Mr. President? We have already lost about three years because economic recession came around the year 2008. Count 2008, 2009, and 2010; we have lost three years and that is the reason why I am saying that lets increase the target for other MDG’s that are not likely to be achieved by 2015 to year 2020.I thank you very much Mr. President.HON. AGYEMAN ELIZABETH [GHANA]:Thank you Mr. President.After everything Honorable Dery has said, I do not want to say too much because we are from the same country and we know how Ghana is doing about this MDG’s.But I have some two questions to ask. The first one is that we always attribute the maternal and child deaths to some particular problems that is pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles and HIV- AIDS. I think there is a very technical one that we are not mentioning and that is also killing our women. That is the carelessness of the Medical Assistance or Medical Personnel at the hospitals. We are not saying much about that. I know that we are all fighting malaria and the rest but what can we do to check on these Nurses and sometimes Doctors who because of carelessness and negligence in caring our women they die. It is happening but we are not saying anything about it. I have listened to all these two presentations and I did not hear anything about negligence. So, I want to find out if you have actually checked on that. We have set up a Task Force to go round hospitals to check some Nurses in Ghana especially maternity homes because measles is not killing people anymore. I know that we have been able to fight measles and the rest but the behavior of some Nurses and Doctors when these women go to the hospitals to deliver they neglect them and they die this is killing of our women. So, I think we should devote our time and see whether we can find answers to those questions or may be give special incentives to the hospital personnel.Then also I have heard that there is the establishment of Task Force on Food and Nutrition Development at the UN. We do not know whether they have set up branches all over Africa because sometimes they set this up at the AU but it is not accessible in certain areas of the country.With these two simple questions I want to end my submission and I want to tell everybody that Ghana is doing very well and we shall continue to do what we are doing. Thank you very much. (Applause)HON. KANTENGWA JULIANA [RWANDA]:Thank you Mr. President for giving me the floor and I wish to take this opportunity to welcome you back. It is good to have you there.When my brother Goya was talking and he mentioned the two sisters of global financial crisis and climate change, I got worried, but he is my friend. I hesitated to give in a point of order. When these stereotypes where negativity goes to women it is not very comfortable. I hope he does not fall into the stereotype of where the devils are all black and that kind of talk. (Laughter) So next time we shall talk of something else.Having said that Mr. President; I just want to contribute to the debate on MDG 3. Promoting gender equality and empowering women, indeed holds the key just like my respectable brother Dery has already clearly pointed out. I come from Rwanda, a country where we have been praised for gender parity in Parliament. Actually we are slightly over the edge; we are 56 percent women in our Parliament. In our cabinet, we are almost 40 percent. In the Judiciary, we are over 40 percent. Come to local government, we fall back in technical positions because our girls started going to school 30 years later than the men. Even then, the first ones who went to school were trained to become good housewives for the colonial assistants. So, the girls started going to school later and that explains the disparity in technical competencies within our women population.However, having said that; we are working on this and that is why we are increasing massive enrolment of the girl child in primary school, and that goes for secondary and tertiary. They are still fewer in those upper echelons of education.However, we noticed in the recently concluded Presidential elections that 54 percent of the registered voters were women, so you could as well campaign calling women only for your meetings and sail through because you only need 51 percent to become the President.I am trying to emphasize that if you ignore the women, you are not going to do anything. At least in Rwanda this is what I have seen. Because of that, we have seen that whichever programme we want to promote, be it the health insurance policy whereby we have one of the most impressive health insurance policies on the continent with over 80 percent health insurance coverage for the whole population, be it education, be it anything, involve the women and everything is going to fall in line. Involve the women and you only need the money and then once the money is there, you are likely to achieve the other MDGs.However, we have come a long way because other factors were in operation. I forgot to mention that even our cherished restitutive justice, everything; you do not do anything without women in Rwanda and expect it to work.But having said that, I also want especially to communicate to the AU Commissioner, Her Excellency, Madam Gawana, that the practice of setting budgetary allocations as targets across the African Union members, is very useful. It instills discipline. Members try to - some people call it compete - but everybody wants to adhere to what is working. So, the moment we start removing these targets like was happening when the ministers of finance were complaining and I understand they were given their day, it is not good. We are all striving to reach the Maputo target for the agriculture budgetary allocation. We are striving; we are competing to reach the health budgetary allocations. I wish in fact we would go back and draw budgetary allocations for everything. If your country is unable to do it, it strives to do it. If you do not set a timeline, if you do not set a milestone, you are unable to evaluate how fast you are moving.So, I would encourage that you go back and draw budgetary targets for each and every thing that we are doing in order to encourage the African governments to serve their people.You know, when the MDGs were set, it was a reminder for us to, "Go back and serve your populations." We were not doing it. So, if that works, why don’t we go with what works? (Member timed out.)HON. KOKERAI RUGARA [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Mr. President for giving me time to say a few words about this very important topic. It is life itself.You will realize that this presentation that has been done and so ably done, we would need weeks of discussion, taking point by point to make it understood. If we look at - I have tried since my preceding speakers have very ably articulated many of the points - I have just tried to isolate poverty and hunger, education and good governance, those four items.A hungry man, they say, is an angry man. Hunger is the cause of wars. It has been from time immemorial; people fought because they wanted to steal food from the next person. Today, even though that practice has been reduced, but still a hungry nation is inactive. A hungry nation cannot send its children to school. A hungry nation can never be happy in any way. Therefore, hunger stands pivotal to happiness, to democracy, to all the other good ideas we discuss here. Poverty is so intertwined with hunger, that if you look around in your constituencies, in your communities, you will find that, it is the poor who are hungry, it is the poor who don’t know when the next meal will come, it is the poor who actually live miserable lives, but get used to living miserably sometime without knowing that this is the case.Once upon a time someone said - it was a business man and I didn’t agree with him - he said, it is by choice to be poor. I quizzed him on that and he said that it is a choice because the sky is the limit. Then when you look at the sky as the limit, you actually have to come to government. The government gives the limitless sky in terms of poverty, in terms of education and in terms of prevention of hunger.I want to take an example from my country; I have realized everyone is praising his country. I want to look at Zimbabwe. I want to say, I am proud of my government; ever since independence, the way they took education to be so central and so important that right now we are no longer worried about how many girls go to school, but we are worried about what quality of education they are getting. That’s where we are at the present moment in our primary schools, in our secondary schools, in our tertiary schools... Please allow me to say at least the policies must be made to enable people to go to school. Policies must be made to save people from hungry. Policies must be made to alleviate poverty from among our people. I thank you Mr. President.HON. MASEBO TEMBO SYLVIA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you very much Mr. President for giving me the opportunity to debate the report as presented.Firstly, I just want to appreciate the report by the AU Commissioner for Social Affairs, Her Excellency, Gawanas.I want to state, Mr. President, that indeed the MDGs are very important as they include goals and targets on poverty and hunger, universal primary education, improving maternal health and reducing child mortality, combating HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases, promotion of gender equality and women empowerment, ensuring environmental sustainability and the global partnership for development.I feel that these are very important goals as they provide a framework for the international community to work towards a common end. Also, they ensure human development reaches everyone and everywhere. And indeed if these goals are achieved, Mr. President ,world poverty would be cut by half, tens of millions of lives would be saved and billions more people will have the opportunity to benefit from the global economy.What is the situation in particular in my country as it relates to these MDGs? I won’t speak more on the MDG’s 5 and 4, I will reserve my comments on that for tomorrow but I just wanted to take the point that was articulated by Her Excellency when she said that the AU is looking at ensuring that all these important goals are dealt with in an integrated fashion. I just wanted to say that that is the way forward. In fact one of the reasons why we have lagged behind on some of the targets is specifically because countries have been very narrow in their approach to some of these issues.In particular, the issue on health, I notice, Mr. President, that there has been a lot of support in the health sector. There have been a lot of finances from our partners and even most of our African governments have put a lot of money on the health sector and they have tended to undermine some of the sectors which have a direct effect on the health targets. For example in the area of water and sanitation, you find that most of our countries put less money in Zambia; you find that sanitation coverage especially in the rural areas is very low. We are at about 30 percent and when it comes to access to clean water, again we are over 40 percent which is very low and yet you will find that the issue of water and sanitation has a direct link to the issues of education for all and even on the issue of the health targets themselves. So, I want to support and to say that indeed an integrated approach in dealing with these issues could actually give us better impact.Zambia has done quite well on some of the targets especially the one relating to enrolment of the girl child but yes we have problems of getting the girls to complete. And I think one of the issues for us in Zambia is the problem of early marriages and I think this is still a big challenge in our country especially in the rural areas because of some our cultural practices where girls are expected to get married earlier and other factors which would require time for long debate.The point that I wanted to ask the Commissioner was, what is the AU doing to ensure that even when it comes to resource allocations by our cooperating partners, interest can also be drawn in other sectors. In this case I am talking about the area of water and sanitation because I see a number of donors not really being interested in issues of water and sanitation but are much more interested in issues of health in particularly Malaria and HIV/AIDS.The other point I wanted to raise was the issue of HIV and AIDS. In Zambia we have done very well in fighting and reducing the HIV pandemic but now we have a new phenomenon which is becoming a problem. In the past it was about girls on the streets that were getting HIV but now it is people that are in marriages. We seem to have problems of married couples getting involved-(Member timed out)HON. ALI BAHARI [KENYA]:Thank you Mr. President for this opportunity. I will be very brief in my contribution. From the outset, I want to thank the commissioner GAWANA for the manner in which she simplified her presentation for everybody to understand. And secondly Mr. President, because in her coming to Pan-African Parliament today she complied with article 11(5) of the protocol where, upon request officials of the AU may attend sessions of Pan-African Parliament and I think we need to congratulate her on that.(Applause)Mr. President, going back to the presentation, I want to speak on the issue of extreme poverty. Mr. President, I want to speak on this because this is a dehumanizing position for any human being to be in, and as leaders, we should be ashamed of ourselves if citizens of our country - of which I am included and because I know it is there in every country - face this dehumanizing situation. Some of our countries, 17 of them were celebrating 50 years of independence, yes it is good to see that we have chased away the colonialists, but after you have chased them away and you know why you chased them away, what did you do for the citizens? What did you do to the citizens of those countries? We must evaluate ourselves against this kind of a background.And Mr. President, some of the issues or a lot of them - I dare say - have been contributed to by us. I want to bring in the issue of income inequalities in any country in Africa. In a lot of these countries we have 10% of the population, owning 90% of the wealth in that country, where 90% of the population lives in abject poverty. I think Madam Commissioner, once you go to the Commission; these are matters that need to be addressed without having to go very far. This has everything to do with malpractices such as corruption, which we have to combat as a continent. So we must come up with a policy on how to eradicate some of these vices within our governance structures.Mr. President, the issue as it is presented in the MDG’s, is appreciated in that there is a deadline. I don’t think African countries; African governments are very keen on the issue of deadlines. I tend to disagree with my brother GOYA when he says shift the goal post, make it easy for them, and make them move to 2020. If I understood him very well, I think I will disagree with that. This is the first time I think, in one of the attempts to change the lives of African people that the issue of deadline has been brought in. Even on the issue of peace and security, if it is a question of Somalia, if it is the question of Sudan, if it is a question of Niger, African Union must bring in the issue of deadline by saying this issue must be sorted out by this date. Most of these African countries or human beings by nature, operate better when they have fixed deadlines. Therefore, when it comes to development issues, I am happy that this has been quantified and the issue of deadlines has been brought in. That is the only way we can move forward.The other issue is, if we improve on matters of governance through educating our own people, which is also the function of Pan-African Parliament; that you educate the grass root people to make the government accountable on some of these issues not on the regions where they come from but on these issues. And finally Mr. President I want to say that in Kenya on the issue of gender, we will achieve because of our new Constitution, which makes it mandatory. By 2015 we will be there on the issue of gender parity. To conclude, Madam Commissioner, you will need to address the issue of population growth in Africa, which is responsible for all these things that we have not achieved in the MDGs. Thank you Mr. President.HON. MUKABARANGA AGNÈS [RWANDA]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.C’est là le danger de parler en dernier lieu. La plupart des points que j’allais développer ont été soulevés par les collègues.Je voudrais juste faire quelques commentaires. Avant cela, je remercie notre hôte d’aujourd’hui, celui de l’Union africaine.Monsieur le Président,Je dirais que ces Objectifs du millénaire, c’est vrai, c’est une question de volonté politique, de ressources, de bonne politique, mais c’est aussi une question de législation.Monsieur le Président,Pour ne citer que quelques exemples, en commençant par mon pays et des pays voisins, à ce que je sache, l’éducation de base, l’éducation primaire, devrait être considérée, dans nos constitutions, comme libre et gratuite. Nous, au Rwanda, nous faisons même la différence. Notre Président a fait sa campagne, en disant que les neuf premières années sont libres et gratuites. En ce moment, avec ce mécanisme-là, nous sommes sûrs que les enfants, dès leur premier âge, peuvent entrer à l’école, et les parents sont sanctionnés.Monsieur le Président,Nous devons aussi appréhender tout ce qui nous a été dit, en ce qui concerne l’éducation, la santé, la mortalité infantile et maternelle, le droit d’accès à l’eau, l’environnement. Nous devons les concevoir en termes de droits, et sur ce point, je pense qu’il est du devoir des parlementaires, de ne pas laisser les Gouvernements appréhender seuls ces questions. J’ai beaucoup aimé le partenariat et l’interrelation qui ont été soulignés par l’oratrice d’aujourd’hui, disant qu’il y a une relation entre tous ces objectifs; mais aussi, on ne peut pas les atteindre sans partenariat entre le gouvernement, les parents, le secteur privé, le parlement et la société civile, pour ne citer que ceux-là.Là maintenant, Monsieur le Président, pour ce qui concerne la capacité de la femme et l’égalité des genres, la question que les filles suivent très bien le premier degré de l’éducation, mais abandonnent au niveau du secondaire, nous devons essayer de la résoudre non seulement en analysant les raisons, mais aussi en allouant les ressources suffisantes.Concernant ce concept de « gender budgeting », l’autre jour, quand nous étions à une conférence de femmes, j’ai regardé tout autour, nous n’étions que des femmes à apprendre comment on peut équilibrer un budget sous l’aspect du genre. Et pourtant, les hommes aussi doivent savoir ce que c’est. Si la fille abandonne l’école au niveau du secondaire, c’est souvent parce que la femme s’occupe seule de cette question. Donc, il est grand temps que l’homme aussi sente que, avoir une fille éduquée, c’est un investissement. Si nous sommes là, c’est parce que nous avons été éduquées; et finalement, c’est toute la famille, toute la société et tout le pays qui récoltent les résultats.Laissez-moi terminer, Monsieur le Président, en disant, que le Parlement doit aussi jouer un rôle; nous devons assumer notre mission de contrôle du Gouvernement. Nous devons examiner la loi du budget, et régulièrement, demander aux Ministres des Finances, de venir faire un exposé, nous dire comment leur projet de budget respecte ces Objectifs du Millénaire, et sur la base des conventions, des déclarations qui ont été faites sur des aspects particuliers, notamment l’agriculture et la protection de la femme.Monsieur le Président,Je conclus sur une note de félicitations à votre Bureau et à notre hôte d’aujourd’hui, pour avoir planifié qu’on discute d’un point si crucial du développement, celui des Objectifs du Millénaire.Je vous remercie.HON. CHARUMBIRA FORTUNE [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Mr. President. Let me try and beat the three minutes. May I also thank the Commissioner from the AU for the presentation.Mr. President, the MDG Goal No. 1, I want to persuade the Honorable Members to see that Goal No.1 in fact is the key goal. Goal No. 2 up to the end, are simply a result of failure in Goal No.1. When you have not addressed Goal No. 1, your mortalities, your equalities, your education, your Malarias will be a problem and as Robert McNamara did say more than two decades ago, if you want to solve all issues of population and other like child mortality, just address the issue of poverty.Now, we debated in this House, Mr. President, why Africa is "number last" and here we were told that it has not contributed much to the success in eradicating poverty. We have debated that Africa is endowed with natural resources or wealth than any other continent and unless this debate links the issues of exploitation and distribution of wealth on the continent, then we cannot win. So, the MDGs debate should go beyond just looking at targets, also look at the issues of wealth endowment and how to exploit and then also distribute it across the continent.And then when you talk of countries and averages, the per capita measurements here as you know, there is an inherent weakness. We can say, "This country is doing very well," but when you go into that country on the ground, on the streets, you wonder where these people were writing these reports from.Thank you Mr. President.HON. PETER HITJITEVI KATJAVIVI [NAMIBIA]:Thank you Mr. President, Members of the Pan African Parliament.I want to comment briefly on the presentation we have just heard by the Advocate Bience Gawanas. There is no doubt in my mind that the AU Commissioner have done an excellent job in highlighting the essential issues relating to the MDGs as well as raising particular challenges facing a number of African countries in meeting the MDGs by 2015, as required by the United Nations. Advocate Bience Gawanas also dealt extensively with the kind of struggles by many African countries to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases. Indeed the presentation comes at a pertinent time soon after the recent debate of United Nations. The debate that undertook to assess the implementation of the MDGs.Mr. President I believe that there will be no argument that African countries should continue to make concerted efforts in order to address common challenges so as to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. We should fully support the kind of interventions that the Advocate Gawanas has highlighted in her presentation. This calls for continuous assessment of efforts of compliance with MDGs. This would be done by looking at our different experiences and thereby learning from each other. Above all, we should spare no efforts in putting in place the necessary mechanism that ensure full compliance of MDGs. Such a process entails periodic reviews in order to see how well we are doing and to be ready to take corrective measures in this regard.Mr. President, Members of this Honorable House, you will agree with me that MDGs are at the heart of our work. They are centered around the upliftment of the quality of life for most of our citizens throughout the African Continent. Consequently, this Parliament must make it its business in terms of our oversight role. I submit this has been an excellent and an informative presentation.I thank you. (Applause)HON. NJIKELANA SISA JAMES [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Mr. President.I would like to thank the speaker, the Commissioner for AU who has been kind enough to talk to us this afternoon.The question of the MDGs is very very important not just for Africa but for the whole world. My view is that in fact these eight goals were well conceived at the time they were made, 2000. But for now we in Africa have to have a different approach as to how we challenge them or use them in our own context. The designers of course have done this across the world and countries are very different one from the other, therefore, we must adapt these goals into the system we have in Africa.So, Madam Commissioner, can I suggest that in fact as far as Africa is concerned we should only be concerned with two things: education and health. I will tell you why, the health for instance will consume straight away the Articles 4, 5 and 6, that is child mortality, the maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, Malaria and so on straight away and education will look after the rest. If we are promoting serious education in Africa, all our people should go to secondary, so shall I suggest that in fact in all our Ministry of Education in Africa throughout the Continent, we should have subsidiary areas for Goals 1,2,3,7 and 8. This can deeply put in on the Ministry of Education.For instance, lets us take this question of eradicating extreme poverty. What is the source of poverty in Africa? I can assure you Honorable Members that by the far the best important reason is lack of education. All of us sitting here, I don’t think anyone can say here that we are poor as a sort of description making and the other difference between us and the rest of our people in our country is education, I can assure you and you can go back to a country, go to a community and look one after the other, it graduates from the highest educated people to these who are reasonably educated. They are hardly poor because you got the sense, you got the means, you got the ability to go out and find for yourself and do something which will up keep your family, that is education, that is practically education nothing to do with academia, so, education look after that.The question of gender, I mean we here we talk about all sorts of things but there is nobody here who would disrespect women, in fact we turn to.. (Honorable out of time)HON. MATAMISA ERIMENZIAH EDITOR [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Mr. President for affording me this opportunity once again. I would want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Her Excellency, Madam Gawana for her presentation.Mr. President, Her Excellency has given indicators by way of statistical data to ensure we debate from a more informed background. A healthy nation is a happy nation and contributes towards a country’s production as a productive workforce. But Mr. President the million dollar question is; how far have we gone towards the achievement of the 8 Millennium Development Goals as African nations?Just a quick look at the MDG number 1, which talks about the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. I want to say that Africa must deal decisively with issues of civil wars. Stability is a must, because a warring nation cannot be productive. It is important therefore; Mr. President that Africa must ensure that peace prevails in all her nations.A further look at the same issue, Goal Number 1, brings me to the issue that there needs to be a deliberate capacity building programme for those in countries like my own country Zimbabwe. We are poor, but we have got the land. If a deliberate Capacity Building Farming Programme is put in place, this will make sure that people are educated on how best to be productive and they will be able to produce enough food for themselves. This is vital if we are to move away from hunger.The rich people are smart people, I tell you. They live good lives. But poor people don’t care what is next to them. The attainment of Goal Number 1 will ensure that diseases like cholera will be history in our lives. Cholera is a fast killer, but it is still there, why? Because people lack education, hence education is vital to the improvement of the lives of the African people.I have tried to look at MDG 2, which says the achievement of Universal Primary Education. In Zimbabwe, that is not a problem. There is no free education. Our children pay for their education, though we are poor, we manage to do that. What we need as Zimbabwe is more funding to improve the education institutions and whatever there is that they have to offer.Mr. President, on goal number 6, I have looked at the issue of HIV... (Interruption) I need to say this. Some people who are HIV positive still can’t access medication. What we are doing now is, we are poor as Zimbabweans.Our economy is on the recovery path, hence we cannot call ourselves a developed country nor do we have a developed economy. We are starting from scratch; hence our people are still dying from AIDS. Some haven’t even accessed those drugs and when the drugs are accessible, they cannot even afford to pay for the drugs, because they don’t have the money. There are no jobs, there is nothing. So, at times when we talk of achievement of these goals, we forget that in Africa, we still have some countries that purport to be doing well, when they are very poor and rather performing very badly. I thank you Mr. President.HON. MAKGALEMELE DIKGANG PHILLIP [BOTSWANA]:Thank you Mr. President. As my colleagues have already stated, I think the presenter did a very good job in appraising us on the progress made on MDGs.Mr. President, I want to address myself to two issues and I have two or three questions that I want to ask.Mr. President, my area of interest will be on MDG No.1, which I consider to be the most important because its focus is on poverty eradication. I must hasten to congratulate Ghana and North African countries as we are informed that they have actually met their targets and I think we must learn from them. From the presentation, it is clear that those countries are doing very well in terms of stable good governance, sound macroeconomic policies and increased agricultural investments. I think that should help us in moving forward and strengthening our poverty reduction interventions in our respective countries.Mr. President, it is also clear from the presentation that Africa as a region, has not contributed significantly to this success of MDG1. I think that statement is communicating to us that we really have to double our efforts with regards to poverty eradication. It is disturbing Mr. President that shelter as a component of poverty, is still not addressed in our respective countries despite the fact that we do have very well developed building like this one where we are holding our Parliament and other Parliaments. We still have people in rural areas, I am an MP who represents people in the rural areas of Botswana and we do have people who do not have a roof over their head. So, clearly poverty is a key challenge in our Continent. We need to develop strategies of how shelter for the poor can be fast tracked and we have to reconsider how we are pushing infrastructural development so that it is not skewed towards one side of the economy.We are told that youth unemployment is still a challenge; hence we have to find ways of addressing the issue of youth unemployment. Young people are the future and if we do not address this group of young people, then it is going to be very difficult for us to achieve our poverty eradication efforts.To go straight to my questions, I have about two or three questions. The first question which I want to ask is, IS there a need for policy towards the realization of MDGs? I want to appreciate whether we have adequate policy to address MDG goals? Is there a need for the legal framework to be improved? Or is it adequate enough to really help us to attain the MDGs? To what extent have we succeeded in applying MDG No.8 for the attainment of MDGs 1 - 7? Finally in terms of the assessment, how are we performing as countries? How do our budgets accommodate MDG realization?I thank you.HON. HYACINTA CHIKAONDA [MALAWI]:Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to add my voice to the debate on the Floor. I will just add my voice to MDG 3 because fellow Members have already spoken much on the other MDGs.It is pleasing to note that Africa is making progress in gender equality and empowerment of women. In my country Malawi, we have also made tremendous progress in primary education where most girls now are back in school. Of course we have free primary education in Malawi, but still we had problems with girls attending school. We attribute this to some mechanism that our government put in place. For example, in most primary schools we have introduced school feeding programmes, where pupils are given porridge to eat. As you know - and my brother there has already alluded to it - a hungry person is an angry person. If pupils go to school on an empty stomach, it is likely that they will not pay attention in class, and eventually what happens is that they drop out of school.We have also tried to address issues of water and sanitation by providing safe water in schools and construction of more toilets for girls as this contributes to the conducive environment for the learning of girls in schools.We have also seen a high dropout rate of girls in Malawi especially in secondary and tertiary education, but our country has tried hard to address problems affecting the girl child and girl education in secondary schools. For example, we have tried hard to put up infrastructure that is conducive for them to learn like; construction of girls’ hostels. We are stressing the need for girls’ hostels because when girls are commuting from their homes, there are a lot of things that can happen to them on their way. They can be raped or harassed and as a result they decide to drop out. But also at home, you see that most of the household chores that are there are given to these girls. So, these girls do not have enough time to read or do their homework. As a result they will be failing at school and eventually drop out of school.So we have tried hard to construct girls’ hostels so that they concentrate on their education, have more time to do their homework and also security wise, I think when they are together in their hostels, they are safer there than when they are commuting from their homes.We also tried to civic educate the masses on the importance of educating a girl. There is a saying that goes, "If you educate a man, you educate one person, but if you educate a girl, you educate the whole nation." (Applause) So we try hard to hold girl child education as No.1Lastly, Mr. President, can I just have a half a minute please. I agree with the presenter that much more needs to be done to increase the number of women in Parliament. In Malawi in 1999, the composition of women was at 9 percent. In 2004 it was at 14 percent and in 2009 it is now at 22 percent. We have 42 women in parliament where 11 are cabinet ministers or deputy ministers and our Vice President is also a woman. Also the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission is a woman. The Second Deputy Speaker is a woman. The Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank is a woman. The Attorney-General is a woman. The COP is a woman. So, you can see that under the leadership of our President, Ngwazi, Prof. Bingu wa Mutharika, we have seen more women in decision-making positions in Malawi.In conclusion, I emphasize the need to give women an enabling environment to deliver the expectations of the people for sustainable women empowerment. Sexual favours to get development projects, limit women in decision-making positions to perform to the expectations of the people. I should have expounded on that, but for the sake of observing the time limit, I say; Mr. President, thank you very much for giving me that opportunity. (Applause)HON. TAMBOURA ASCOFARE OULÉMATOU [MALI]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je voudrais également féliciter Madame GAWANAS pour sa présentation. A ce stade, je crois que tout a été déjà dit. Le point précisément que je voulais développer portait sur l’accès des femmes aux postes de prise de décision, parce que je pense, personnellement, que c’est par ce biais que le changement peut se faire.Evidemment, avec les politiques qu’on a dans nos pays pour mieux éduquer les filles, les résultats sont là, aujourd’hui. On a presque la parité, concernant l’accès des filles à l’école, dans beaucoup de pays.D’après l’intervention de celle qui m’a précédée, au Malawi, si les femmes accèdent à des postes de prise de décision, je pense que, dans beaucoup de pays, c’est à ce niveau qu’on doit faire un gros effort, puisque c’est par là que les changements peuvent venir des femmes. Concernant tous les problèmes qui sont dans ces Objectifs du millénaire pour le développement, que ce soit l’accès à l’eau et à la santé, elles sont au centre. Quand un enfant est malade, c’est la femme qui est là; pour apporter l’eau, c’est elle qui est là. Donc, pour beaucoup de ces questions, elles peuvent apporter leur sensibilité, les changements, quand elles sont à des postes de prise de décision.Mon second point va porter sur la santé. Et, je voudrais me réjouir du fait que mon pays soit sur le point d’atteindre les Objectifs de 15%, mais il y a encore beaucoup à faire. Ce que je voulais dire là, c’est qu’il y a des maladies qui font plus de ravage que le SIDA, la tuberculose, le paludisme, et qui ne sont pas prises en compte dans les politiques de santé de nos pays. Je veux parler des hépatites, il y en a jusqu'à 5 types, A, B, C, D et E, dont le taux de prévalence est plus élevé que le SIDA et il y a la pneumonie pour les enfants.Je pense qu’il y a des dispositions à prendre pour que ces maladies puissent être prises en compte dans les politiques de santé publique, sinon on risque de faire un recul lorsqu’on aura atteint les objectifs de 2015.Je vous remercie.HON. VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Je vous remercie infiniment, Monsieur le Président. Mais, je crois que je n’aime pas beaucoup le délayage, les redites, les répétitions; alors, je vais me faire grâce de tout cela, pour dire que tout a été dit et bien dit. Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, Honorable SOGLO, c’est très sage de votre part.HON. HAJAIG FATIMA [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Mr. President and thank you Commissioner for the report.Just a few words on poverty and hunger in Africa. It is of concern that poverty and hunger is on the increase. Poverty is a crime against a person as George Bennett. It takes away the dignity of a human being, despite the huge mineral and human resources we have in Africa our people are still in poverty and the children a still going to bed hungry.What I would like to know Sir, what are the factors that contribute to the high poverty level in Africa, where the majority of our people live under the poverty line. We would appreciate if the Commissioner could comment more comprehensively on food security, unemployment, the social safety, education for all and health. For example how much of GDP of each African state goes to fund the above basic needs of the people? How much of GDP goes to the defense budgets that funds the conflicts that are bound in our continent? If we do not have the information Sir, then perhaps the AU Commission should undertake a comprehensive survey of each Member State, what moneys are collected and what moneys are disbursed for the needs of its people.And finally Sir, we need this information if we want to turn around the predicament we find ourselves in. We know that 70% of food in Africa is produced by our women but the women are the poorest of the poor in our continent. We need comprehensive analysis of why we are unable to fulfill our MDG Goals. Thank you. (Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie Honorables. Vous avez apporté beaucoup de contributions.Excellence, Commissaire GAWANAS, vous avez eu les contributions, le plaidoyer, les suggestions et les questions des parlementaires. Nous nous sommes exercés à pluraliser les Objectifs.Je vous donne la parole, pour apporter un éclairage, Excellence, Madame le Commissaire.H.E. BIANCE GAWANAS [AUC]:Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you, Honourable Members.It has, indeed, been a privilege for me to sit and listen to the interventions that were made, and may I, just as a very general comment, say that there is definitely an expression of concern about why is it that we are in the predicament that we find ourselves.I presented the MDG’s and as usual, I always find it difficult to present it in the way that I did. I find it difficult, for the simple reason that, as Commissioner for Social Affairs, I do not deal with statistics; I do not deal with numbers, I deal with people that are human beings, I deal with children, persons with disabilities, the elderly, the most vulnerable and the most marginalised.So, when we are talking about the MDG’s and we looking at the MDG’s as the UN SecretaryGeneral has said, is that the MDG’s are not numbers. MDG’s are about human beings, and should be looked at in that context.The Honourable Member had basically asked the question as to what are the factors that contribute to poverty or Africa’s inability to deal with poverty, with food security, and the comparison between the GDP allocated to defence and GDP allocated to the social sector, may, in fact, answer some of the questions that were raised.In the final analysis, Mr. President, Members of Parliament, we are dealing with issues of social exclusion; we are dealing with issues of marginalisation and vulnerability. I have heard many times throughout my life that we can only improve the lives of our people on this continent when we have economic growth. Unfortunately, the reality has not been borne out by that fact, but economic growth necessarily translates itself into a better life of our people.I also heard that Africa is not poor; Africa is rich both in terms of its natural and human resources. The question, therefore, remains, where and what is it that we do wrong on our Continent that we cannot give a better life to our people?Honourable Members, referred to questions of governance. Yes, governance is surely very, very important, because governance is not just about how people are ruled but governance is also surely about how do people hold their leaders accountable for their lives and for better life. So, we deal with questions of corruption, questions of ethics, in fact, the Honourable Member that referred to workers should have, in fact, talked about the whole question of public service delivery. How do we deliver our services to the people?I was very fortunate in my previously that I was Ombudswoman of the Republic of Namibia. As the Ombudswoman, I dealt with human rights violations, with maladministration and corruption. I know the extent to which these vices can destroy the social fabric of our society but more importantly, take away the bread from the mouth of our people. So, let us address the question of service delivery, the effectiveness and the efficiency of service delivery. This aspect that I am mentioning does not require overseas development aid; it is about us, as Africans, asking ourselves how best we can make to meet ends for our people.MDG’s are minimum objectives; they are not the maximum. If Africa cannot even achieve the minimum, when will we ever be able to achieve the maximum that our people are entitled to? So, it is just the bottom line. It just says to us if we can get there, at least, we would have secured a better life for our people.There were questions about the taskforce on food security and nutrition. In fact, in the last Assembly that was held in Kampala, the Heads of States also agreed on a day on food security and nutrition. Unfortunately, I cannot remember exactly which date was set aside and when the taskforce will come into being. But I will make it my duty to find out from my colleague and through Mr. President; we will then inform Parliament exactly what that is.Many have talked about cultural practices. I thought I would reserve it until tomorrow, because the issue that we will be discussing tomorrow has got a lot to do with cultural practices. But I think it is also important that, when we look at the MDG’s, we also put on the African lenses. When you put on the African lenses we would realise that there are issues that impedes on the progress to be achieved in the MDG’s, and not just look at the targets set and how we reach those targets. The lenses that we put on will show us that there is much more rotten into or out of the MDG’s that we need to see.With regard to the policy and legal frameworks, do we need more? I am not so sure. At the level of the African Union, we have plenty of instruments, plenty of decisions. At every summit, we walk away from the Summit and I would not be mistaken if we talked about not less than 30 or 40 decisions that are taken by our Heads of States. In all the areas that we have mentioned, be it corruption, the social economic, political sectors, we have continental instruments. I am sure same applies also at the regional economic community level, where we also have many, many policies and legal instruments.As Members of Parliament, in the National Parliaments, I am sure you Honourable Members have passed many, many pieces of legislation. But there is always a gap between the policy, the law and the action on the ground. That is where our challenges are. I do not think our challenge is in more laws, in more policies; yes, surely, where there are gaps! I think it is very important that we fill those gaps with the adequate and appropriate policies and laws. But I don’t think that should take away from the fact that, yes, we have plenty. The challenge for us is how do we implement and make these have an impact on the lives or the standard or quality of life of the people of Africa? There is a time that I thought, since we have all this Charter and I know that, at the UN, they are talking about the legal empowerment of the poor, whether it will be made will be too much to ask, to also start talking about a Charter to legally empower the poor.We have talked about social protection. Many discussions that have taken place, it was said that social protection systems, cash transfers whatever in terms of providing a caution for people in times of crisis or in times of shocks that happen within our societies. I know that there are currently debates within South Africa itself on health insurance. We have heard Rwanda has said that they have successfully implemented health insurance. Other countries have also been shown to have good examples of social protection. I am bringing in social protection, in order also to discuss questions of employment.Employment is critical in youth employment even more so. But we must remember that, in our societies, there are people that might not necessarily live better lives through employment. Do we not owe to them also to make sure that they also have access to the resources of our country. Therefore, you may also consider, as Members of Parliament, how do we move forward the achievement of the MDG’s in terms of social protection?We have adopted the Ouagadougou Plan of Action and Declaration on Poverty Alleviation and Employment Creation in 1994 at an Extraordinary Summit by our Heads of States. The Ouagadougou Plan of Action has got priority actions that our governments have committed themselves to take. But, in my view, when we deal with youth unemployment, we need to look at skills upgrading and training. We also need to encourage and harness the entrepreneurial capacity of our young people. We can turn them into employers rather than merely employees. I think there is the potential of doing that.We are focussing at the African Union next year on the informal economy. I think that, in Africa, we cannot deny that the majority of our people and again the majority of our women are in the informal economy. They do also deserve the protection that workers or employees have in the formal economic system or access to information and the protections that exist.The other issue that we are focussing on is the labour market information systems. We realise that there is as it as across Africa, a death of information, data and statistics. When dealing with health, labour, population and nutrition, every time that we present our statistics, there has always been a question about where do we draw the statistics from; what are we relying on? I am proud to say that my colleague in the Department of Economic Affairs has established a statistical unit; we have got a Charter on Statistics and I recall one of the Honourable Members, in fact, said that there was a presentation that was made on the statistics and the intention is to harmonise our statistical data collection and data analysis systems on the Continent.The question of HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis and other diseases and especially non-communicable diseases. I fully agree that these three diseases are not the only challenges in the health sector that faces Africa. For the first time, we are faced with diseases that we thought are diseases of Europe or America. But, due to change in life styles on our Continent, we have also started to have the diseases that formerly we would not know about and we need to deal with that.The other non-communicable diseases that we have are definitely the question of diabetes. There is an increase or has always been there but because of the importance that we attach to the three diseases, I think a lot of people have also said that we tend to go where the resources and funds are, with the result that the other diseases have not attracted the kind of funding and the kind of research that is really necessary to deal with it. But, from our side, we do recognise that it is also important to focus on non-communicable diseases.Mr. President, Honourable Members, I hope that in my kind of submission and in response that I made, I think I have touched on the questions that you have raised, may I just end off by saying on women’s representation. I think it is very important that women’s representation not be limited to Parliament or to Cabinet. I think it was the Honourable Rwanda, I cannot remember...AN HONORABLE:Malawi.H.E. BIANCE GAWANAS [AUC]:Malawi. When Malawi talked, it was not just a question of 50% in Parliament. She mentioned the Reserve Bank, the Attorney General’s Office, and many other structures that exist within our governments that I also believe should have women’s representation, because critical decisions are made by our governors; critical decisions are being taken by the Ombudswomen of our countries, by the Auditor Generals. So, I would urge Members to really look beyond the Cabinet and Parliament, and to look at what are the strategic positions within which women should be placed.Once again, Mr. President, Honourable Members of Parliament, it has been a privilege, I think it is the first time that I have come to the Pan-African Parliament and I want to assure you that whenever you call upon the Department of Social Affairs, as represented by myself, I would like to come, because I do recognise and value the role of our legislators in driving the social agenda forward on our Continent.Thank you very much. (Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, Excellence GAWANAS, Commissaire aux Affaires sociales de l’Union africaine.Nous vous avons écoutée religieusement, et vous avez entendu les applaudissements qui traduisent que, d’une part, votre contribution a été appréciée par les parlementaires et, d’autre part, les éléments de réponse, que vous avez apportées, nous ont convaincus.Nous sommes heureux de vous avoir avec nous, heureux que vous ayez répondu à notre invitation. Nous sommes heureux de savoir également que vous serez demain encore avec nous dans cette salle pour parler des sujets qui vous tiennent à cœur.Monsieur le Secrétaire général, vous avez peutêtre une annonce à faire?Non!Honorables membres,Nous sommes arrivés à la fin des travaux de ce jour. Par conséquent, la séance est suspendue jusqu’au mercredi, 13 octobre 2010 à 09 heures.(La séance est levée à seize heures quarante-cinq minutes jusqu’au lendemain, mercredi, 13 octobre 2010 à neuf heures).
Wednesday, 13th October 2010
LE PRÉSIDENT:J’invite le Secrétaire général à donner lecture du premier point inscrit à l’ordre du jour.THE CLERK:Thank you, Honourable President. Motion on the Pan African Parliament joint election observer missions with the other organs of the African Union.LE PRÉSIDENT:J’invite l’honorable Ambrose Dery, l’auteur de la proposition, à introduire sa motion.
1.0 – MOTION RELATIVE AUX MISSIONS CONJOINTES D’OBSERVATION DES ELECTIONS DU PARLEMENT PANAFRICAIN AVEC LES AUTRES ORGANES DE L’UNION AFRICAINE.
HON. DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President I first want to ask for your guidance. In my country if I am moving a motion, I do move it and make my arguments and then I end up by reading the terms of the motion so that the seconder then follows. Is that permitted here? I want to know what-THE PRESIDENT:Yes, that is the way we do it as well.HON. DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:Thank you, Mr. President. With your kind permission, I now move the motion on the PanAfrican Joint Elections Observation Missions with other AU Organs.Mr. President, it is important at the outset to lay the foundation or establish the background for this motion. The role of the Pan-African Parliament in election observation missions is not the result of an accident nor is it the product of the benevolence or kindness of any institution or organ of the AU. Mr. President, the role of the Pan-African Parliament in election observation missions is founded on the vision of the AU and therefore Africa, namely, to involve the people at the grassroots in decision-making.Mr. President, this vision to involve the people of Africa and the grassroots finds expression in several declarations of the AU one of which is, with your permission, the African Charter for Popular Participation in Development adopted in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in July 1990, which emphasized the need to involve the people of Africa and the grassroots in economic and political governance.This vision is not a dead vision. It is not only current; it is also the foundation of the blueprint of Africa moving forward. And we know the blue print of Africa is the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, which in its preamble - and it is common knowledge that the preamble sets out the vision and aspirations of the piece of legislation. First, in the first stanza, it refers to popular participation and secondly in the 11th stanza it does refer to the declaration that I alluded to that was passed in Addis Ababa in 1990.That being so, Mr. President, it is right that when we talk of the grassroots and African people’s participation in decision-making, as far as democratic governance or political governance is concerned, it refers to voting, that is elections. Let us then ask ourselves; which of the AU organs does reflect the vision? The vision, I submit, is reflected by PAP and with your permission; I want to refer to Article 5 of the Constitutive Act which is on the organs of the AU, and to submit that only two organs of the AU are constituted by elected officials, namely, the Assembly of the Union and the Pan-African Parliament. The other organs, Mr. President, are composed of either representatives of the Executive or appointees of the Executive. So, what is left for us to determine is, which of these two organs, the Assembly and the PanAfrican Parliament, reflect the vision. And as I said, the vision is best reflected in the Pan-African Parliament and I shall tell you why.First of all, the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community Relating to the Pan-African Parliament ensures that diverse political opinions are represented in this House. The provision on the composition of PAP at Article 4(3) reads as follows, -with your permission, Mr. President- "The representation of each member state must reflect the diversity of opinions in each national Parliament or deliberative assembly."Mr. President that is not all. To ensure that this provision is not cosmetic, it does make a provision on how PAP arrives at decisions in terms of voting and emphasizes the diversity and independence of each member at Article 6 of the protocol which, with your permission reads, "The Pan-African Parliamentarians shall vote in their personal and independent capacities." So, clearly, with PAP first, all diverse opinions are represented, and second, Members do not vote in block, but we vote "independently" representing the diverse opinions of the grassroots.Mr. President, contrast it with the Assembly of the Union. In contrast, the AU Assembly is composed, as at Article 6 (1) of the Constitutive Act, as follows, with your permission, "The Assembly shall be composed of the Heads of State and Government or their dully accredited representatives." It means if you go to an election the person who draws the highest votes whether they are three, 10 or 20, he alone or his representative is represented in the Assembly. So, clearly, the Assembly does not reflect the diverse views of the African people and therefore it cannot be seen to represent the vision.Mr. President, what is my worry? My worry is this, if we go on joint missions with the other AU organs, what is going to happen is that we lose the essential character of PAP, which reflects the grassroots. We lose it. First of all, when we go with the Members of the Assembly, because it is the supreme organ, obviously they become the leader of the mission.And now, Mr. President, there is a perception out there that Presidents, sitting or former, cannot be objective about an election that is held by a sitting President of a country. The perception is that they are a club and they scratch each others’ backs and there is some evidence to support that. Otherwise how is it that we have, sitting at the Assembly, several Heads of State who cannot be considered to be democratically elected or democratically being in office? It can only be because of that.Mr. President, the second reason is that separation of powers will not allow us, as the legislative arm - whether we are a consultative or advisoryto go into a joint mission with the Executive. And Mr. President, I am not creating that. First of all, the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, does in its preamble and fifth stanza, state as follows, with your permission, "...committed to promote the universal values and principles of democracy, good governance, human rights and the right to development."That is not all. In chapter 3, which is on principles - if you have the small book I am reading at page 10 on principles. Principles: Article 3(5) says, "Separation of powers." So, all it says is that, "State parties shall implement this chapter in accordance with the following principles: separation of powers." So what is the separation of powers? The separation of powers is that we and the Executive cannot be seen to be on a joint mission otherwise it compromises our essential character as the organ that reflects the grassroots. So, clearly this is one of the reasons why we cannot go on joint missions.Mr. President, that is not all. When we do go on the joint missions, there are practical challenges. What is the report of the mission? The report of the mission can only be a report that is adopted by the whole joint mission. That is why when your good self or the Bureau asked Members who had functioned as part of joint missions to give reports here, the erroneous impression was created that all Members were interested in, were the conditions of our engagement. Why? Because they could not properly be seen to be submitting to us a report on the mission. And a report on the mission can only be one that has been adopted by the whole mission and really the contradictions are there that the Executive is not likely to come through with an opinion that is exactly like ours.Mr. President, I will give you a personal testimony. I was privileged to be sent by you and PAP to lead the PAP Commission to Namibia in November 2009. When we submitted our report, there was consensus. The High Commissioner, South Africa, the High Commissioner Nigeria, opposition parties and everybody said, "Look. This is the best and balanced report." Then now we are going to the part of the reports that they think are not balanced, but are just meant to scratch the backs of others. That is not on.There are challenges of communication. When we were sent, you communicated to us directly. We reported back to this House. This House adopted it. Now we are going to be sent as part of a joint commission and the challenges have been reflected by the fact that some of our Members went and they were not sure who they were reporting for and secondly that as is expected, we were downgraded. That is part of the psychological warfare. We were downgraded to be under conditions that were far below what should be accorded us: economy class, giving terms that are worse than the staff and then you become demoralized and that is part of the psychological warfare that makes you lose your confidence that you cannot even be seen to be making any arguments for this.Mr. President, that is why when the Sixth Ordinary Session of the Executive Council of the African Union on 01 February 2010 adopted the decision on election observation, EX.CL/DCE 534, 16, which among others requested that the Commission, under a centralized budget managed by the Department of Political Affairs, to coordinate the organization of joint election observation missions with the Pan-African Parliament and other concerned organs it raised challenges. Let me give you an example. In the Sudan, the joint mission was led by the former President of Ghana, my own President, His Excellency, John Kufuor. Yes, they do bring some experience to bear, but how are we going to ensure that we have an independent report? We do not have it here.So, Mr. President, we need to change the situation and the only way we can do it is to make it clear to the AU, the assembly and I do agree that your constructive engagement is the way to go. First of all it will be put before them that this amalgam is a dangerous amalgam. This joint mission is not going to serve the AU and neither is it going to serve PAP. What is going to happen is that it is going to make the international community not take us serious as far as election observations are concerned.So, it is in view of this, Mr. President, that I do submit that we do engage the AU to say, "Yes, we agree the other organs may go on election observation missions - we do not take that away from them - but in order that we function effectively to reflect the vision of the AU, let PAP be allowed to field its independent election observation missions." And that at the end of the day we will do so in consonance with best practices, which respect the separation of powers and that it is only in then that we can effectively advise the Assembly on what has transpired. We cannot do so when we have compromised and worked under them.Mr. President, you have already stated in your report, which we all acknowledged here that you have already engaged as far as the terms are concerned. But one comment I need to make, which should be conveyed in this argument is that we do not ask for those terms for our personal benefit. We ask for those terms because we want to draw the attention of member states that it is wrong for us to miss the point that allocation of resources must be done in consonance with the vision of the AU, it must allocate resources to do activities, which enable the peoples of Africa and grassroots views to be reflected in decisionmaking. If all nation states understand that, then that is what will let them finance Pan-African Parliamentarians to come here; that is what will let them finance us and give us the right conditions to go and serve. And of course when we also do go, I need to appeal to all of us here to do the things that will make us worthy ambassadors of the people that we serve as the bastion of the vision, which is that the peoples of Africa and grassroots will be involved in decisionmaking.It is in view of this, Mr. President, that I ask your indulgence to now read in extenso, my motion that I am moving-THE PRESIDENT:Now, excuse me. It is not you who is going to read the motion. It is not you to read the motion.HON. DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:Okay. It is in that view that I submit that the motion, as has been put before this House that I humbly move that we adopt it; and we do ask for independent election observation missions; and then we do ask that the terms and conditions, which apply to elected officers of the AU will also apply to us. Thank you, Mr. President. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you hon. Ambrose Dery. Who is seconding the motion? Hon. Fatima Hajaig.HON. HAJAIG FATIMA [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Mr. President. Honourable Dery has eloquently outlined the reason for this motion. I just want to pick up a few highlights that I think are coming through my head.First of all the Secretariat or the Commission of the AU, is an appointed one. The Pan African Parliament is elected by the people of each country. The experiences of Parliamentarians are different because they go through elections themselves. They know what the answers are, the problems that can arise and so on.In the three elections that were jointly done. First of all the logistics were completely unacceptable. The transport arrangement was first class and second class. There was no language translations arranged. The drafting of reports was wanting. When there is a joint mission, a report must be jointly drafted, then sent to the AU Commission for approval and then returned to PAP for us to discuss. It happened the other way round. A report was drafted, it was sent to the AU, and the Parliamentarians didn’t have a chance to look at it. Until today, we don’t have the reports of those elections. This shows lack of respect for this institution, Sir.In terms of the transport situation, I don’t think that we as parliamentarians will accept to be treated as second class citizens.I almost see a pattern, Sir, and I do hope and pray that I am wrong. In the old OAU the Secretariat held complete sway of the OAU organs. We shall not let that happen again. It is the first time in the history of Africa that there is a Parliament of the people. It is an autonomous body functioning and we believe that with legislative powers we will then have oversight over other organs of the AU. In my mind, Sir, I am no longer sure that the AU wants a strong Pan African Parliament with legislative powers. This institution is quite capable of observing elections in a responsible manner with the electoral laws of the country it is observing, and within the electoral guidelines of the AU. The Pan African Parliament is an autonomous body and should be treated thus.The Pan African Parliament election observations must be put back into our budget for 2011, Sir. I second the motion. Thank you. (Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup. La motion de l’Honorable Ambrose DERY, soutenue par l’Honorable Fatima HAJAIG, dit ceci:« CONSIDÉRANT que dans le cadre de la participation des peuples africains au processus de prise de décision, le mandat du Parlement panafricain en ce qui concerne les missions d’observation des élections découle des articles 3(g) et 3(h) de l’Acte constitutif de l’Union africaine ainsi que de l’article 3 du Protocole au Traité instituant la Communauté économique africaine relatif au Parlement panafricain;CONSIDÉRANT qu’aux termes de l’article 4(3) et de l’article 6 respectivement du Protocole au Traité instituant la Communauté économique africaine relatif au Parlement panafricain, la composition de l’Institution reflète la diversité des opinions politiques dans les Etats membres et que les parlementaires panafricain votent à titre personnel et de manière indépendante;CONVAINCU que dans les circonstances actuelles le Parlement panafricain est, parmi tous les organes de l’Union africaine, celui qui reflète le mieux la vision de la participation des peuples africains au processus de prise de décision;CONSIDÉRANT qu’aux termes d’une décision du Conseil exécutif de l’Union africaine adoptée le 1er février 2010 à Addis-Abeba, en Ethiopie, à savoir la Décision relative à l’observation des élections EX.CL/DEC. 534(XVI), l’organisation des missions d’observation des élections doit se faire conjointement avec le Parlement panafricain et les autres organes de l’Union africaine, grâce à un budget centralisé géré par le département des affaires politiques de la Commission de l’Union africaine;PRÉOCCUPÉ par le fait que le Parlement panafricain, dans le cadre des missions d’observations des élections avec les autres organes de l’Union africaine, compromet la vision relative à la participation des peuples africains au processus de prise de décision, et ce, d’autant plus qu’il existe des problèmes d’ordre opérationnel, comme les conditions défavorables de la participation des membres du Parlement panafricain à ces missions et à la mauvaise communication, entre autres;PAR CONSÉQUENT, je propose à votre aimable attention, qu’une décision soit prise à cet effet. Il est donc, par la présente, décidé de ce qui suit, à savoir que:(i)Le Parlement panafricain demande aux organes pertinents de l’Union africaine de plaider pour que la Décision relative à l’observation des élections EX.CL/DEC. 534(XVI), du Conseil exécutif de l’Union africaine, eu égard à l’organisation des missions conjointes d’observation des élections entre le Parlement panafricain et les autres organes compétents soit annulée, afin que le Parlement panafricain puisse effectuer ses missions d’observation des élections en toute indépendance.(ii)Les modalités de participation des honorables membres du Parlement panafricain aux missions d’observation des élections soient les mêmes que celles qui s’appliquent aux fonctionnaires élus de l’Union africaine. »L’Honorable Ambrose DERY, secondé par l’Honorable Fatima HAJAIG, nous a présenté cette motion.Maintenant, conformément aux dispositions de l’article 66 alinéas 1 et 2, nous allons passer au débat qui ne doit pas excéder une heure d’horloge. J’ai 12 inscrits. Je vais accorder, conformément aux dispositions de l’article 66, alinéa 2, trois minutes à chaque intervenant. Le premier de ma liste est l’Honorable SOULEIMAN MIYIR.HON. MIYIR ALI SOULEIMAN [DJIBOUTI]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je pense que, Monsieur le Président, l’essentiel a été dit par l’auteur de la motion lui-même, mon collègue DERY. Mais, comme vous pouvez le constater dans le document, j’ai moi-même, après ma collègue Fatima HAJAIG d’Afrique du Sud, apporté mon appui à la motion qui a été introduite auprès de notre Chambre par mon collègue DERY. Pourquoi? Parce que, tout simplement, comme un très grand nombre de nos collègues qui ont eu à s’exprimer lors du débat sur les missions d’observation des élections, je suis profondément convaincu que, de tous les organes de l’Union africaine, le Parlement panafricain est celui qui est le mieux indiqué et qui a réellement la vocation à mener ce type de missions.A cet égard, j’attire l’attention de la Chambre sur les dispositions pertinentes des articles 3 et 11 du Protocole. Comme vous le savez tous, actuellement, dans les missions conjointes d’observation des élections, le fait que notre Parlement fournit le plus gros contingent, c'est-à- dire participe à ces missions à hauteur de 40 % des membres ne suffit pas. Je pense, réellement, que le fait de confier à notre Parlement la conduite des missions d’observation électorale contribuera certainement à une plus grande visibilité de notre institution et confèrera une plus grande crédibilité à ces missions.Voilà ce que j’avais à dire pour appuyer cette motion. Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.HON. MATAMISA ERIMENZIAH EDITOR [ZIMBABWE]:I thank you Mr. President. My contributions will be very brief.Mr. President, the issue of PAP moving out from joint election observer missions cannot be over emphasized. PAP needs at this point in time to be autonomous. This is to ensure visibility. To achieve this, Mr. President, joint missions should just be scrapped.And to ensure credibility of election results on observer missions, PAP, which is an institution of elected officials, must be given the platform to prove its worth. Mr. President, people do not want crafted reports on elections as those that are to come from AU, where obviously, we know there is going to be suppression of opinion. We need independence of opinion and political diversity. And this should continue to be recognized as these are what make PAP different from other AU organs.And may it be brought to everyone’s notice that PAP as an institution is higher than all those AU organs that we are going out on joint missions with. So, we need our rightful place. I thank you, Mr. President.HON. MABILETSA ISAAC STEPHEN [BOTSWANA]:Thank you Mr. President. I also want to contribute about the motion by Honorable Ambrose Dery and I wish to stand here to give a testimony that I was once privileged to observe the elections on behalf of SADC Parliamentary Forum. That was in Zambia if I recall it was 2006 or 2005. SADC- PF had a full number of MP’s, if I recall that they were about 70 of them plus the officials from Parliament accompanying them just to carry the observation. I saw those and I was part of it.Initially what would happen was before the commencement of the elections, SADC-PF Observer Mission was on the ground at least three weeks just to go around the country and we were divided in teams composed of two MP’s and one staff member to cover all corners of Zambia. In terms of logistics, each team of MP’s doing an observation were allocated their own vehicle just to make sure that they are not impeded in moving across the length and the breath of the area they were assigned to observe. This is a testimony.Furthermore, this SADC-PF Observer Mission the Secretariat leading it was the Clerk of SADC PF himself to ensure that MP’s and all other facilities pertaining to the observation are under the direction and control of the head of SADC-PF and all matters of logistics were controlled and administered by the head of the SADC-PF.On completion of our observation, we came together, we discussed our observations, and we drafted the report, we spend about two to three days just going over the report that was ultimately to be given to SADC-PF and the communiqué that was issued was agreed by members of Parliament of SADC-PF.Our support Mr. President, when I learned about the outcry by Members who went on Observer Mission of PAP... (Honorable out of time)HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Thank you very much Mr. President. Let me start by thanking my dear colleague Hon. Dery for bringing this motion to this august House. I want to thank Honourable Dery for being brave enough to challenge the decision of the African Union. By bringing this motion to this House I think Honourable Dery is demonstrating one of the key responsibilities of a Member of Parliament; that of playing an oversight role.As Members of Parliament, I think we are duty bound to challenge any decisions on any pieces of legislation, which are sacrosanct and hold Africans at ransom. As Members of Parliament, we should squarely face the decisions of the AU, which put Africans in jeopardy. We must assert our will to challenge these decisions because by so doing, we will be changing the lives of Africans for the better.Having said that Mr. President; I want to say that I wholeheartedly and unreservedly support Honourable Dery’s motion. Mr. President, the decisions that have already been advanced by the mover of the motion and the seconder, and my colleagues who spoke before me, I think are sufficient enough for us as Members of Parliament to support this motion. Mr. President, I want to share my experience of the Joint Mission that I was party to recently. During that mission, the leader of the Mission was someone who was a Cabinet Minister in the recent past. Mr. President as they say, if you are a Cabinet Minister, you are obviously a member of the Executive and here in South Africa they say that once a pirate always a pirate. I fervently believe that once an Executive always an Executive. So, the decisions which were taken by that leader of the mission are more of someone who is still in the Executive. When gave him advice on something, he would refuse it, but then we asked ourselves, what are we here for? An example is, we asked to meet one of the parties, which were taking part in that Election, and among the delegation there were twelve of us who were only English speaking people...THE PRESIDENT:Thank you.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Just give me a minute Mr. President, I want to finish.THE PRESIDENT:You have already responded to the motion. Thank you.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:I just want to....THE PRESIDENT:Thirty-seconds.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Mr. President, I want to end by humbly requesting Members of Parliament who have been invited to take part in the Retreat on the 15th or 16 to talk about this issue with ‘one voice, one Africa’. That is my last statement Mr. President. Thank you very much.DEPUTADO JAIME BESSA AUGUSTO NETO [MOZAMBIQUE]:Muito obrigado, Senhor Presidente. O que eu queria dizer ja foi dito.Obrigado.HON. KHUMALO MARWICK [SWAZILAND]:Thank you Mr. President, I hope you have heard the Honourable Member yielding his minutes to me [HONOURABLE MEMBERS: laughter].THE PRESIDENT:No.HON. KHUMALO MARWICK [SWAZILAND]:Mr. President, this arrangement is unworkable. You cannot have the Executive legislating against or for a Parliament because this is what it is. They are passing legislation in the AU against the Pan African Parliament, something which according to the Protocol, the Parliament has to do. The sole aim Mr. President will be to weaken the Pan African Parliament and that’s it! Who does that Mr. President, it is the PRC. The PRC has become the supreme body in the AU because what happens Mr. President is - you know very well - the agenda of the AU Summit of the Executive Council is originated and formulated by the PRC. If you go to that meeting of the PRC, you will find that out of all the African Ambassadors, not even half are in attendance. It is the officers, the secretary, first secretary and so forth. They take decisions, and more often than not, those decisions will go up to the Summit. Then those decisions are taken to the Pan African Parliament. Mr. President, I believe that if the AU was run along democratic lines, clearly the Pan African Parliament’s view would have been solicited; would have debated this issue before they arrived on this decision.Mr. President, we are a very significant stakeholder in Africa’s governance. Mr. President, clearly the PRC are some kind of demigods in the AU. The decisions that they take, are just to suffocate the Pan African Parliament. There is no good will here; all that remains is ill will against the Pan African Parliament.Mr. President, I plead with you, go out and lobby the foreign Ministers, go out and lobby the Heads of State. Yes, we can talk here but it is not good enough. We need to take that message to the Heads of State in their respective countries before they get to the Summit, including the foreign Ministers, so that they can understand our frustrations. We need to free this Parliament from the shackles of hell, Mr. President. Mr. President, as a parting shot, I still maintain that the motion is not complete. We are talking here against what is happening right now, but if we continue to go and observe those elections, these people will not even yield to our demands. So, we need to stop going to these observation missions. I thank you Sir.HON. ABDOULKADER MOHAMED MOHAMED [DJIBOUTI]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président de m’avoir donné la parole.Je serais bref, parce que j’ai intervenu sur cette question la dernière fois qu’on a débattu sur les missions d’observation. J’avais donné mon avis, et j’avais demandé à ce que notre Chambre réagisse le plutôt à cette décision du Conseil des Ministres.Pourquoi? Parce que cette décision, qui avait été prise à l’encontre du PAP d’organiser les missions d’observation, était une manière d’affaiblir notre institution. Ces missions d’observation donnaient une visibilité au PAP, et notre institution aussi gagnait en crédibilité, c’est pourquoi ces organes ont pris la décision de mettre un terme aux missions d’observation indépendantes du PAP.Donc, je voudrais féliciter les présentateurs de cette motion, parce qu’elle est venue à point. Et aujourd’hui donc, je voudrais dire que les missions conjointes d’observation ont montré leurs limites. Comment? Parce que déjà, nous avions fait un compromis avec l’Union africaine pour faire partie des missions conjointes.Donc, nous avons vu selon le rapport, que le PAP n’était représenté ni dans les missions, ni dans les directions. Et le comble est que le rapport de ces missions d’observation n’a pas été soumis au PAP qui était pourtant partie prenante de ces missionslà.Je voudrais dire que j’appuie cette motion dans le fond, mais pour ce qui est de la forme de cette motion proprement dite, je voudrais apporter un amendement: il est dit dans le rapport que le PAP demande aux organes pertinents de l’Union africaine de plaider...LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorable membre MOHAMED ABDOULAKADER, vous ne pouvez pas apporter, de cette manière, un amendement. S’il y a une correction de forme, vous repassez au secrétariat. Mais, si c’est un amendement de fond, il faudra suivre la procédure.HON. ABDOULKADER MOHAMED MOHAMED (DJIBOUTI):Oui, d’accord! Monsieur le Président, j’appuie la motion.HON. COULIBALY KADIDIATOU SAMAKE [MALI]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je voudrais joindre ma voix à celles de mes prédécesseurs pour féliciter l’auteur de cette motion, l’honorable DERY Ambrose.Monsieur le Président,Cette motion est la suite logique des débats qui se sont déroulés ici sur les missions d’observation. Tous les intervenants ont fustigé les conditions déplorables dans lesquelles se sont déroulées ces missions conjointes d’observation avec l’Union africaine.Monsieur le Président,Je soutiens cette motion, parce que selon les rapports présentés, ces missions n’ont rien à voir avec les missions précédentes d’observation organisées par le Parlement panafricain.A mon sens, une bonne mission d’observation doit prendre en compte la période pré-électorale, la période des campagnes électorales, le jour des élections et la période postélectorale, c'est-à-dire, après la diffusion des résultats. Comme exemple, on a le cas du Zimbabwe, du Kenya, pour ne citer que ces deux pays. Il se passe beaucoup de choses pendant ces différentes périodes que je viens de citer.Un dernier point, c’est la rédaction de la déclaration et du rapport final. La diversité des parlementaires est un plus, à mon sens, pour le rapport. Nous ne pouvons pas avoir la même présentation que les fonctionnaires. Notre rapport doit être objectif mais, en même temps, sincère, pour refléter la représentation que nous sommes.Donc, pour finir, je voudrais Monsieur le Président et chers collègues, vous demander, à tous, de soutenir cette motion. Je vous remercie!HON. ALI BAHARI [KENYA]:Thank you Mr. President for this opportunity. I want to thank Honorable Ambrose Dery for moving this motion. He did it very eloquently and other Members have spoken very well and I will only add a few things.Mr. President, one, that governments did not exist from the beginning, they came into existence for the common good of the people. It is through elections that common good is renewed time and again. And it is in that spirit that Pan-African Parliament has been established to uphold the will of the people. Therefore, we took an Oath as Members of Parliament and I want to repeat, we took an Oath to defend that Constitution which keeps us here and therefore we must be ready to protect it.Mr. President, I want to summarize by saying that, Parliament cannot report to the Executive. Parliament is an independent organ, Pan-African Parliament is one such Parliament, it cannot report to the Executive. It can only direct the Executive to take actions because their power emanates from the will of the people and the people are supreme.Mr. President, in this instance and where we have been going for Election Observer Missions of late, what has happened, I believe we have breached our Oath and we have been co-opted as an institution and that is how dictators work, that you co-opt all the institutions which have divergent views. Therefore, I think it is important for this House to resolve that the Assembly reconsiders and rescinds its earlier decision so that PAP can exercise its independence and reflect the will of the people.Thank you Mr. President. (Applause)HON. WOLOKOLIE DUSTY [LIBERIA]:Thank you Mr. President for the opportunity to speak. I stand in support of this motion.I think I like to join my colleague Honorable Khumalo that we should go further that we should desist from participating in joint missions with organs of the AU as of next year. For me and for us in Liberia in fact it is a violation of our Constitution that we as the Parliament cannot perform any function in the Executive, so, it is a violation and to maintain the independence and autonomy of PAP, I think we should have a separate, distinct mission of PAP.You may recall that since the last mission of PAP in Zimbabwe, where the report of the PAP mission was in sharp contrast to the AU report, I think it is since that time that the AU decided to co-opt PAP in its observation mission. So, I think you will recall that the report of PAP was more credible and more acceptable internationally than what came from the AU. So to me that decision XVI intends to undermine and circumvent the autonomy and independence of PAP, that what’s happening. I think this is a sign that the submissions that PAP be a full legislative body may be far away and may be a dream, a mirage that will not be achieved as was said by another colleague, there is no intension on the part of AU to give full autonomy and legislative authority to PAP.So, I stand to support this and I believe that we should desist from for going on further mission as of next year until the decision can be rescinded, thank you. (Applause)HON. IMANYARA GITOBU [KENYA]:Mr. President, thank you very much for this opportunity. I shall be short because the reasons why we must support this motion, if possible unanimously, have been very well articulated by the mover, the seconder and all those who have spoken before me.Mr. President, just last week I received an invitation signed on behalf of the African Union Commission to attend a joint election observer mission to Tanzania on the 31st of this month and I have been agonizing as to what to do because having listened to those who have recently come from joint missions, I am convinced that it would be unconscionable to attend such an election observation mission. This motion gives me a perfect opportunity to explain to the Commission why I shall not be attending that mission as a member. (Applause)Secondly, Mr. President, I am a trained lawyer and therefore a person who holds the rule of law very dear, a Member of the Kenyan Parliament where I am an elected Member of Parliament and through that Mr. President, I am also elected to this Assembly. Therefore, to subordinate an elected institution such as my own Parliament, this PAP, and finally the established precedent of PAP because we have been on election observer missions before- PAP has been sending election observer missions before to various countries. What has led to the African Union Commission to want to rescind a well established precedent?My conscience tells me that it is for wrong reasons, and there is a motive behind this move. As a person who believes truly in Article 25 of our Protocol, that the ultimate aim of this PAP is to constitute itself into an organ truly representative of the African people through elected officials, I believe we should be moving towards that goal rather than undermining it. This recent decision by the African Union Commission undermines the very aim for which PAP was established and we should all say no to that, Mr. President. The only way to send that message is to vote in support of this motion.And finally, Mr. President, because I have been invited to the PRC as a rapporteur of the Rules Committee, a committee of this House that is mandated to hold dear the institutions of the rule of law, I shall be going to that retreat with full knowledge that Members of this Parliament do not accept the principle that we can go into a joint election observer mission with an Executive body- (Applause) - and for that reason, Mr. President, I support this motion.HON. JATTA SIDIA S. [GAMBIA]:Thank you Mr. President. I am not going to be long. I am just going to say what all the previous speakers have not said.Last week Dr. Matlosa prescribed a tablet here for us, which is to kill the ailment of this continent. And that tablet is the African Charter on Elections and Good Governance.The issue we are debating is fundamental to that Charter because to administer that tablet, in order to kill the ailment of the continent, we must serve as doctors and midwives for the administration of that tablet, and that is the Charter. Once that Charter is ratified by all the countries on the continent, we should see to it that, the Charter is administered as a tablet to kill the ailment. That is why this issue of Election Observer Missions in Africa is fundamental because it helps to monitor the application of that Charter. And we are going to be the doctors and midwives for the administration of that tablet.Thank you very much Mr. President. (Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie Hon. JATTA.J’ai fini ma liste, j’invite à présent l’Honorable Ambrose DERY, s’il a encore besoin d’apporter une contribution, puisqu’il a eu le soutien de l’ensemble des intervenants.HON. AMBROSE DERY [GHANA]:Thank you Mr. President.Mr. President, let me, with your permission, thank my colleagues who have enriched this debate by their interventions. Just to say one thing we should take along, remember that we have been told that we are going to constitute 40 percent of the team. So, immediately we are made the minority group of the team. Once we are 40 percent we are a minority that means what you think is not going to come out as a report. So, I agree with my Kenyan brother who said we should consider what we should do.But I think that for those of us who want to say that we should boycott immediately, the problem is that we have condoned it. We have gone on a number of missions. I would have said, "Do not let us go at all."So, I would say that the President should present our position at the retreat. If after that we do not find any reasonable change I personally do not find my way clear attending any joint missions. I think that we should make sure that we work towards the realization of the vision and not be moving away from it.Mr. President, with these few words, I thank you and I would encourage the Bureau to stand for us. I know you have done a good job already. Please carry us closer to the vision as contained in the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance and not away from it.Thank you, Mr. President. (Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, Honorable membre.Je soumets à la Chambre la motion introduite par l’honorable Ambrose Dery et soutenue par l’honorable Fatima Hajaig, pour adoption.(Applaudissements).Je vous remercie beaucoup.Je vais demander à ceux qui sont pour la motion de lever le bras.Secrétariat, s’il vous plaît?Je vous remercie d’être patients, le temps qu’on compte.C’est fait? Je vous remercie.Quels sont ceux qui sont contre la motion?(Rires)Abstention?Il n’y a pas d’abstention. Donc, la proposition a été adoptée, à l’unanimité, par la Chambre.(Applaudissements)Je vous remercie beaucoup. C’est le moment pour moi de féliciter l’auteur de la motion. C’est une motion soutenue par l’honorable Fatima Hajaig, mais vous avez vu que tous les intervenants ont aussi soutenu. Ceux qui ne sont pas intervenus ont compris que ce n’était pas nécessaire de poursuivre le débat. C’est une motion mesurée, posée, qui va aller à l’endroit des organes de l’Union africaine.Il est de mon devoir de vous rappeler ici que, au Sommet de juillet 2010, à Kampala, le Conseil exécutif de l’Union africaine a décidé déjà que les conditions des missions des membres du Parlement panafricain soient celles des membres élus de l’Union africaine. Cela est une très honorable avancée. Néanmoins, comme c’était en juillet 2010, en plein exercice, cela ne peut venir que dans le budget de 2011.Je voudrais encore vous rappeler que, vendredi et samedi, nous allons enfin avoir notre rencontre avec le COREP. Nous avons, pendant toute l’année, au niveau de nos parlements nationaux, au niveau des exécutifs de nos pays respectifs, à travers différentes missions, fait le plaidoyer. Aujourd’hui, l’atmosphère et les relations avec les autres organes de l’Union africaine sont très bonnes.Nous avons un objectif: c’est celui de rendre au Parlement panafricain les missions indépendantes, comme par le passé. C’est cela l’objectif. Pour cet objectif, nous n’avons pas besoin de va-t-en-guerre; nous n’avons pas besoin de gâter la sauce par trop de condiments; nous n’allons pas faire de comparaison. On a une motion bien rédigée, en des termes corrects, qui sera déjà au niveau de notre rencontre avec le COREP; cette motion ira au Conseil exécutif et également, au Sommet des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement. Je suis sûr qu’on aura des oreilles très attentives à son égard.Mais, il est important que nous accompagnions notre motion par une approche de dialogue, une approche positive, sans chercher un affrontement; ce qui peut nous garantir sa réussite, parce qu’on a un seul objectif, notamment celui d’avoir des missions du Parlement panafricain, comme par le passé, indépendantes de l’Exécutif.Je vous remercie pour toutes vos contributions, et nous continuerons ensemble le plaidoyer.(Applaudissements)J’invite à présent le Secrétaire général à donner lecture du deuxième point inscrit à l’ordre du jour.THE CLERK:Thank you, Honourable President. Presentation and debate on the report of the women’s conference.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie.J’invite l’honorable Mavis Ntebalang MATLALI, présidente du Réseau des Femmes parlementaires du Parlement panafricain à présenter le rapport de la Conférence des femmes.
2.0 – PRÉSENTATION ET DÉBAT RELATIFS AU RAPPORT DE LA CONFÉRENCE DES FEMMES.
HON. MATLALI NTEBALENG MAVIS [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Honourable President, the Bureau of PAP, Members of the Women Caucus at PAP and its Bureau, my colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. I am here to give a report on PAP Women’s Conference on the 2010 Women’s Platform for Action in Africa, its theme being ‘Women and the Transformation of the African Continent’, which was held in October 8th and 9th, 2010. I will do so by reading from my executive summary, which might be a bit different from the outlined report that Members have received.PAP launched Women’s Platform for Action in Africa in order to mainstream women’s voices into AU policy processes, in order to raise awareness on AU decisions. The Women’s Platform for Action in Africa’s objectives are; to revisit the progress made by the AU and its organs in the promotion of the advancement of women in Africa; to discuss the role of women in issues of governance as well as to track progress on the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly MDG5, 6 and 7.The objectives of the Conference were to deliberate on:Women and forms of human security,The gender dimension of the transformation of the Pan African Parliament into a legislative body.The gender dimensions of the ratification of the African Charter on democracy, elections and governance.The role of the Pan African Parliament in the ratification and implementation of the protocol; andGender responsive budgeting in Maternal and Child Mortality in Africa.On introductory remarks, there were four speakers that made the introductory remarks and they were Honourable Mary Mugyenyi, Honourable Mavis Ntabeleng, Honourable Assetou Koite, Honourable Jorum Gumbo and the guest speaker of the day being Honourable Mokonyane, Premier of Gauteng. The following are the key issues touched on by the speakers.The status of women on health, education leadership, poverty violence and cultureThe ratification and implementation of African Charter on Democracy, Election and GovernanceAfrican Charter on Human and Peoples’ rights, our rights as women.We had also four presentations which were delivered by the following speakers.The presentation of midwifery kit in Sudan, by Honourable Prof, Badawi. The kit has all the apparatus that the midwife would need in delivering a baby. It is the kit that is being used in Sudan’s rural areas when there is an emergency, and the doctor, the nurses, hospitals or clinics are not available, so that a woman will be helped to deliver a child without losing her life. As she presented this kit, she had a wish that all the rural women in Africa could be presented with this kit in order to reduce the maternal mortality, and that NGOs would support women by sponsoring, so that we go around the poverty stricken rural areas of Africa and present the kit.The other presentations were on;The gender dimension of the transformation of the Pan African Parliament, by Honourable Tidjani Serposi, Chairperson of the PAP Committee on Rules and Privileges.Gender dimensions of the ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Election and Governance, by Honourable Veronica Macamo, the Deputy Speaker of the Republic of Mozambique.The role of the PAP in the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, by Solidarity for Africa’s Women’s Rights Coalition (SOWAR), by Ms Nonhlanhla Sibande from POWA.The key issues emanating from these presentations:It is desirable that all rural women in Africa should have access to the midwifery kit developed in Sudan.There is a need for a revision of Protocol’s Article 4, 2 on women representation as some countries are sending an all male representation to PAP.Ratification of African Charter on Democracy, Elections and good Governance must be prioritized.Imperative deviation from the role of PAP in ratification of Protocol on Rights of Women.There were inputs that were made by members attending the conference in the form of a dialogue, and they included the following:Women’s political participation must be backed up by legislative developments and commitments.Parliamentarians have a duty to ensure ratification of Protocols.Grassroots women must be empowered as agents of change.Clarity needed between gender and women issues as there is a concern over the all women composition of the PAP Committee on Gender, Family, Youth and People with disabilities. While discussing this one, it was made very clear by the Deputy Speaker of Uganda that the Gender Committee has to be up and doing and where it fails, Parliament and Women Caucuses would take over.The Gender Responsive Budgeting.R Sankore and Vicky Okhaine presented on gender responsive budgeting respectively. They raised the following concerns:The 15% increment committed by Heads of State in 2000 Health budget will not realize achievement of MDG 4, 5 and 6.Parliamentarians must lobby relevant Ministries on Health Education.Well functioning health system and infrastructure could prevent child birth complications and death.Gender budgeting is crucial in tracking public expenditure on gender and development.On women and forms of human security, Honourable Kadaga, the Deputy Speaker of Uganda, presented on women and forms of human security. Her presentation, basically, pondered on female genital mutilation (FGM) and raised the following issues:Female genital mutilation is practiced in 28 African countries.It is a major problem in Eastern Uganda.The President Museveni outlawed FGM in July 2009.The penalty on conviction is life imprisonment.Looking at this report, we so wish that she could table for us all the strategies that the Ugandan women engaged in, to make Parliament finally make laws on FGM, so that other countries in Africa could copy from Uganda.Recommendations.The following recommendations were put forward:There should be more advocacy on women voice, particularly in rural areas to reduce maternal mortality.Member countries should report on the practice and status FGM.There should be more capacity building on gender responsive budgeting for women.National health and education budgets should be increased in order to address the challenges that women face such as HIV- AIDS and maternal mortality.The African Union should take decisive action and call upon the international community to endorse a resolution that include the monitoring of human rights in Western Sahara in the mandate of the MINURSO United Nations Mission in the territory for the 20 years.The PAP should send a fact finding mission to investigate the human rights violations against women and children in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara.Reading these last two points and the recommendation Honourable President; makes me seek your indulgence in presenting the resolution that agrees with these recommendations that this resolution as well be adopted with the report. If you so allow Sir, I would go through the resolution of the Women’s International Conference. The Women’s International Conference was held at the Pan African Parliament Headquarters in South Africa from the 8th - 9th October 2010. The Conference debated among others, the human rights situation in the occupied territories of Western Sahara. The Conference noted the serious and grave violations of human rights by the Moroccan authorities’ occupation of the Western Saharawi as opposed by the Saharawi citizens.The Conference expresses its deep concerns about human rights violations in the country. The Women’s International Conference hereby tables the following recommendations to the Third Ordinary Session of the Second Parliament for consideration and adoption:That the Pan African Parliament should encourage all the organs of the African Union, United Nations and Security Council as well as the International Community to endorsed the monitoring of human rights in Western Saharawi as mandated by MINURSO.That the Pan African Parliament should send a fact funding mission to Western Saharawi to investigate the human rights violations against women and children.That the Pan African Parliament should put pressure on the Moroccan authorities to ensure that they engage the POLISARIO Front for the aim of holding a referendum for the people of Western Saharawi.That the Pan African Parliament should call on the Moroccan authorities to unconditionally release all the Saharawi political prisoners and provide the details about the whereabouts of prisoners who disappeared in the last 35 years.That the Pan African Parliament should call on the Moroccan authorities to open the occupied territories for international observers, human rights and civil society organizations to offer humanitarian aid as well as the independent media to capture the proceedings.That the Pan African Parliament should mobilize African countries and the International community to end the illegal exploitation of the mineral resource of the Western Saharawi.That the Pan African Parliament should adopt these recommendations of the International Women’s Conference and table them in the next African Union Summit for implementation.As I conclude the presentation of this report on behalf of the PAP Women’s Caucus, I would like to express my profound gratitude to all the presenters and participants in the two day Conference, whose contributions were useful. I would like to especially thank the Premier of Gauteng, Honourable Mokonyane for a moving speech. I would like to thank the Honourable Deputy Speaker of the Republic of Mozambique, who is a former member of PAP; The Honourable Deputy Speaker of Uganda for being with us especially that she sacrificed the time to be with us when her country was celebrating its Independence and Honourable Serpos who has been in the forefront in the process of the transformation of PAP. We say congratulations to the Women of the Caucus as well as our male colleagues on gracing the occasion, the staff of PAP, the media, the interpreters, and all those who made contributions in various capacities during the Conference and took time off their busy schedules to commit to the promotion of the cause of the African women deserve our thanks. To AWEPA and other cooperating partners, we thank you for the financial and logistic support and for enabling us to hold the Conference. Last but not in any way the least, the President of PAP and the entire Bureau of PAP, especially the Second and Fourth Vice President, Honourable Mary Mugyenyi and Honourable Jorum Gumbo who were with us for their unwavering support.Mr. President, Honourable Members, on behalf of the PAP Women’s Caucus, I have to present to you the report and the resolutions of the PAP Women’s Conference on the 2010, Women’s Platform for Action held on October 8th and 9th, 2010 for consideration and adoption. I thank you.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, Honorable MATLALI, viceprésidente du Caucus des femmes.Les débats sont actuellement ouverts sur le rapport de la Conférence des Femmes.Do you have a point of order? Go on.AN HONURABLE MEMBER:Thank you, Mr President, for giving me this opportunity. I just wanted to make a slight correction on the presentation that has been made by the hon. Member.Earlier on she referred to Madam Macamo as a former Member of the Pan-African Parliament. I think she is still a Member. She is the Speaker of the Mozambique National Parliament and she is still here with us. Thank you, Mr President.LE PRÉSIDENT:Non! C’est vous qui n’avez pas bien suivi. L’honorable MATLALI a corrigé, en disant qu’elle est toujours membre du Parlement panafricain.Ceci dit, la première inscrite est l’Honorable Francisca TOMAS.DEPUTADA FRANCISCA DOMINGAS TOMÁS [MOÇAMBIQUE]:Muito obrigada, Senhor Presidente. Em primeiro lugar, gostaria de corrigir em relaçâo à VicePresidente. A Presidente do Grupo Parlamentar das Mulheres do Parlamento Pan-Africano referiu-se a minha Presidente, a Presidente da Assembleia da República de Moçambique, como Vice-Presidente, mas ela agora nâo é VicePresidente, é a Presidente da Assembleia da República de Moçambique. Talvez, ela possa corrigir no relatório que apresentou,.Em segundo lugar, Senhor Presidente, pedi para intervir, para poder agradecer a apresentaçâo da síntese feita pela nossa Presidente do Grupo Parlamentar das Mulheres do Parlamento PanAfricano e apoiar o que foi redigido e reportado nesta síntese porque, de facto, foi uma Conferência muito proveitosa. Tivemos trocas de experiência entre as mulheres sobre vários ciclos de movimento e de trabalho que fazemos como mulheres nos nossos Parlamentos.Senhor Presidente, gostaria, antes de entrar em relaçâo ao apoio para a Resoluçâo, de dizer que ao longo da planificaçâo das sessoes do Parlamento Pan-Africano, devemos fazê-la contando com as Conferências das Mulheres Pan-Africanas. Refiro-me ao facto de calendarizar-se as sessoes das mulheres nos finais de semana.Gostaríamos que fossem calendarizadas para dois dias antes do início da Sessâo do Parlamento PanAfricano ou ao longo das Sessoes. Evidentemente, isso pode trazer um fracasso nos vários debates que as mulheres poderâo apresentar porque estarâo cansadas em participar no decurso das sessoes e ao mesmo tempo nos finais de semana nas suas sessoes.Senhor Presidente, também, gostaria, em relaçâo à minha intervençâo, de apoiar a Resoluçâo apresentada porque, de facto, foi um dos pontos mais debatidos na nossa Conferência, relativamente ao sofrimento dos povos saharawis. Eles estao a sofrer a violagao dos Direitos Humanos, principalmente as mulheres e crianzas.Gostaríamos de apelar ao Parlamento PanAfricano para adoptar essa Resolugao, porque nós somos todos africanos e merecemos viver em paz; Todos merecemos a independencia nos nossos países. Viver em paz significa que cada um de nós tem o direito de poder desenvolver o seu país e viver felizmente no seu país, podendo usufruir dos seus direitos como povo. Ademais, os dois países, principalmente Marrocos, é de África também; Entao, nao se justifica que marroquinos sendo africanos possam aplicar a violagao dos Direitos Humanos para os outros africanos que também merecem viver em paz.Nós estamos a discutir há bastante tempo sobre esses aspectos e que sempre que nos encontramos temos falado, mas nao há uma posigao unida da África para que os marroquinos ponham fim a essa violagao dos Direitos Humanos ao povo Saharawi.Apelo ao Parlamento Pan-Africano para que nós, nos nossos parlamentos, fagamos questao de poder mobilizar os nossos parlamentares para a ratificagao da Carta da Uniao Africana porque, esta Carta vai poder, sobremaneira, ajudar as situagoes que vivemos em África, dos conflitos, de violagoes dos Direitos Humanos e da igualdade de direitos entre homens e mulheres; Também sobre a mutilagao dos órgaos genitais, vai ajudar muito aqueles países que ainda permanecem com a prática desse fenómeno, para que possam por termo, em cumprimento da ratificagao da Carta da Uniao Africana.Muito obrigada, Senhor Presidente, por me conceder a palavra.HON. KANTENGWA JULIANA [RWANDA]:Thank you Mr. President for giving me the floor.I wish to thank our Chairlady of the women caucus, Honorable Mavis Matildi for her visionary leadership. She seems to have the right vision for women’s caucus and I must confess that I admire her for that. I wish also to endorse her report and I support the resolution on Western Sahara.Honorable President, I want also to say something about the women’s issues that we do consider in the women’s caucus. When we call them women’s issues there are times it makes people lose focus on what it might be. I want to tell you what we were discussing. We were discussing issues that concern your daughters, issues that concern your mothers, issues that concern your wives and your colleagues and issues that concern us. So, the idea of thinking that there is something to do with women that will be put on a weekend, Mr. president this habit should stop and I wish to congratulate those who pushed for it to be brought forward. Next time Mr. President we request that caucus issues become part and parcel of PAP issues. We are discussing continental issues when we are discussing women’s issues.Next, I want also to touch on this resolution of Western Sahara which I very much support. Mr. President, we were shown pictures on how people who are trying to fight for the right for self determination are being mistreated, undignified because they want to enjoy their rights as true citizens of Western Sahara.Mr. President, at the women’s caucus we said, no, this must stop and we want that no to come from every country on the African Continent. We want the slogan of "One People, One Voice" to also sound for the people of Western Sahara, to tell the Moroccan authorities that they should stop mistreating the people of Western Sahara and that we are in a solidarity with the people of Western Sahara and it is in that spirit that I do support fully this resolution and any other that will come forward, until the people of Western Sahara attain their self determination. I wish to thank you. (Applause)HON. LIMATA JOSEPHINE MWIYA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you Mr. President for allowing me to debate on this important debate of Women’s Caucus. I thank the Chairperson of this Committee of Women’s Caucus in this August House, well done.Mr. President, I condemn the practice of women of FGM in Africa for the following reasons:1.FGM causes death in women and girls through loss of blood;2.FGM causes infection and diseases that can even lead to death due to the poor hygiene surrounding and equipment used; and3.FGM can limit experiences among some women victims.Mr. President, in Zambia we have no traditional practice women and girls circumcision, then there no law in Zambia which allows this practice. However, since there is some movement of people from other countries who are entering Zambia but Zambian government we do not know anything about it. We are still investigating about this issue. If we are going to find about this then we are going to follow those people.However, I wish all countries in Africa to condemn so that we can make follow-ups on those people who are doing this. We must protect our women and girls not to go for these terrible circumcisions.In Zambia, yes, we have got something which man they do like circumcision in some part of Zambia but not the whole of Zambia. So, those they are protecting their health but I appeal to the PAP, AU and Heads of State and the government in Africa to condemn this practice, I thank you. (Applause)HON. COULIBALY KADIDIATOU SAMAKE [MALI]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je voudrais, comme mes prédécesseurs, féliciter Madame la présidente du Caucus pour la clarté de son rapport qui est fidèle aux débats qui se sont tenus au cours de la conférence.Monsieur le Président,Je tiens à féliciter le Bureau du PAP. Le Caucus a été créé, il y a environ trois ans, et de plus en plus, on remarque que le Bureau s’intéresse aux activités qu’il doit mener.Je voudrais souligner, au risque, de me répéter que, au cours de ces deux jours, il y a eu des thèmes aussi captivants les uns que les autres et présentés par d’éminentes personnalités. Cependant, le temps nous a manqué pour arriver au fond des débats.Il est souhaitable, comme l’a dit la première intervenante, que la conférence des femmes puisse se tenir avant qu’on ne commence la session, c'est-à-dire qu’on soit convoqué deux jours avant la session pour nous permettre, non seulement de débattre à fond, mais aussi que les débats qui sortent de la conférence puissent venir au niveau de la plénière en présence de l’ensemble des parlementaires et surtout des femmes. On a remarqué que les gens rentrent très tôt. Il serait souhaitable que tout le monde soit là lorsque les conclusions arrivent.Je souhaiterais, en même temps, que les thèmes nous parviennent dans nos pays avant la conférence. Cela permet vraiment d’enrichir les débats.Donc pour terminer, je soutiens vraiment le rapport, et la motion qui est là. Je vous remercie.HON. VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je crois avoir entendu mon nom, tout à l’heure. Je dis « je crois », parce que j’ai des moments de faiblesse, et je n’ai pas pu répondre. Je m’en excuse beaucoup, Monsieur le Président.Monsieur le Président, avant de commencer, je vais d’abord, puisque nous parlons de la conférence des femmes, vous remercier d’avoir eu l’idée de nous accorder une conférence pour parler de nous-mêmes. Mais, pourquoi on ne parle pas de la conférence des hommes? La discrimination continue! Parce que Mao Tsé- Toung a dit que nous étions la moitié du ciel! Alors, si nous sommes la moitié du ciel, l’autre moitié a besoin de nous, et je ne vois pas comment le ciel peut être ciel, s’il est coupé en deux. On a toujours cette manie de dire « La conférence des femmes, ceci des femmes, cela des femmes, la journée des femmes, etc.» et jamais, la journée des hommes. Nous sommes toujours mineures alors, Monsieur le Président, et nous ne grandirons jamais! Nous pouvons être comme moi, vieille dame de 77 ans, grand-mère et nous serons toujours considérées comme des mineures. Donc, il va falloir que franchement, tous nos hommes, car vous êtes nos hommes, pensent sérieusement à cette question, avant qu’il ne soit pas trop tard.Monsieur le Président,Je fais partie de cette conférence des femmes, et je vais dire encore comme d’autres, que vous n’avez pas pitié de nous les femmes, parce que la semaine est dure pour nous toutes, particulièrement pour une vieille dame comme moi, alors vous nous prenez la moitié de notre vendredi, c’est-à-dire que nous sommes venues vendredi après-midi, et dans la journée du samedi, alors que le samedi nous avons besoin de récupérer, pour la longue semaine de fatigue que nous avons eue. Alors, pitié, Monsieur le Président, Messieurs les membres du Bureau! Pourtant parmi les membres du Bureau, il y a des femmes. Ayez pitié de nous les pauvres femmes! Et pourtant, sans nous, Monsieur le Président, je ne sais pas où vous irez, vous les hommes.Cela étant, je crois que je ne vais pas dire encore ce que toutes mes sœurs ont déjà dit. C’est quoi? Les femmes, mon Dieu! Je vais demander au Seigneur de venir à notre secours, c’est peut-être une plaisanterie, mais je ne crois pas. Je crois que nous, les femmes, nous devons avoir le courage de nous lever.Vous savez les français, j’ai passé 30 ans chez eux, ils passent leur temps à faire la grève. Il n’y a pas un trimestre où les français ne sont pas dans la rue. C’est un show, ils adorent faire la grève. Mais, mes sœurs, mes filles écoutez-moi bien! Si les hommes continuent à nous prendre pour ce que nous ne sommes pas, moi je vous demande de nous mettre en grève! Une grève de tout!(Rires)Mais, je ne sais pas où ils iront? Ils ne tiendront pas trois jours, je vous assure!Alors, c’est un conseil que je vous donne, celui d’une vieille dame qui va partir bientôt, qui va peut-être retrouver le Seigneur bientôt. Essayez! Osez! Et vous verrez que ces messieurs vous foutront la paix définitivement, parce que là, trop c’est trop!Monsieur le Président,Je ne vais quand même pas dire tellement de mal des hommes, parce que, indépendamment de tout, nous les aimons beaucoup, et moi en ce qui me concerne, je n’ai pas des hommes chez moi, je n’ai fait que des filles, et je n’ai qu’un mari. Alors, je ne peux pas passer mon temps à déblatérer sur les hommes par ces psaumes, pas amusants du tout. Mais, j’aimerais quand même, Monsieur le Président, je vous en supplie, que vous pensiez à ce que je viens de dire, ce n’est pas une gageure, c’est la vérité, cela vient de mon cœur.Maintenant, le Sahraoui, mes sœurs en ont parlé, ce n’est pas la peine. Je crois que nos voix portent. Mais, je crois qu’on a oublié, je ne sais pas si l’on a parlé des femmes du Darfour. Elles souffrent aussi! Et si toutes les femmes souffrent, c’est à cause de vous les hommes, à cause des guerres. Au Congo et partout, nous souffrons. Cela va durer jusqu’à quand, Monsieur le Président? Vraiment vous n’êtes pas charitables, et vous n’avez pas pitié de nous.Monsieur le Président, j’en ai terminé, et je vous remercie de m’avoir tous écouté.(Applaudissements.)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, honorable VIEYRA SOGLO, vous êtes excusée pour la toute première intervention, pour laquelle vous n’avez pas pu apporter votre contribution, et nous sommes heureux que, à votre verbe habituel, vous nous rappeliez à l’ordre.HON. MAKGALEMELE DIKGANG PHILLIP [BOTSWANA]:Thank you Mr. President.In my contribution, I wish to congratulate the chairperson for the report that she presented before us. Also want to congratulate the men folks who attended the conference, I think that is a clear sign of solidarity on women related issues which are normally refer to as gender equity related issues.Mr. President, the theme for the conference was very relevant and I strongly believe that it should be evaluated after a certain period of time. A theme Mr. President in my view is not an event but a process and therefore it must be evaluated.Mr. President, whilst I appreciate the theme, I would have preferred a much more stronger theme like "gender equity towards the attainment of MDG’s", especial that there was an international conference on MDG’s this year.Mr. President, I note a number of presentations and discussions that took place at this conference but I fill that there certain aspect which I consider to be missing especially with regards to the recommendations. I was very much excited about the concept of a midwifery kit for rural women and as Members of Parliament coming from rural areas; it is something that I would have preferred that may be it is highlighted as one of the key recommendations.There is the issue of the legislative reforms, especially with the regards to the recommendations; I am not hearing it coming out much more strongly. And then there is the issue relating to unfortunate development of rapes that took place in the DRC Congo, unless if I have missed that in the report.So, I think that these are some of the components which should really come out in the recommendations because I consider them to be very important towards the discussions that took place at the conference.Mr. President, I also wish to propose that the caucus on women be made more embracing and consideration be given towards changing of the name to call it "Gender Equity Caucus" (Applause) for the simple reason of allowing for more male folks participation but the caucus should remain being chaired by women. I think this Mr. President will allow for an enhanced participation of the men folks.Mr. President it is not that when you are a man, you do not support women empowerment issues but I think it is quiet in order that they be looked at in the context of gender equity.Colleagues who were present yesterday during the debate on the MDG’s will recall the contributions made by Honorable Ambrose Dery which were really geared toward MDG No.3 which specifically addresses itself to gender equity related issues.Mr. President, I also wish to propose that we advocate as PAP for an informal sector policy within our respective countries. For the simple reason Mr. President that informal sector is one of the key economic activities which women across Africa participate in and therefore we must do all we can to ensure that informal sector is given prominence within our respective countries. I believe Mr. President that such a move, will ensure that women are economically empowered and it will also fast truck poverty eradication in our respective country.In conclusion Mr. President, I wish to lend my support on the resolution on the Western Sahara, I thank you Mr. President.HON. KASINGO L. LOIDE [NAMIBIA]:Thank you very much Mr. President for giving me the floor.Allow me also to join others in thanking and congratulating my sister Honorable Mavis Matlali for coming up with a very good report.Allow me to associate myself with the report because I am one of the PAP women who attended the conference. I would like to commend on one of the resolutions parallel with the recommendation though I am in support of all the recommendations and the resolutions tabled before us.Mr. President, I come from Namibia, a country which experienced the brutality of the colonial administration and during our conference of women caucus, we have seen the photos of how women in Western Saharawi have been tortured. It is pathetic and it is frightening.A month ago, the National Assembly of the Republic of Namibia, we debated the question of Western Saharawi and we were instructed, we I mean the delegate of Namibia to PAP to debate this issue Western Saharawi. I am happy that this issue was debated during the PAP caucus and eventually we came up with this recommendation and solutions. It is against this background that I will call upon all the MP’s, all of us really to endorse this recommendation and its resolutions.I also like to support my colleague from Botswana when he said that probably in the future, we can look into changing of the naming from PAP Women Caucus to Gender Equity Caucus. I do believe that when you have really a problem for example the problem facing women, you can not only solve it when women alone are just discussing these issues. Men will just see it as a joke and hence force may be next time we as Women Caucus we can think in terms of changing it to an enable our fellow MP to attend it.With these words I support the report and its recommendations and resolutions. Thank you. (Applause)HON. LAHAI BERNADETTE [SIERRA LEONE]:Thank you Mr. President. I want to thank the mover of this report and all those who participated in the workshop. It was unfortunate that we the Sierra Leone delegation could not come because we had our State Opening of Parliament and we also had some financial constraints, which could not allow our full participation. Therefore, we really missed the seminar. That notwithstanding, we have read the documents and we will identify ourselves with the topics and with most of the recommendations that were made.With regards to the contribution by the Chairperson on the transformation of Parliament into legislative body, while I agree that the gender dimension has been taken into consideration, particularly with regards to the representation of Member Parliaments to this Parliament, I want the gender dimension to also permit all the other organs of this PAP particularly with regards to the Permanent Committees and the caucuses so that we have an engendered PAP.I will go straight to the issue on the presentation by the Deputy Speaker of Uganda on the issue of the FGM, which I think is still a very sensitive issue, it is still a political issue particularly, in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone almost 90 percent of the women, in particular in the rural areas or in the protectorate are part of the female secret society of which female circumcision is one ritual. And the debate has been such that it has been very sensitive, but what has been more is that the debate has been laid, largely that is 90 percent of those who are not members of this secret society and therefore, they are not members and they have not undergone female circumcision. I can remember in 2007 towards the end of the life of the last Parliament, just going towards election, it became a big issue when the Ratification and Domestication of the Child Rights Act, and we wanted to abolish the issue of cultural practices such as the female circumcision. It was a big human cry. In fact that day we were almost mobbed in Parliament by women and men who threaten that any Parliamentarian who will speak in favour of the abolishing this will lose his/her seat in parliament. So, a compromise was that, we criminalise for age and we also criminalize for coercion. We have seen that criminalizing for age means that, that is the age of 18; that you cannot force a child under the age of 18 into female circumcision and you cannot also force anybody to go into female circumcision. The reason why we had to turn it down is because we want our females to achieve basic primary education, which is JSS level by the age of 13. But, we are also seeing that the debate is heated because mostly, we have not done careful studies on how to separate the effects of female circumcision on for example; maternal mortality and child mortality. the debate in Sierra Leone is also saying that, along the continent of Africa, we have from the most extreme form of female circumcision to the least extreme form, and these forms mean different strategies in order to address them. Therefore, for us in Sierra Leone, this is a very political issue, a very sensitive cultural issue. What we are now trying to do since we promulgated that law in 2007 by criminalizing for age and criminalizing for coercion, we want to see the extent to which that has actually reduced the issue of female circumcision. In fact like the Government of Germany has also said that they were with hold support if the countries will not take serious action with regards to the female genital mutilation issue. So, we are working on it and I hope that in our Parliaments, we will have to look at it again. But, Sierra Leone as a whole because it is as political, as it is cultural, we want to also maintain the issue of the importance of the female society vis-a-vis the surgical issue. So, it is a welcome idea that we will do more research, more interrogation to the extent that we can be more strategic in finding solutions to this important issue.I thank you very much Mr. Speaker. (Applause)HON. KOKERAI RUGARA [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you very much Mr. President, for allowing me space to say a few things about this very important topic. It is actually societal. It cuts through all the societies of Africa and even the world. Sometimes to make a life easier for me, I have always heard of Women Caucus and asked the question, "Where is the Men’s Caucus?" (Laughter)On that light note, I would like to thank the men who attended and represented men. We all think and we all feel that our women folk are just as good if not better than us. I respect my mother because she carried me nine months and so she is one of the women who have this normal obligation of bringing life to earth.After this, I would like to thank also the presenter for this ably presented and well researched report. Very pertinent issues were highlighted but I want to restrict my comments or intervention on just No.1, that question of the Saharawi Republic -(Interjections)- excuse me it is tongue twisting but all the same I want to lay all the blame on AU. Why do I say so?I say so because there have been flashpoints in the past and we know that Somalia is a very hot potato, if you will, to handle but AU is using kid gloves, if I might say, to handle such issues. I do not know when they will know that they would be treated and they have already been treated as toothless bulldogs.Another is to realize for ourselves that Morocco has embarked on neocolonialism, if not actually another new form of colonialism, and my question is, where will it end? When are we going to wake up as PAP and AU organs to say, "Thus far and no further?" We can only do that by actually positively taking part in all measures possible to stop that kind of behavior by stronger nations. You would see that bigger nations in your neighborhood would just walk in and do whatever they like or whatever they find against your citizenry and when the AU is watching and folding hands like it is doing, I am saying folding hands because, the little that is being done is not enough to stop the other intended dictators or bullies to bully the smaller and innocent people.Mr. President, I would like to thank you once more and say this is my submission. Thank you. (Applause)HON. MATAMISA ERIMENZIAH EDITOR [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Mr. President.I would want to thank the Honorable Mavis Matlali, for successfully and competently leading the Women’s Caucus. I would also want to thank and congratulate the Honourable Prof. Suad Badaoui for her presentation on midwifery kits that she brought to us during the meeting. I really would want to say that I support the midwifery kits for both rural and urban high density suburbs as a way to ensure that women’s lives are saved.I also want to support the resolution that has been put forward on the Western Saharawi where human rights violations are at their highest. As an African woman, I would like to say this must stop and people of Saharawi must enjoy their freedoms.Hence, Mr. President, as an African woman and a Member of PAP, I call for speedy ratification of the Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance which is fundamental to women’s financial political and social cultural freedoms. It must be brought to the attention of those countries that have not ratified the Women’s Protocol that we do not demand ratification only by now but what is needed is both ratification and domestication ensuring implementation at all levels.With these remarks, I thank you Mr. President. (Applause)HON. OYO EBULE EVANGELINA - FILOMENA [EQUATORIAL GUINEA]:Gracias Señor Presidente por concederme la palabra.En primer lugar quiero felicitar al Buró del PAP por haber introducido ese tema, la conferencia de las mujeres en su programa, así también a la Presidenta de COCUS de mujeres por la presentación del informe.Quiero llamar la atención aquí sobre el tema de la mujer. Hemos visto que cuando se ha entrado en ése de debate muchos de los honorables aquí se han retirado, eso demuestra la falta de interés sobre éste tema, pero muchos de ellos están aquí sentados por el voto de las mujeres, porque sabemos que la mujer nunca voto a la mujer.En la conferencia se trató el tema de la representatividad de la mujer en los poderes de decisión. Hemos visto que en el poder ejecutivo las mujeres entran por la confianza que tiene el jefe del Estado en ellas, en el poder judicial también, pero en el poder legislativo, por ejemplo en mi país, las mujeres son electas, no tenemos diputadas designadas, entonces ahí la mujer hace mucho esfuerzo para ocupar un escaño en el Parlamento y los hombres son machistas, no les interesa que las mujeres estén en los puestos de decisión. Eso lo demuestran en todas partes.Pero vuelvo a repetir que muchos de ellos si están aquí, es gracias al voto de las mujeres.Ese tema de la mujer en los puestos de poderes, es un tema que interesa bastante porque hemos visto que aquí hay deliberaciones donde no hay ni siquiera alguna mujer representada. Ahora con la reforma de protocolo estamos intentando que haya dos mujeres, pero es que eso ¿será posible ante una sociedad tan machista como la nuestra? porque la mujer no tiene suficiente recursos para muchas veces competir con el hombre, tiene que hacer muchos esfuerzos y a veces eso ni siquiera se considera.Por eso quiero instar al Buró del PAP que den todas las gestiones y que también trabaje sobre ése tema para que realmente haya más representación de la mujer en esta cámara.Muchas gracia.HON. TAMBOURA ASCOFARE OULÉMATOU [MALI]:Je vous remercie, M. le Président.Je voudrais, à mon tour, féliciter la présidente du Réseau pour la qualité du rapport ainsi que sa présentation. Je salue également la pertinence de la vision du Président du Parlement panafricain et de l’ensemble du Bureau du Parlement, qui a consisté à encourager, à accompagner les femmes dans l’élaboration et la mise en œuvre d’activités pertinentes qui contribuent à renforcer les capacités des femmes afin qu’elles s’engagent fortement à apporter les changements indispensables à l’amélioration de leur situation et à l’amorce du développement de notre continent qui ne saura se faire, bien évidemment, sans les femmes, la moitié de l’humanité.Je ne vais pas jusqu’à demander la création d’un Réseau d’hommes, je crois que les hommes ont tout ce qu’il leur faut. Je voudrais juste suggérer que l’on associe, à l’avenir, les hommes à nos forums. Cela peut être les invitations à travers les caucus ou les Commissions, où on peut choisir les hommes, peut-être à tour de rôle, pour participer à nos forums. Cela peut contribuer à mieux les sensibiliser aux questions du Genre afin qu’ils se sentent réellement concernés par la question.Généralement, nous sommes assez peu représentées dans nos parlements, quand il y a des questions de femmes où il faut voter une loi en faveur des femmes, par exemple; si on n’a pas les hommes avec nous, on ne peut pas avancer. Donc, dès maintenant, il faut qu’on les associe pour les sensibiliser.Je soutiens le rapport, je soutiens également la résolution et je souhaite qu’elle soit suivie d’effets. Je souhaiterais également un meilleur aménagement de notre calendrier. Je pense que cela sera bénéfique pour nos travaux.Notre réseau, le Réseau des femmes, est un instrument de plaidoyer. En tant que tel, je pense que nous sommes sur la bonne voie. Nous avons un rôle important à jouer dans le processus d’intégration. A cet effet, je suggère que, à l’avenir, on implique les communautés économiques régionales à travers leurs réseaux des femmes et la société civile dans nos rencontres.Je vous remercie.HON. AGYEMAN ELIZABETH [GHANA]:Thank you Mr. President for the opportunity you have given to me. I also want to thank the President of the Women Caucus for organizing this Women’s Conference.But Mr. President, when we came in this morning and we were discussing the motion, this Chamber was full. But, as soon as the Chairperson of the Women Caucus began to give a report, most of the men in this Chamber left the room. (Noise)Mr. President that is what it is. Any time there is any discussion about women, not even here alone, all over the Parliaments; that’s what happens. It goes to show that some of our men don’t take women issues to heart. But, they must remember that they all have wives and girl children.Having said that Mr. Speaker; I want to dwell my submission on the midwife free kit shown to us by Hon. Prof. Badawe. I am fortunate that after she introduced this to us, she gave that kit to me and I want to thank her. I can assure her that I will use that in Ghana and she will hear about that.We have problems all over Africa or even the world about maternal mortality. We are all looking for solutions. Every day, every night, we hear about what is happening to women when going to deliver. And in the rural areas, we also have some women who have trained (the elderly ones), they are not very much educated, but we have trained them to support women when they are going to deliver. Sir, those are Traditional Birth Attendants. This kit she gave to me - I am hoping that each one of us will get it - will help the women to do the work, and it will help to curb the rampant death of maternal mothers.I also want to speak on female genital mutilation; the member from Sierra Leone just said something which is very alarming. We all must be concerned. I think we have to; there should be another communiqué to stop this because our girls are dying. When we had a first women conference, a film was shown to us. I am sorry not all of us were able to see or watch that movie. We saw that the children were dying and it is always affecting women. This was discussed at the last meeting and in think whatever we have written in this paper will be looked into and the actions will be taken against those who are still doing the female mutilation.Finally, I also want to say something about the solutions towards the Western Saharawi Republic. The women and children are always vulnerable and they are always affected by any action taken by people. So, we have written a communiqué and we think that PAP will take the necessary action on this.I want to end here and thank you Mr. Speaker for giving me this opportunity. (Applause)HON. HASSABO MOHAMMED ABDUL RAHMAN [SUDAN]:شكرا جزيال السيد الرئيس،السادة األعضاء،أوال أشيد بتقرير المرأة الذي استمعنا إليه.السيد الرئيس،إن القضايا التي طرحها هذا التقرير هي ليست قضايا المرأة؛ هي قضايا المجتمع كله. وأكبر التحديات في إفريقيا هي مشاكل المرأة، والتحديات، ألن المرأة هي أكثر عرضة في الكوارث الطبيعية والبشرية والجفاف والفيضانات والحروب والنزوح والهجرة واألمراض. وعليه يجب أن ننظر إلى هذه القضية على أنها ليست قضية معزولة، بل هي قضية أساسية بل يجب أن ينظر البرلمان اإلفريقي في التشريعات القارية والسياسات واالستراتيجيات، التي تناسب ظروف إفريقيا. أكرر ظروف إفريقيا البيئية واالجتماعية.وكل االستراجيات التي تجلب لنا، من القارات األخرى، قد ال تناسب ظروفنا وثقافاتنا وعاداتنا وتقاليدنا. واألمر،سيدي الرئيس، يحتاج إلى توعية شاملة و إلى مناهج وقواعد. وقضية المرأة ال تحل في مثل هذه القاعات.في بالدي السودان، مشاركة المرأة، جاءت "بالكوتة" ألننا نعتقد، في مجتمعنا، بأنه إذا تم انتخاب المرأة انتخابا عاما، قد ال تأتي المرأة ولكن حتى ندرج المجتمع أعطينا المرأة كوتة 25 في المائة من البرلمان، في السودان، من مقاعد المرأة. وهي تعادل 112 مقعدا في البرلمان االتحادي وفي برلمانات الواليات وفي برلمان الجنوب. والمرأة تشارك في مجلس الوزراء االتحادي وتشارك أيضا في السلك القضائي وفي الشرطة والبوليس والقوات المسلحة وأكثر من50 في المائة في الخدمة الوطنية.ولكن رغم ذلك، نعتقد أن أهم هدف من أهداف األلفية للتنمية والتعليم. فبالتعليم يمكن أن نعالج العادات الضارة، وبالتعليم يمكن أن نعالج الـ {FGM} ،بالتعليم يمكن أن نعالج الفقر، بالتعليم يمكن أن نعالج التوعية الصحية وغيرها. وأعتقد بأن التعليم من أهم األهداف في تقوية المرأة، وكذلك تعليم البنت الذي نعطيه أولوية خاصة، خاصة أن بالدنا في إفريقيا كلها في الريف ورحل وبعيدين عن مراكز الخدمات.أخي الرئيس،أنا أشيد بهذا المشروع، المقدم من البروفيسر سعاد البدوي، وأشيد به ليس ألنه من السودان. ولكن دائما نقول: ال يجب أن نلعن الظالم يجب أن نوقد شمعة. وفي إفريقيا، يجب أن نتبادل التجارب الناجحة والدروس والعبر. وهذا المشروع أنا متأكد من أنه سينجح في كل الدول اإلفريقية؛ ألن كل الدول اإلفريقية متشابهة: ففيها ريف وفيها رعاة ومزارعين ومعظمهم بعيدين عن مراكز الخدمات. وهذا صندوق الوالدة يرتبط بتدريب القابالت أو الدايات الـ {Midwifes {وأنا أدعم هذا المشروع. وبحكم خبرتي السابقة، كمفوض عام للشؤون اإلنسانية، أرى أن هناك الكثير من المنظمات تدعم هذا المشروع، على رأسها اليونيسف ومنظمات أخرى.وأتمنى أن يتبنى البرلمان اإلفريقي هذا المشروع، وأن يحوله لإلتحاد حتى يكون لدينا شعار "قابلة في كل أسرة" أو" في كل مجتمع" ألن معظم الذين يعانون ال توجد حولهم الخدمات. الخدمات بعيدة عنهم وهم رحل و مزارعون. وعليه يجب أن نركز في دعم هذا المشروع.وأخيرا، السيد الرئيس، أكرر أن التعليم التعليم التعليم والتوعية تعتبر من أهم أهداف األلفية. وخاصة تعليم البنت، ألنه بالتعليم نستطيع أن نقوم بالتوعية و بالتغيير.شكرا جزيال.HON. KINGSLEY NAMAKHWA [MALAWI]:Thank you Mr. President. Allow me to thank the Chairperson of the Women’s Caucus, Honourable Mavis Matlali for the comprehensive report she has presented to this House. But I am concerned Mr. President, I thought that when they talk of Women Caucus, they talk of issues concerning women only but I am here today getting issues that concerns even men.The other concern that I have is that, the speakers on the list unfortunately, they happen again to be, majority of them, women. Bringing this issue in this House, it was supposed to be debated by all Members of this House. (Applause)Mr. President, some speakers have said here that may be we need to re-look at the title that we give to this caucus because men are completely left out and yet the issues that are being tackled in these reports also concern men. May be we can also form another caucus for men and we talk of issues that concern men.AN HONORABLE:Just join us! (Laughter)HON. KINGSLEY NAMAKHWA [MALAWI]:You have already left us out. (Laughter)Mr. President, in Africa women are the ones who are in majority but we wonder why when we go to elections, women are left out. There is a problem among women themselves, they fight among themselves. Because you go in one constituency, they are competing amongst themselves, why can’t they support each other and they are looking for support from men. Really, they have to do their homework. First, they have to do their homework before they call on men to give them the support.Mr. President, the issues that women are complaining about...AN HONORABLE:We listen to you.HON. KINGSLEY NAMAKHWA [MALAWI]:They can be solved if we join hands as Africans not as Africans as women, not as Africans as men but as Africans. When we do that we are going to achieve the Millennium Development Goals we are talking about. But if we don’t do that, all the Millennium Development Goals we have been talking about yesterday, to achieve these Millennium Development Goals we need to involve men and women.Mr. President, you are aware that culturally in Africa men are said to be decision makers. They make most of the decisions, but when our Parliamentarians meet as Women Caucus and leave out men, I am afraid; we are creating a war amongst ourselves because we men are looking at it as, women fighting men. So, we will try to protect our comfort zone unfortunately.AN HONORABLE:No.HON. KINGSLEY NAMAKHWA [MALAWI]:I urge the women to talk of these issues holistically as Africans and not sidelining men.I thank you the Chairperson of the Women Caucus for bringing this up but my concern is basically on the issue that, this issue of Women Caucus is seen as concerning only women but looking at the report, it is also concerns men.Mr. President, I rest my case.SCEHE (Applause/Laughter)AN HONOURABLE MEMBER:Point of order, point of information.Thank you Mr. President. I just wanted to point out that not only are we your sisters and wives; we are also your mothers. So, when we are taking care, we do it holistically. I thank you.THE PRESIDENT:شكرا للزميلة على هذه النقطة ونطمئنها نيابة عن الزمالء بان المرأة هى االم وهى الزوجه وهى االخت وهى البنت وهى نصف المجتمع. شكرا.HON. MUKABARANGA AGNÈS [RWANDA]:Je vous remercie, Honorable Président de la séance.Je remercie honnêtement, aussi, tous nos collègues hommes pour les interventions qu’ils ont faites sur cette question si importante.Monsieur le Président,La conférence que nous avons tenue, si je peux résumer, avait pour objectif global d’accompagner la transformation du PAP, en tant qu’organe continental, en un organe législatif. Et, on ne pouvait pas ne pas aborder, Monsieur le Président, les questions que vivent les femmes dans le cadre du développement global de ce continent, les violences dont elles sont victimes, leur place dans la gouvernance, et sur ce point particulier, c’était bien venu d’aborder l’aspect Genre de la Charte sur la démocratie, les élections et la gouvernance, cet instrument si crucial pour la stabilité de notre continent.Monsieur le Président,J’en viens à la question de la République arabe sahraouie; c’est une question politique, parce qu’il s’agit de la colonisation du dernier Etat non indépendant de ce continent. Cette question touche donc un point crucial que nous ne devons ne pas aborder en tant que Parlement panafricain. Vous vous rappelez, sans doute, que la Commission de la Justice et des Droits de l’Homme dont je suis membre a toujours soutenu une résolution dans le sens du changement de l’état des choses dans cet Etat.Notre plan d’activités a essayé de planifier une mission d’information dans cet Etat, afin de voir réellement ce qui s’y passe. Mais, puisque les femmes se sont résolues à demander au PAP un soutien, d’aller voir ce qui se passe en ce qui concerne les violences dont sont victimes les femmes dans cette République, je recommande, Monsieur le Président, que cette délégation soit multisectorielle, qu’elle ne se penche pas seulement sur les violences dont sont victimes les femmes, mais aussi qu’on aborde la question des détentions irrégulières, qu’on visite les prisons et que, Monsieur le Président, on fasse un rapport compréhensif de ce qui se passe dans ce pays, et que ce rapport soit soumis à la Conférence des chefs d’Etat. Si on ne peut pas le faire la fois prochaine, au mois de janvier, qu’on le fasse une autre fois afin que les chefs d’Etats sachent ce que nous pensons de la question de la République arabe sahraouie.Monsieur le Président,Laissez-moi terminer aussi en disant que ce débat doit être médiatisé autant que possible. Le Maroc qui n’est pas parti, qui s’est désisté de l’Union africaine doit savoir ce que nous pensons de ce qu’il fait en République arabe sahraouie. Et, si cela est possible, que la délégation aille voir aussi le Maroc. Le Maroc s’est désisté de l’Union africaine, mais reste un pays du continent africain. Donc le Maroc doit savoir ce que nous pensons.Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Thank you very much Mr. President for giving me this opportunity. Let me also thank Honorable Matladi for her elaborate report.Mr. President, day in and day out the whole world is inundated with women issues, but if you look very closely at these issues and even if you can seek the help of a microscope, you will realize that these issues are a result of women themselves. I am saying this, I know I will probably provoke some of the Members here, but I know truth hurts, but still has to be said. You will also come to understand my idiosyncrasies as a human being.You would realize that out of a 100, 70% of these issues are a result of women themselves. Women generally do not support each other. They do not! Generally women do not support each other, and that is a fact.AN HONOURABLE:No.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:I am saying it.AN HONOURABLE:No.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Women are their own enemies.AN HONOURABLE:No.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:I can say that giving examples of our region here, Southern Africa. If you take..THE PRESIDENT:Please allow Honourable Master Goya to continue.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Yes, yes.AN HONOURABLE:Point of order.THE PRESIDENT:No.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:If you take statistics, look at the population of women in Southern Africa, it is almost about 68%, men are only about 32%, and if women were actually supporting each other, there could be a lot of women in this House. I am telling you, even in our Parliaments, there could be so many women and they could be taking responsibility of their own issues. It is a myth that men do not support women. We men support women, even I, I support women myself, I do. So it is women that do not support each other. That is a fact.Mr. President I want to thank Honourable Badawi for coming up with the concept of a midwifery kit. This is a welcome development and initiative from a mother, a Professor, an African States woman who has the plight of Africans at her heart.In my country Botswana, neo-natal care is deficient and it is one of the causes of maternal mortality in rural areas and if we can have a kit of this nature and distribute it to all women in our Districts in rural places in Botswana, I think it will come in handy for us. That is the reason why I am saying that I really support her initiative of coming out with this midwifery kit Madam Professor from Sudan.Mr. President, I just want to rest my case at this point. Thank you very much. (Applause)HON. CHARUMBIRA FORTUNE [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Mr. President, I am glad that I am one of the few men that are here to support the women on the issues that they have raised. As a traditional leader, when women complain about issues of culture, my sitting here makes me benefit a lot from those criticisms of the office which I occupy, not necessarily my own, but my other colleagues as well. I just want to start with the issue of culture. I have attended several workshops both in my country and at regional level, where the issue of culture and discrimination against women comes up. In all those workshops I have said, - may be with respect at least to our own situation in Zimbabwe - we very much support the women on all the issues that are raised against what they call harmful traditional practices. I don’t think we support whatever is harmful or toxic, and I don’t think these practices exist in all societies in Africa. However, I know there are few remnants across the continent like female genital mutilation. We agree with you that those are harmful toxic practices, and they should end. On this one, I even encourage the women’s caucus to engage the traditional leaders on the continent. We are happy that now there is a forum of Kings, Chiefs etc, coordinated by the brother leader of Libya, Gadhafi. So at least there are leaders, who are meeting at a forum, and I think women’s caucus would engage with these people directly and point out these issues. I can assure you of my own support, in making sure that such practices actually are put on end.Then the issue of women in positions; I am glad that in Zimbabwe, we have been going through a Constitutional making process, and I am glad to say that as the leader of the traditional leaders in Zimbabwe, I have been one of the great champions supporting the issue of 50/50 representation of women in all positions both in public and private, so that it should be enshrined in the Constitution. So, I want to say, whilst the traditional institution may appear to be against women in minority of cases, in fact you have our support. What I see as lacking is engaging directly so that we work together to try and remove those vestiges of harmful practices, which undermine the rights of women. I am comfortably in a marriage and my wife; I can assure you if you’re to be around would tell you that she is enjoying a very good marriage. (Appraisal)I can assure you she is very educated for that matter, a very good mathematician and I have given her space, all the support and in certain respects she is better than me. I am also better in some areas and so, there is quite a very good symbiotic relationship. She complements even the other roles that I undertake in society. So there is nothing I fear from my wife. In fact in her absence, I fill sometimes inadequate, and in her presence I fill much stronger. Yes. (Laughter)So, let’s sometimes remove the suspicions. Yes there are men who fear women for example, men who even say a woman who is educated, with two or three degrees, should not work, but should stay at home. Those are cowards. Why don’t you give women space also to perform on the arena like you are doing? However, it is also known that there are some characters, deviant characters in society, people who have what we call neurotic tendencies in their own behavior, who only give hell to women in a marriage or in whatever situation.My last point Mr. President is that I totally support the causes of women and I don’t want to see them suffering and being discriminated against. But, there are individuals who sometimes want to hijack the good causes that you are fighting for and want to take it up beyond the normal agenda. For example there is case in Uganda, this year in March, a law organization called MIFUMI, went to the high court arguing that dowry or lobola should be abolished. Fine, yes it is one of the causes of violence, but I am glad to say the judgment - and there were five judges, four of them were women - the four women actually turned down this application. They aid NO, in fact payment of dowry does not in any way cause violence. The only man, the fifth was a male judge; he is the only one who actually supported the women. The four female judges did not support the other women. I thank you very much. (Laughter)HON. DR. ALORAFY MOHAMED GEBRIL [LIBYA]:شكرا أخي الرئيس،المرأة اإلفريقية متميزة: فهي أقوى شخصية من الرجل. وهذه الحقيقة نبهنا إليها األخ القائد، في لقائه مع نساء الطوارق، الشهر الماضي. أيضا المرأة اإلفريقية أكثر تجلدا من الرجل: فهي تربي األطفال وتعد الطعام وتمشي في الحقل و هي في المكتب والمستشفى، ثم تعود للعناية بالرجل وإسعاده.المرأة اإلفريقية أكثر حبا للتعليم، فأنا أقوم بتدريس مادة الحاسوب في جامعة تشكل الفتيات فيها 85 في المائة من طالب القسم. والمؤتمرات الشعبية األساسية متشكلة من النساء والرجال.وأنا أنتمي إلى ثقافة إسالمية تقول: المودة والرحمة والسكن واألمن بين الرجال والنساء. ودائما يقترن ِذكُر الرجل بالمرأة: المؤمنون والمؤمنات والصالحون والصالحات وغيرها. والرسول، صلى هللا عليه وسلم، يقول: "الجنة تحت أقدام األمهات". وعندما سأله صحابي: من أحق بحسن وفادتي؟ قال: أمك. وسأله مرة أخرى: ثم من؟ قال: أمك. وسأله مرة أخرى: ثم من؟ قال: أمك. وسأله مرة رابعة: ثم من؟ قال: أباك. إذن الرجل مرة واألم ثالث مرات.المرأة اإلفريقية أصبحت، في إفريقيا، رئيسة جمهورية ورئيسة برلمان ورئيسة وزراء وقائد طائرة مدنية وعسكرية وصحفية وكاتبة. وحتى في الخارج أصبحت وزيرة، مثال في فرنسا، عندنا وزيرة إفريقية. وفي بلجيكا عندنا عضوات في البرلمان.يها اإلخوة،إن الحق ال يمنح بل ينتزع انتزاعا. وأنا على ثقة أن النساء اإلفريقيات يزحفن، بشكل ثابت وسريع، وتتبوأ المرأة اإلفريقية المكان الذي تستحقه. وأنا أنصح الرجال أن يفكروا، من اآلن، في تأسيس جمعيات أو يسنوا قوانين لحماية حقوقهم.ألن التاريخ علمنا أن المظلوم، عندما ينتصر، يمارس ممارسة الظالمين. ولكن حتى ال تهتز أسس المجتمع الطبيعية ونتخلى عن مقولة: الطفل تربيه أمه وأن البيت للمرأة، أوأن نضع المرأة في مجال العمل ضد أنوثتها أو تشوه جمالها مثل العمل في المناجم.وشكرا.HON. MUGYENYI MARY RUTAMWEBWA [UGANDA]:Thank you Mr. President for the opportunity.Mr. President, I am happy with the way the debate has gone. I want to thank all those particularly men who have contributed to this debate and who are there even during the time of the conference.Mr. President, it is important indeed that men support the causes of women and to me it is not about apportioning blame and women saying that men are mistreating women, men are responsible, because it is not about men or women, it’s about society including culture. And we know that we are all socialized to have certain values, which values and beliefs have made us behave the way we behave including the way society behaves against women. That is a given fact.Mr. President, I should have started by thanking you for continuation of this women’s platform so that Women Parliamentarians have an opportunity to dialogue with women in the civil society, around the Continent, in fact funding was available, we would have more women participating in this conference than we have had. Mr. President, I know, this initiative was started in 2008 when the leadership of the Pan-African Parliament was in the hands of a woman. So, I am grateful that when you came in as President of Pan-African Parliament, you have continued to support this initiative which is good, not just for women, but for society as I said at the beginning. It is no doubt that when there is balance in the rights of both men and women, boys and girls, society, our continent, our people stand to benefit.I was a bit discouraged indeed when this debate presentation by our Caucus Chair started, and I saw men, man after man walking out. But I am encouraged over the time, I saw more people coming in and I have had more voices of men contributing to this debate. Real men indeed, as one of the slogans goes, support human rights including the rights of women. So, we thank you our colleagues, we thank you for understanding that the rights of women are human rights. We cannot be interested in elections and what goes wrong in the elections, because to me we are interested in the fact that when elections go wrong or they don’t take place, then the rights of our people are suffering. So, equally, we should be interested in the rights of the more than 50 percent who happen to be women on this Continent.I don’t agree Mr. President that the caucus should change from being a Women’s Caucus to be a Men and Women Caucus. We have a Permanent Committee of Parliament that focus on gender and quite often I find that the participation of men in that Committee is almost absent. Which means that the issues of gender are still looked at as issues for women. So, if we have not utilized the opportunity of the Gender Committee, why would we want now to dilute the issue of the women’s cause which is the initiative that started this caucus to make it now men and women.I think the point is that, there is still imbalance in society and that’s why even the issues of gender become women’s issues because it is women that are still in this position of imbalance. There are no doubts that there are so many men who support women, who do not mistreat their wives, who support their daughters, who have carried their daughter through school. Even us would not be here if our fathers did not support us to be able to go to school.So, when we talk about the imbalance in society between men and women, we are talking about what society is doing not what men are doing only, in my view. Because even we women, we follow the same cultures and practices and implement what society told us to do through our stages of socialization and so on.So, Mr. President, I just wanted to also comment on the issue of FMG. My sister Bernadette talked about what is happening in Sierra Leone and I support it totally. There is no route to Rome; we can take different directions as long as we are doing something about a negative cultural practice that is affecting our women. If you have decided that, as a long as a girl is below 18 years, which means that is the adult age according to your Constitution, I am sure, that girl should never be circumcised. You have done it. If she becomes 18 years, then she takes her own initiatives, she makes a deliberate decision as an adult and slowly I am sure you will be able to legislate against total circumcision of women, which would be legislating against a negative practice against women.It was possible in Uganda because the community that practices that, actually was up in arms, it is our culture, it is the private society as you have said and so on, but because the majority of the communities, about 98 percent do not practice it, then we are able as women to come up and say, yes, we are the law makers, we are the leaders, we know that this is affecting women. So, we are able to legislate against it. So, it is easier in some countries than others but as long as something is being done for me, I am satisfied.Mr. President, I want first of all to support the women of Saharawi. We had an experience during the conference, where a woman from the Saharawi Republic, from the civil society was able to show us pictures that moved us again, where girls and women are being tortured just for the sake of asking for their rights to be independent. So, I support the motion, I have supported the resolution indeed and I urge you Mr. President that we should take this resolution to our Heads of States to the next Summit so that Pan-African Parliament voice is added to those voices that have been addressing this issue.Lastly, I want to thank Honorable Prof. Badaoui, one of our eldest who indeed has introduced the kit and I must say even before the President answers, that the President has taken an initiative to connect us to one of the international organizations and we hope that we will be able to popularize this kit and get women to access it, who need it.I thank you Madam, our Chair of the Caucus, I thank you Mr. President. (Applause)HON. MASEBO TEMBO SYLVIA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you Mr. President. I did not really want to speak on this report but I have been encouraged to do so after listening to some of the comments by our male brothers.I just want to encourage the women folk not to fall for that kind of statement which suggests that women do not support each other. The point is that it is true there may be women that do not support women, just like there are men who do not support women and vice versa. But I want to state, speaking for myself and from experience, even my coming here is as a result of the support of fellow women and if I come back next year, it will be as a result of women, of course, even the men do support.So, I also wanted just to appeal to our men folk. This song of women not supporting women is ably used in elections to the extent that it intoxicates certain women to think that they should not really be supporting women. So, indeed, if men want to support us and help us, I think that such statements should be reduced.Also, I just wanted to associate myself with all the resolutions that have been read out by the Chairperson and to commend our Women’s Caucus President for a job well done. Thank you. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you. Now I give the Floor to Honorable Mavis Matlali, Chairperson of the Women’s Caucus for response.HON. MATLALI NTEBALENG MAVIS [SOUTH AFRICA]:I thank you Honorable President, I am sure you would allow me to do it where I am.THE PRESIDENT:You can do.HON. MATLALI NTEBALENG MAVIS [SOUTH AFRICA]:Honorable Members, I have been listening to your input and I would like to thank you for the kind and supportive constructive criticism that you have made in deliberating upon this report. We have noted the corrections and promise that they will be effected.I counted the speakers that took part in this debate and came out with 24 and out of these 24 speakers, eight have been men and I am very much pleased that this has happened that way. (Applause)I have got some issues to highlight nevertheless. The first one is about men walking out while I ascended the stage. I would like to say to them, whether they stay, whether they walk out, women will forever fight for their rights. (Applause) We shall not tire; we shall not lag.AN HONORABLE:Yes.HON. MATLALI NTEBALENG MAVIS [SOUTH AFRICA]:I congratulate the men that state throughout the presentation of the report and its debate and even taking part in it not even to forgetting to mention those who even came to the conference itself. I want you to give them a round of applause. (Applause)Mr. President, when you talk about the women at PAP not supporting one another, a song that has been sung, that Honorable Sylvia Masebo was referring to, I would like to be very frank and say, it has been a very short time for me in this position to really come out with such criticism of not getting support from women. Ever since I started here on 04 August to date, what I have got from the Women Parliamentarians has been support, support and support. (Applause)I can refer to their attendance during the weekend, very awkward time; Friday afternoon and even Saturday but the ladies were here in big number, generally so. I would not like to deny the fact that there could be one or two that might not be supportive but we say, as we are singing this positive chorus, they will join and learn that a woman has to support another.Talking to PAP about the Women’s Caucus, when I debated the other day here, I said, please include us in your program of Committees, not only for the conference but for the sitting of the Caucus as a Committee and that also do not leave us to the periphery of the weekends. We would as well like to engage in women issues while we are still fresh and enthusiastic and then very much alive to make justice to these issues.I am touching a thorny in a shoe, the issue of no budget for the Women’s Caucus in Parliament, leaving the caucus to rely on donor funding. This is not only happening at PAP; it is happening in other Parliaments as well where the Women’s Caucus is the Committee that is put aside and then this one does not get a budget, it cannot be given the treatment of other Permanent Committee. I am appealing to PAP that for the recommendations and the resolutions that we have tabled today, we need a budget to implement them. (Applause) otherwise it will be a song. We will come next year and place other resolutions that will never be implemented because donor funding is not enough for us to do our work.As I conclude, my input Honorable President, I agree with Honorable Mary Mugenyi, our Honorable Second Vice President, that we cannot mix the Women’s Caucus with men. This is a Women’s Caucus and always we are all embracive as mothers. Motse o Lapeng, charity begins at home, never would a woman leaves a men out, you are our men, our husbands, our sons, our fathers, our uncles. So, you are welcome every time and there is nothing that we discuss that can frighten you or make you run away. (Laughter)I would like to conclude my speech by once more quoting Gcina Mhlophe’s poem, A Brighter Dawn for Woman, just the last stanza that goes:"The Woman of Africa wants to sing a song of loveTo bring back old wisdoms that will shine a new lightBrighter than the stars in the night skyFor all her tears, for all her laughter, her wishes and endeavorsMay the springs, lakes and rivers of Africa, sing her praises everydaySo she may not tireMay the leaves of every tree chantOn a windy day, halala, halala".We celebrate you Woman of Africa. I thank you President. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much. Halala! I don’t know what the meaning is!(Rires)Honorable Rosine VIEYRA SOGLO, vous vouliez dire quelque chose?HON. VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Oui, Monsieur le Président, s’il-vous-plaît, je voudrais vous adresser une requête. Voulez-vous avoir la gentillesse de demander à notre sœur soudanaise de me donner un modèle de sa trousse, j’aimerais, à mon tour, la vulgariser chez moi, s’il vous plaît! C’est ce que je voulais vous demander.Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.THE PRESIDENT:D’accord! L’Honorable SUAD AL-BADAOUI vous a écoutée, je suis sûr qu’elle vous donnera un kit.Honorables membres,Nous sommes venus à la fin de nos débats sur le rapport de la plateforme des femmes en Afrique en 2010 et la Résolution de la Conférence internationale sur les femmes.Je propose à la plénière que nous prenions acte, avec toutes les appréciations positives énoncées en plénière, du rapport sur la plateforme d’actions des femmes en Afrique.(Applaudissements).Je vous remercie.Honorables membres, je propose que la plénière du Parlement panafricain prenne acte de la Résolution de la Conférence internationale sur les Femmes et que le Parlement panafricain se fasse le porte-voix de cette résolution.(Applaudissements).Je vous remercie.Ceci dit, permettez-moi de féliciter la présidente MAVIS MATLADI et le Caucus des femmes pour la présentation du rapport de la Conférence pour lequel nous avons pris acte avec des appréciations très positives et les féliciter également pour la résolution pour laquelle nous avons aussi pris acte et pour laquelle, nous nous engageons à être les porte-voix.Je voudrais informer la plénière que la Conférence des femmes fait l’objet d’une incompréhension entre le Bureau du Parlement panafricain, l’administration du Parlement panafricain, et nos sœurs, les parlementaires qui sont dans cette Chambre.On ne peut pas vouloir une chose et son contraire. Quand on dit que la Conférence des femmes organisée par le Parlement panafricain est une conférence internationale africaine, ce sont nos sœurs qui disent: « Non! C’est une activité du Parlement panafricain». Quand nous disons que la Conférence des femmes du Parlement panafricain est une activité du Parlement panafricain, nos sœurs nous disent: « Non! C’est une activité des femmes du Parlement panafricain ». On ne peut pas vouloir faire une Conférence internationale et la confiner dans une Commission, dans un caucus.Nous avons entamé un débat que nous n’avons pas fini. La Conférence des femmes est une conférence internationale africaine. Les sujets, ce sont ceux des femmes, mais ils touchent les hommes, les femmes, les enfants d’Afrique, et à travers eux, la cause de la femme, sur l’ensemble du monde. Cela va grandir nos sœurs du Parlement panafricain, leur permettre de voir grand et ne pas mettre cette conférence dans un caucus ou dans une Commission Genre. Non!Quel est le parlement ou quelle est l’organisation qui recevrait une invitation du Parlement panafricain pour une conférence et qui n’enverrait pas des femmes à leurs frais? Tous nos parlements, toutes les organisations vont en envoyer. Mais, si on veut le faire en vase clos, c’est cela le résultat! Pourquoi les hommes que nous sommes, n’ont pas eu des invitations? Parce que certaines d’entre vous pensent que non, il n’y a que les femmes qui doivent venir à cette Conférence.Je m’excuse de soulever un problème important à la fin de nos débats, mais je l’ai déjà dit, c’est une discussion qui est engagée entre le Bureau et notre Secrétariat d’une part, et le Caucus des femmes d’autre part, mais également avec toutes les femmes parlementaires du PAP. Il faudra qu’on s’asseye pour que, de manière définitive, on donne un corps à la Conférence des femmes organisée par le Parlement panafricain mais, qu’elle ne soit pas une histoire de femmes seulement!J’espère que mes sœurs m’ont compris. Avant la fin de cette session, on va s’asseoir pour que la prochaine Conférence ait un éclat meilleur et que les hommes, ici présents, y participent également avec des sœurs venues du monde entier. Et, il n’y aura pas un problème de financement. Le financement, nous allons le trouver. Mais, ditesvous qu’aucune organisation internationale, aucun organe de l’Union africaine, aucun Parlement africain ne va rechigner pour envoyer des délégués à une Conférence africaine organisée par le Parlement panafricain.Je m’excuse de la brutalité de ces mots, mais nous allons affiner tout cela avec notre sœur, présidente du Caucus des femmes et également, avec nos autres sœurs.Nous avons bien compris votre message, nous allons être au-devant de vous. Vous voulez qu’on soit à vos côtés mais, on sera au-devant de vous jusqu’à ce que vous nous dites que « C’est fini, ne restez pas au-devant, on continue le chemin ensemble.»(Applaudissements).Sur ce, je vais demander au Secrétaire général de faire des annonces s’il en a.
3.0 – ANNONCE
THE CLERK:Thank you Honourable President, we have to follow announcements to mean to the honourables members. The Committee on Cooperation and International Relations shall meet at one o’clock in Room 2. The Committee on Trade, Customs and Immigration Matters shall meet at one as well in Room 5. And the SubCommittee on Agriculture shall also meet at one in Room 6. And lastly the honourable members who received the invitation to the PRC PAP Retreat are requested to remain behind in the chamber mall to discuss matters related to that retreat. Thank you.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, honorables membres. Nous allons maintenant observer la traditionnelle pause déjeuner, conformément à l’article 32 du Règlement intérieur. Nos travaux sont, par conséquent, suspendus jusqu’à 14h30 précises cet après-midi.La séance, suspendue à douze heures trente-une, est reprise à quatorze heures trente-quatre.LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres, la séance est reprise.Conformément à l’article 38, alinéa 1(g), j’ai l’honneur et le plaisir d’inviter Son Excellence, Madame Biance GAWANAS, Commissaire aux Affaires sociales de l’Union africaine, à entrer dans la Chambre.J’invite le Secrétaire général à donner lecture du troisième point inscrit à l’ordre du jour.THE CLERK:Thank you Honourable President.Presentation and debate on the report on maternal and child health.LE PRÉSIDENT:J’invite Son Excellence, Madame Biance GAWANAS, Commissaire aux Affaires sociales de l’Union africaine, à faire sa présentation.
4.0 – PRÉSENTATION ET DÉBAT RELATIFS À LA SANTÉ MATERNELLE ET INFANTILE
H.E. BIANCE GAWANAS [AUC]:Mr. President, Honourable Members of Parliament, I have the privilege and honour to present to you a report on Maternal Infant and Child Health. I will do a power point presentation if I get it right.I know that yesterday, during the session on MDGs; we were talking about statistics, and I thought I will just run down and give you some statistics that will give you an idea as to the magnitude of the problem that we are faced with. On your screen, you will see that there is about 12000 children that die in Africa every day, and that the woman in Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth. It sets out the major causes of death of children especially those under five. You will notice that malnutrition contributes to more than 35 percent of child deaths. That’s just a graph that highlights again the issues.The three major diseases that we always are faced with are obviously malaria, tuberculosis and the linkage between HIV / AIDS and tuberculosis, as well as infections especially the transmission of HIV from mother to child.When we come to maternal mortality, I attended one of the launches of the campaign on maternal mortality. And one of the presenters, in fact it was one of the Ministers of Health that said the following, and I think we need to just imagine ourselves. When a plane crashes, we have about 200 to 300 people dead. Now we have to imagine that it is 200 or 300 women that die almost every day. When a plane crashes, it is an emergency; it is a very traumatic, tragic event. When 200 or 300 women compared to a plane crash die in Africa, unfortunately it does not arouse that sense of traumatic event. But, I think we need to imagine that, because that is what is happening on our continent when we are talking about maternal and child health.Now, what are the causes? The first issue is obviously related to our health systems. Weak health system as we have pointed out, are major causes or problems. And yesterday we talked about the quest of governments, we talked about the attitude of our health workers and I just want to point out in fact I thought I would reserve that response for today.One of the Honourable Members pointed out yesterday that part of the problem that we are faced with is the attitude of our health workers. I fully agree with that. But I also want to speak on behalf of our health workers, and say that they work under the most difficult circumstances. If we go to our clinics, if we go to our hospitals, some of them have said we want to save the lives of women, we want to save the lives of children, but we cannot do it with our bare hands. We need equipment, we need medicines, and we need better conditions of service. I just want us to really balance that we are expecting our health professionals to give the best, and I know that many of them have taken the oath of hypocratise, but sometimes we need to be also realistic. We have talked about health workers that are leaving our continent for greener pastures. Yes, even if I am a Nurse, even if I am a Doctor and I have made that pledge to save the lives of women and children, many of them will say that we are also people. They also have responsibilities and they also have to care for others. So, I just wanted to say yes, the attitude of health workers needs to be changed, but we also have to bear in mind that they also find it difficult to work under very pressing and difficult circumstances.The delays at different levels in accessing health services: I want to share with you if I may Mr. President. I call it a story, but it is not a story. It is a real life experience of a woman who was pregnant. She delivered in a village and at the point of delivery they discovered that she was pregnant with twins. She could not give birth to the second twin and she had to be taken in a cart, on a bicycle, whatever it is, until she reached a health centre. When she reached the health centre, she had lost so much blood that she needed blood transfusion. Unfortunately, there was no enough blood. She gave birth to the second twin, but today we have got twins without a mother. She died after giving birth to the second twin. There are so many of these real life stories, that one has to come face to face with those life experiences in order to appreciate and understand why it is so necessary that we make health services accessible to our people. That we make sure that in every village, in every district we have got the services that women can access.Delays are also caused by our attitudes, our cultural practices; where when a woman is in labour the husband says, wait, wait and by the time that he is ready to take his wife to the nearest clinic, it might be too late. We have our Traditional Birth Attendants, and I am one of those that will always promote their role within our health systems. But, I think we need to build their capacity as one of the Honourable Members said, rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water. We need to bring them into the system. Make them able to refer when they are dealing with very difficult cases.Lack of emergency neonatal and obstetric care, in other cases called family planning services. As much as we are talking about children and about women, I think we should also understand that there is also a need to prevent pregnancies. Not all pregnancies are always wanted pregnancies. But we need to make sure that the woman is being given that choice ultimately, whether or not she wants ten children or whether she wants four children, when she wants a child; and that is by accessing family planning services.Complications of unsafe abortions: When we talk about abortions, I want to stress the point again that; we are 53 member states in Africa. There are different countries in Africa, some have legalized abortion, and others have not legalized abortion. When we are talking about safe abortions, we are talking about the circumstances under which abortion is legally allowed in a country. But we also need to be faced with the reality that abortions are taking place, whether the law allows it or not in our countries. We have cases where women have died as a result of these complications. We have cases where babies are dumped in our countries and we need to come face to face with those realities. In other cases, skilled human resources are a big problem, access in terms of the MDGs that we discussed yesterday. It was very clear that women must give birth attended to by a skilled birth attendant. But we know the scarcity and the shortage of health human resources that we have on our continent.Socio-cultural barriers to accessing health care: I have mentioned that there are so many taboos that exist within our societies, concerning what women should eat, what they should not eat, what she should do when she is pregnant, what she should not do when she is pregnant, and all these are causes of the maternal mortality and for that matter even of child mortality.Inadequate investment in health and social development: I don’t know how much I can say. I suppose from just working in the social development field, we have always argued that when it comes to some of the social sectors, they have always said that these sectors just consume, they don’t produce. But I want to say Honourable Members that you health is wealth.Yesterday we were saying that if a person is not healthy, that person cannot be productive, and an unproductive person does not deliver wealth. And so the linkage between wealth and health and productivity is absolutely clear. So we need to insist that investment in health and social development also leads to economic growth and not necessarily the other way round, where economic growth leads to better life of our people.Yesterday we talked about the linkage between the MDGs and it is very clear that food security and nutrition relate very closely to the health related MDGs. We talked about HIV / AIDS, communicable disease and non communicable diseases as well as neglected tropical diseases and, I know that there have been many demands made on the AU to also look at sickle cell, anemia, looking at sleeping sickness and all those diseases that we feel that because some of them are very much African diseases that we call them neglected diseases. So there are many efforts globally, in terms of promoting women and child health, and we discussed the MDGs. We looked at MDG 4 and 5 as well as MDG 6. We emphasized the interlinked nature of the MDGs. The ICPD; the conference that took place in Cairo in 1994, the Beijing Platform 1995, the Copenhagen World Social Summit that took place in 1995. And recently the Secretary General of the UN has also launched a global action plan on women and health. I know that the United States of America has got a Global Health Initiative that also puts emphasis on women and health.Closer home, and in terms of our own efforts; let me start with the July, 2010 summit debate on the theme of Maternal, Infant and Child Health and the outcome. As you are aware, maternal and child health has now for the last three years really been high on the agenda of both the Ministers of Health as well as the Heads of State. Last year, it was decided that this year’s debate in July will be on maternal, infant or newborn and child health and development. During the debate, which was a moderated debate, the debate was once moderated by Zaina Badawi, the BBC reporter. We had Toraya Obayiti, the Executive Director of UNFPA, Yvonne Tchaka Tchaka, who is the Good Will Ambassador on Malaria, but also ad Advocate for Women and Children in Africa, then we had President of Mozambique and President of Uganda.Following the moderated session, about 29 Heads of State made an intervention during the debate. The outcome of that debate was not a declaration; it was not just another decision. The Heads of State adopted 8 Focus Action Points, and we have said every year, maternal and child health will remain on the agenda. We will report back to the Heads of State in terms of the progress they as Heads of State, have made within their own countries. I do not know whether you have copies of the actions that were adopted, but we will make it available to the Honourable Members.We also prepared a position paper that was presented to the G20 during their recent meeting in June in Canada. The adoption of legal instruments, campaigns, advocacy and initiatives to address maternal and child health, and for implementation by member states. Now, we have the Africa Health Strategy that was adopted in 2007. And the vision of this Strategy is an integrated and prosperous Africa, free of its heavy burden of diseases, disability and premature death. And it has also a mission. Now, what is the importance of the Africa Health Strategy? I always say, the Africa Health Strategy is the blue print for health for Africa. So, when we are engaging with development partners, and development partners sometimes say, but we do not know what Africa’s priorities are. What I always tell them, you listen but you don’t hear what Africa is saying. Africa has got the African Health Strategy, African has got the Maputo Plan, and Africa has got the Nutrition Strategy. What more is it that you want to hear that you do not hear? So, these are the important blueprints that at the continental level, our Ministers of Health and Heads of State have adopted. So, the Africa Health Strategy is very critical. I have got a folder that I brought along for the library that we will put all these documents that I have mentioned.We have the Call for Accelerated Action on Africa Fit for Children, which highlighted the issue of child survival and development. We subsequently did a progress report on the call as well as the report on the state of the African child, which look at the call, how far we have come in terms of improving the lives of our children? So, everything is set up under that.We have got the African Charter on the rights and welfare of the children as well as the mechanism for the monitoring on the implementation of the charter. And this is the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. And they are the ones that have a task of holding member states accountable for the way they treat their children.We have the African Regional Nutritional Strategy whose main purpose is to advocate and sensitize African leaders about the essential role of nutrition and food security in Africa’s socioeconomic development. We have established a taskforce that consists of African Union, of the NEPAD agency, regional economic communities as well as the major stakeholders in the area of nutrition and food security. Their staff serves as the advisory arm to the African Union and members states in implementing the strategy.The Abuja Call for Accelerated Action towards Universal Access to HIV / AIDS. Honourable Members will recall that in 2001, our Heads of state adopted the Abuja Declaration and Plan of Action. It was at that summit that the Heads of state adopted a decision to allocate 15 percent to the health budget. The call was looking at progress that was achieved but also to say, how do we accelerate action to make sure that our people have universal access to HIV / AIDS, malaria and TB services? Over these years, I think, we all agree that many more people have access to ARVs, than we would have had before. But what we need to push is, I think, one of the Honourable Members point out the challenge that we are faced with today, and that is the replenishment of the global fund. Now, putting somebody on ARVs does not mean that it is for 5 years or for 10 years, it is a life-long commitment. Therefore, the need to have the funds in order to buy the medicine, and make sure that people have continuous access to these funds is becoming absolutely critical. Because any one that goes off the ARVs, we know what the consequences are. So, I hope that we can continue asking for the replenishment of the global fund.We have the Continental Policy Framework on Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights and the Maputo Plan for its implementation. I want to say and stress the fact that Africa is the only continent that has got such a continental policy framework and a Maputo Plan of Action adopted by the Ministers of Health and endorsed by our Heads of State and government. Anywhere that one goes today in the world, from South America to Asia, everybody continues to refer to the Maputo Plan of Action and that is also the basis of our intervention when it comes to maternal health.AU CARMMA: CARMMA stands for Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa. This campaign was launched last year during the Ministers of Health meeting in Addis Ababa and during that meeting, Ministers committed themselves that they will launch CARMMA nationally within their countries. I want to put the context of CARMMA. It is not a new strategy, it is not a new policy, it is nearly a campaign to say, how do we translate commitments into action? And it is an African driven initiative. It was initiated by the African Union with its member states and therefore, it was very important that member states launch CARMMA, that they own CARMMA, and that in the context of CARMMA they set priorities.I know that we have 19 countries, but since we put the figure, 19, we have 23 out of the 53 countries that have so far launched CARMMA within their own countries.Now, I want to continue by saying, after all these policy instruments and activities that we have developed what next? What are the key messages that we want to send out in terms of promoting women and child health in Africa? I think first and foremost it is the implementation of cost effective measures, with high impact that will accelerate the reduction of maternal, newborn and child mortality. I think there was also mention during the discussion yesterday, that we do not need to reinvent the will. There are countries that have been successful on our continent in reducing maternal and child mortality. It is about sharing good practices and implementing this within our own countries. Many countries that have successfully reduced, have involved traditional leaders, involved Members of Parliament, involved religious leaders and at the end of the day involved the communities themselves.I think, I have already mentioned the need to use CARMMA as a strategy and as an advocacy platform within our countries and continent wide. To continue to deliberate on the best ways to address the challenges first in reducing maternal, newborn and child mortality by focusing on the delivery of quality, comprehensive integrated and affordable primary health care services. We want to put emphasis on primary health care services. That is where we will make the difference. It is as we have said; bringing the services closer to where the people are, to make sure that we provide a continuum of care to mother and their children, promote safe motherhood, child survival and women and child health. Look at the impact of nutrition, education, gender equality, food security, water and sanitation on health as we said there are inter-linkages amongst the MDGs. Look at our cultural practices and although I have maybe talked a lot about the positive or harmful cultural practices of female genital mutilation, early child marriage, etc. I think, it is also important that we look at the positive cultural values that we have in Africa. The other day when I was talking to people about nutrition, we were saying it is not just about growing food for food sake, but it is growing food that has got a nutritious content. Unfortunately for many of our countries, we have moved away from those traditional foods that may have had much more nutrition value than the foods that we today eat and buy within our shops.Increasing domestic resources: I think I am speaking with the right people. As Members of Parliament, at the end of the day, it is your responsibility to approve the budgets. If you sit in Parliament and you compare, as I said earlier that; if a plane should fall everyday with 200 passengers, how does is compare with the rate at which we are losing women and children on our continent. But it is not just National Budgets that we are looking at. We also need to promote public private partnerships. To what extent can our private sector also get involved? In some countries private sector companies have adopted rural clinics. Have said for the next 5 years, we will provide the beds, we will provide the equipment, we will take care of the clinic, and these are innovative ways within which we can involve the private sector.The question of accountability, improving governance in the health sector, and mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation: I cannot emphasise enough. If a public servant has got a responsibility, then they must also have accountability. Accountability also comes with how well we equip them with the resources and the knowledge to promote good governance.Again, as Members of Parliament your role is the role of holding government accountable. I hope that in your work, that you will hold government accountable to the extent that it provides efficient and effective life savers to our people.A better health for Africa will focus as I said earlier on integrated, comprehensive and cost effective interventions. I want to emphasise the point that in the last year, with my personal involvement in the campaign and in member states, out of the 23, I had managed to attend at least 7 or 8 of these launches and interacting with people and the message was very clear. We do not need to wait for overseas development aid to save the lives of women and children. Some of the interventions do not cost us a cent, and what is it that I am talking about? What is not going cost us a cent is to start respecting that women also have dignity; that women also have the right to live; that our children also have the right to life. That does not cost a cent. It costs the change of the mindset. It costs the change of a paradigm, and I think one of the Honourable Member said, if we pay attention to MDG 3, then we would have paid attention to all the MDGs because, I want to believe and I want to say that if we increase the status and value the status of women, we will reduce maternal mortality in our countries.ALMA ATA was adopted 30 years ago. That was the primary health care approach. Today we are saying; it still remains as important for Africa as it was 30 years ago. For a better health for Africa, that is what is we are saying. And so, Honourable Members, this is my presentation on maternal, infant and child health. This is the focus of the African Union at this point in time, and we can only call upon you as Honourable Members to join us in order to save the lives of women and children.I want to end with the slogan CARMMA: I want to believe, and I want to believe that all of us believe, that Africa cares, and that as long as Africa cares, no woman should die while giving life. I also want to believe that Africa cares and that all children will be free of abuse, of hunger, of neglect and disease because we would have created an Africa fit for our women and for our children.I thank you. (Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, Excellence Biance GAWANAS, Commissaire aux Affaires sociales de la Commission de l’Union africaine, pour cette brillante présentation. Nous sommes, maintenant, habitués à vos brillantes présentations.J’invite, à présent, l’honorable Njingum Musa MBUTOH, président de la Commission permanente des Affaires monétaires et financières à présenter le rapport sur la mise en œuvre de la décision du Sommet de l’Union africaine sur la santé maternelle, néonatale et infantile, et le développement, en Afrique. HonorableNJINGUM MUSA, vous avez la parole!HON. NJINGUM MUSA MBUTOH [CAMEROON]:Mr. President and Honorable Members, and particularly Her Excellency, the Commissioner, good afternoon to all of you.Mr. President, permit me, before I go into this very important deliberations, to first of all thank you for your great concern on issues of health and population of Africa and also to thank you for the support you gave this joint meeting of all the Chairs of Africa, RECs and Pan-African Parliament’s, three Committees.I also want to thank all the Honorable Members of the three Committees, that is, the Committee on Health, Labor and Social Affairs; the Committee on Monetary and Financial Affairs; and the Committee on Gender, Family, Youths and Persons with Disabilities, for the wonderful job that you did in Johannesburg in South Africa on the 1st and 2nd.I also want to thank the Secretariat for making it possible for a very large number of the National Chairs of the Finance Committee to be present in this meeting.My greatest thanks too also go to the Secretary of the Africa Public Health Parliamentary Network, Mr. Arutini, I do not know if he is in the House here, the UNFPA and World Health and other partners that supported our conference.Mr. President, I want to let all of you understand that the period for talking-shop is finished. We have put already in place the talking-shop of Africa with very intelligent people who can produce ideas; who can continue with ideas, who can write very good books. We have all diagnosed the problem of Africa, but today as I am talking from here, it should be now as working shops to a pudding place.These working shops will mean we have two schools of thought in Africa. The first school is the great knowledge that we have, we can produce, we can write, we can propose. We have that very good school university that knowledge is there. But there is one important school that the Pan-African Parliament was created in Africa. This very important school, if you all agree, we will set up this school and this school is a school of only training people on how to act and implement; a very important university and it is only Pan-African Parliament leadership that will forward this challenge.So, today after having talked about maternal health, infant and child health, we are now going to talk about how are we going to do to resolve this situation? How are we going to support Africa Union? We have a Head of States Summit for taking very concrete decisions to help to solve this situation. We shall have a question to answer and we shall answer this question somewhere else if we are not careful.We were a generation and we have met generations and we are now a generation. We need to put in place another generation for tomorrow and if we do not take care we shall have a question to answer, where is the next generation because of doing whatever ill that is taking place in Africa. We do not know whether it is much as bad luck as good luck that diseases have become the order of the day for Africa but we shall find collective action; we shall find collective solutions to this problem; all of us. And thank God all the Members of the Pan-African Parliament are very interested in the issue of health of the population of Africa. And I think together we shall find solutions.So, in accordance with mandate of the Committees as stipulated in the Rules of Procedure of the Pan-African Parliament, the Committee on Monetary and Financial Affairs, the Committee on Health, Labor and Social Affairs, the Committee on Gender, Family, Youths and Persons with Disabilities, sitting on October 06 and 07/2010 considered the Parliamentary Policy Budget Action Plan for the African Union Summit decisions on Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa as was adopted by the chairs of the RECs and National Parliaments of Finance and Budget Committees meeting with members of all these three Committees on 01 October and 02/2010 in Johannesburg, South Africa.Haven concluded their deliberations on the Parliamentary Policy and Budget Action Plan for the African Union Summit decisions on Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa we report to the plenary as follows:1.That this process is a significant and historical achievement being the first time in almost 50 years of OAU and AU that Chairs of Finance and Budget of National Parliaments and REC Parliaments have met to consider budget actions for implementation of the AU Summit decisions;2.The fact that the Pan-African Parliament has played a leading role in this process in partnership with the African Public Health Parliamentary Network and other partners is testimony to the great capacity of the PanAfrican Parliament to go beyond a mere advisory role and take policy actions for the economy and social development of Africa;3.The chairs of National Parliament Committees of Finance and Budget are very happy with the role of PAP in this development and are looking forward to working with Pan-African Parliament Members to urgently implement this action plan from the coming 2011 budget year, so you all come from here we have the National Parliaments;4.That it will provide sustainable financing for health by enhancing domestic resources mobilization including meeting the 15 percent Abuja target as well as mobilization of resources to public private partnerships and by reducing out-ofpocket to initiatives such as waving of user fees for pregnant women and children under five and by instituting a national health insurance;5.That in enhancing the health system to provide comprehensive integrated maternal, newborn and child health care services in particular to primary health care, recreation of family planning including reproductive health commodities, security, infrastructural development and skilled human resources for health;6.That the problem of Chair of the health and population constitute a priority for our states;7.That it is inconceivable that today a woman should die while giving birth;8.That Parliamentarians should commit themselves in order that the priority given to this issue related to the health and population is effected in the budget and policy program of the state;9.That improvement in maternal health, child and neo-natal health is a major challenge in the promotion of rights of women, children, and youth in particular and for the general social and economic development of Africa; and10.The committees, that is, the three Committees, convinced that the effective adoption and implementation of these measures will allow the challenges and aims to be met and make the following slogans a reality as Madam Commissioner; has quote another slogan here. This is next slogan: Never again should women die while giving birth; no child should be born with the HIV/AIDS virus. These quotations will remain also in Parliamentarians.Mr. President, you should note that building on this landmark process, the Pan-African Parliament Committee on Monetary and Financial Affairs will be further advancing the role of the Pan-African Parliament by working with Finance and Budget Committees of Member States of African Union on a wide range of African financial, monetary and economic development issues. So this as innovated.Mr. President and Honorable Members, on behalf of the Chairs of REC and Members of Parliament of Finance and Budget Committees, and Members of the Pan-African Parliament Monetary and Financial Affairs, Members of the Health, Labor and Social Affairs Committee, Members of Gender, Family, Youth and Peoples Persons With Disabilities Committee, we hereby strongly support and present to you this Parliamentary Policy Budget Action Plan for African Union Summit decisions on maternal, infant and child health and development in Africa as adopted by the Chairs of RECs and National Parliaments of Finance and Budget Committees meeting with the members of all the three Committees; presenting this in its entirety for your consideration and possible adoption and possibly to table this to the Speakers’ Conference and forward it to the National Parliaments or REC Parliaments for their implementation and action.Mr. President, having given this report of this Parliamentary Policy and Budget Plan of Action, I will therefore like to present to you in its entirety the declaration of this very important and historical conference that was held in Johannesburg.Parliamentary and Budget Action Plan for African Union Summit decisions on Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa. This was adopted by the Chairs of National and RECs, Finance and Budget Committees meeting with the Members of the Committees on Health, Labor and Social Affairs, Monetary and Financial Affairs and Gender and Family, Youth and Persons with Disability of the Pan-African Parliament in Johannesburg, South Africa. The declaration was made on 2 October, 2010."We Members of African Parliaments, being Chairs of African Parliamentary Committees of Finance and Budget, and the Pan-African Parliament Committees of Health, Finance, Budget and Gender; meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 1 to 2 October, 2010 to deliberate on:1.Ensuring policy and budget support for the AU Summit Declaration on Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa; including the Summit Decision for the Eradication of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS;2.Accelerating African domestic health financing towards meeting the Health Millennium Development Goals, including the new Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health;3.Increasing accountability for the improvement of the health status of women and children through the monitoring of commitments undertaken by African Heads of States in Africa and globally as well as commitment undertaken by global partners;4.Strengthening collaboration with Chairs of Parliamentary Committees and Ministers from the following sectors: Health, Finance, Budget, Children, Youth, Gender, Women, Social Development, Planning and Economic Development on Sustainable Health Financing for Economic and Social Development in Africa;5.Coordinating global and African resource mobilization for health financing and development in line with the Abuja Declaration, Paris Declaration and the three A’s, that is the Accra Agenda for Action; and6.Implementing in an integrated manner, health priorities as identified by the AU Africa Health Strategy; Maputo Plan of Action for the Operationalisation of the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Continental Policy, Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal and Child Mortality in Africa (CARMMA); International Conference for Population Development Program of Action; and Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health.Concerned that:1.Although progress has been made in regards to the improvement of the health of women and children, it is not yet sufficient and Africa is still losing 4.05 million children under the age of five and 207,000 women every year. This is a shock ratio;2.The poor state of health of women and children is a great impediment to the development of the African Continent, without health there is no development. Global losses in productivity associated with maternal and infant deaths alone amount to $15 billion per year. This is the amount of money we lost because of health;3.The state of women and children's health reflects the dire state of social determinants such as water, nutrition, sanitation, gender equality; and pillars of health such as human resources for health and vaccine coverage as Madam Commissioner was saying to you yesterday and today;4.The failure to reduce to a barest minimum, preventable maternal and child mortality constitutes a violation of the human rights of our women and children. We cannot give them the basic prevention;5.Access to health remains highly inequitable across and within African states, with the poorest often having the least access. The poor become poorer and the rich become richer. We have to put a value to that;6.Despite these significant losses and inequalities, the funding gaps for meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4, 5 and 6 on child and maternal health, HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis are still greatest in Africa. Very big challenge;7.Recognizing that meaningful and sustainable social and economic development cannot be achieved in circumstances where over half of the population suffers from inadequate health status, and lives of millions of children and women are being lost annually to preventable, treatable and manageable conditions;Hereby adopt the following Parliamentary Policy and Budget Action Plan, and recommend the same for urgent action by the African Parliaments.The following actions should be held without delay at the following platforms:1.At the level of Regional Economic Community Parliaments and Country Parliaments of AU Member States:I.Joint meetings of Chairs of Committees of RECs and National Parliament and Ministers of Finance and Budget, Health, Gender and Women;II.A national level joint working meeting of Ministers of Health, Women, Gender, Finance and Chairs of the Parliamentary Committees of Health, Finance, Budget, Gender, Women working with other relevant committees, to assess the state of health related MDGs with a view to appreciating the scale of the health and social development burden and what policy and budget actions are required between 2010 and 2015 in the first instance towards resolving challenges to actualizing the health related MDGs;III.A national level joint meeting of chairs of the Parliamentary Committees of Health, Finance, Budget, Gender, Women and other relevant Committees to identify a strategy for implementing actions and recommendations emanating from the joint meeting of the Executive and the Legislature;2.Chairs of the Finance and Budget Committees should, in collaboration with Health, Gender, Women and other relevant Committees, develop a national strategy with the support of national institutions, development partners and civil society organizations outlining key areas of intervention to support the implementation of the AU Declaration on Reproductive, Maternal, Infant and Child Health and the Decision for the Eradication of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS notably:i.The development of new or alterations of existing national health plans which include provisions for:Access to packages of reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health with essential interventions including family planning information and services, antenatal, newborn and postnatal care, emergency obstetric and newborn care, skilled care during childbirth at appropriate facilities, prevention and treatment of unsafe abortions, and linkage of sexual and reproductive health and HIV prevention and treatment, including the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, access to ARVs and treatment of opportunistic infections and Tuberculosis, exclusive breastfeeding for infants up to six months of age; vaccines and immunization including pneumococcal and rotavirus vaccines; oral rehydration therapy and zinc supplements to manage Diarrhoea; treatment for the major childhood illnesses including Pneumonia and Malaria; nutritional supplements (such as vitamin A); and access to appropriate ready-to-eat foods to prevent and treat malnutrition;Integration of care for better impact of health interventions;Coordination of efforts between health and other relevant sectors;Health system strengthening centered around infrastructure, commodities, research and information - with a focus on community levels where the need is greatest in most countries; andSufficient, well trained, motivated and well distributed human resources for health.ii.Budget support for these plans, through yearly increase in allocated funds, predicated upon:The achievement of the 15 percent allocation to health sector target outlined in the AU strategy, through an increase in the attribution of national domestic resources to the health sector in incremental stages;Per capita estimates of national financing gap looking towards achieving the WHO recommended $40 per capita level; andFull disclosure to and the inclusion of Parliaments in discussions about external funding levels and implementation by donors and central wings of governments.iii.Accountability measures (or their strengthening) to ensure effective and efficient implementation of plans and strategies through:Agreed upon indicators to measure impact of plans and strategies;Results-based financing to encourageeffective use of funds;Community based investigations to determine level of performance of public health institutions;Community and stakeholder consultations on budgeting processes; andBudget assessments to determine partner alignment with Paris Declaration and the A’s Principles.iv.Advocacy and community mobilization:Advocate to executive arms to ensure the required political will to implement and sustain the required actions; andMobilise communities for health and social development.v.Legislation and policies:To support innovative measures of attaining additional funds outside of the presently available fiscal space;To protect maternal and child health as a human right;To integrate maternal, newborn and child considerations in labour, employment, and social development legislations; andTo address existing inequalities in access to health services, for instance by making access to primary health services free at the point of use for the poorest.3.The work of the Committees should be guided by principles of:vi.Increased efficiency in planning and utilization of existing funds, more health for the money through:The use of innovation in leadership, financing, and service delivery;More efficient funding channels and coordination;Risk pooling measures to protect population from catastrophic expenses incurred during illnesses, social protection measures such as health insurance; andZero tolerance for corruption.vii.Increased domestic resources -more money for health through:Improvement of traditional revenue collection; andCreation of more fiscal space using innovative measures such as untraditional levies and tariffs, equitable taxation of resources, and public-private partnerships.viii.Taking the views of affected communities into consideration - as a function of the representation role of Parliaments.ix.More effective partnerships with other stakeholders (including communities, development partners and civil society) at the national, regional and global levels to ensure improved outcomes;4.National level implementation should be led by Parliamentarians and Legislators from the Upper and Lower Houses, and also legislators from provinces, regions and states, and where they exist, legislators/councilors from local government level;5.Parliaments will encourage development partners to coordinate their efforts and provide capacity building to national and regional Members of Parliament for the implementation of activities in the identified key areas;6.Pan African Parliament should provide a platform for the exchange of best practices between African Parliaments and between African Parliaments and those from donor countries on the implementation of the Paris Declaration and the three A’s;7.Chairs of national and REC Finance and Budget Committees commit to an annual consultative process and meeting with the Pan African Parliament and other relevant stakeholders through which they will review and report on progress on implementation and improve strategies for subsequent action. The Chairs of national Finance and Budget will report through the Pan African Parliament to the African Union Assembly; and8.The organizers, that is, the Pan-African Parliament and partners, will ensure follow up and implementation of activities listed in this document.Mr. President, I thank you for this long presentation but it was important. (Applause) Thank you for your attention and I wish you success in all your deliberations.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, Honorable Njingum Musa Mbutoh, pour cette présentation.Après la présentation de son Excellence, Madame le Commissaire et après le rapport de la mise en œuvre de la décision du Sommet de l’Union africaine présenté par l’honorable Njingum Musa, j’invite, à présent, l’honorable Nguini Effa MarieRose, présidente de la Commission permanente de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales, à faire sa présentation. Elle est la présidente de la Commission hôte de nos échanges, de cet aprèsmidi.Honorable Nguini Effa Marie-Rose, vous avez la parole.HON. NGUINI EFFA MARIE-ROSE [CAMEROUN]:Je vous remercie, très honorable Président. Les choses parlent d’elles-mêmes.Au nom de la Commission de la Santé et des Affaires sociales, je remercie de tout cœur Madame Biance GAWANAS, Commissaire de l’Union africaine aux Affaires sociales, d’être là, aujourd’hui, pour nous parler de la santé maternelle et néonatale, et hier des OMD.Vous me permettrez, chers collègues, de saluer l’action exemplaire de l’Union africaine en ce qui concerne le lancement de la CARMA et le choix du thème du dernier sommet de l’Union africaine.Mon respect à la Commission de l’Union africaine pour sa lutte contre l’exclusion, la pauvreté, la vulnérabilité, et ma reconnaissance pour notre fructueuse coopération!Honorable Président,Chers collègues,Nous devons nous atteler tous à proposer à nos populations des scénarios du possible d’une Afrique sociale sans mortalité maternelle et infantile. Cette Afrique sociale saine, cette Afrique productive, équitable, protégée des pandémies et des épidémies, nous devons y croire, car, dans cette salle, c’est la puissance d’une Afrique qui monte; l’Afrique des femmes au travail qui portent sur leur dos l’avenir du développement du continent. Le PAP ne manque pas de vision. Notre Commission, associée à la Commission Genre, et avec l’aide de l’IPPF et de l’OXFAM, a travaillé sur les dix engagements du député sur la santé sexuelle et reproductive.La santé maternelle, néonatale et infantile est un problème transversal. Toutes les Commissions du Parlement panafricain sont concernées. La femme enceinte, avec son enfant sur le dos, est-ce la Commission Genre? Le secteur informel, la Commission du Commerce? La prise en compte de l’aspect Genre dans le budget, est-ce la Commission des Finances? Et, j’en passe. Toutes les Commissions sont concernées.Chers Collègues,Vous constaterez, avec moi, que chacun de nous doit jouer sa partition, afin d’éradiquer complètement la mortalité mère et enfant dans notre continent. S’il faut légiférer, c’est notre prérogative de parlementaires, car l’initiative des lois appartient à l’Exécutif et aux parlementaires. S’il faut voter des règlements et la loi des finances, contrôler l’exécution du budget, voire la part allouée au Genre dans le budget, la part consacrée à la santé dans le budget, je ne parlerai pas des 15% d’un budget qui sont, pour moi, une base, mais des 15% effectifs alloués aux soins et aux médicaments, et non aux missions, c’est aussi de notre ressort.Chers Collègues, je ne vais pas être longue.Nous avons les instruments pour éradiquer la mortalité maternelle et infantile, la transmission de mère à enfant, et pour contrôler effectivement l’action de l’Exécutif.Très honorable Président,Chers Collègues,La santé maternelle, néonatale et infantile est un problème de société. Seule une volonté politique forte de nos gouvernements peut venir à bout de tous ces maux, car le constat est clair. Lorsque les politiques baissent les bras, la mortalité maternelle et infantile prend de l’ampleur.Pour conclure, je voudrais vous demander, chers collègues, à la veille du vote des budgets de nos parlements, de prendre l’engagement ici-même, aujourd’hui et maintenant, de ne plus laisser une seule femme africaine mourir en donnant la vie, et de tout faire pour préserver cette nouvelle vie qui est l’avenir de nos Etats.Monsieur le Président,Chers Collègues,La mortalité maternelle et infantile se soigne aussi par la politique, et cela doit être notre leitmotiv.Je vous remercie.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, Honorable présidente MarieRose NGUINI EFFA.Honorables membres,Les débats sont actuellement ouverts sur la santé maternelle, néonatale et infantile. J’ai devant moi une première liste de vingt (20) orateurs.Je propose qu’on accorde trois minutes à chaque intervenant. La première de ma liste est l’Honorable Veronica MACAMO, qui est bien membre du Parlement panafricain et présidente du Parlement de la République du Mozambique. Vous avez la parole, Présidente.DEPUTADA VERÓNICA NATANIEL MACAMO DLOVO [MOÇAMBIQUE]:Muito obrigada, Senhor Presidente. Gostaria, em primeiro lugar, de saudar Sua Excelência a Comissária da Uniâo Africana pela belíssima intervençâo que fez. Belíssima, didáctica e bastante objectiva. Muito obrigada, Excelência, pelos ensinamentos.Também saúdo o Relatório que foi apresentado pelo Presidente da nossa Comissâo dos Assuntos Financeiros e Monetários, saúdo, igualmente, a apresentaçâo feita pela nossa Colega e Presidente da Comissâo de Saúde, Trabalho e Assuntos Sociais.Excelências, na minha modéstia opiniâo, os governos devem adoptar um conjunto de políticas estruturantes nos seus programas reforçando, sobretudo, a componente de investimento em infra-estruturas, bem como apostar na capacitaçâo humana com o objectivo de mitigar as fragilidades dos sistemas nacionais de saúde, particularmente no que tange à saúde da mâe e da criança.A estratégia neste campo passa pela expansäo da rede nacional de saúde, capacitalo e formalo de novos profissionais e promozäo de campanhas de sensibilizado da populado.No àmbito da sensibilizado, em Mozambique, optamos por um movimento envolvendo todos, onde participam activamente líderes comunitários, religiosos, órgàos de comunicado social, parceiros de cooperado e organizares da sociedade civil de todo o país. Em simultàneo, Mozambique adoptou e desenvolveu novas estratégias que surtiram efeitos positivos, nomeadamente: as "casas de màe espera", para as mulheres grávidas, visando acomodar na véspera do parto as màes que vivem distantes dos centros de saúde; as parteiras tradicionais das zonas rurais, onde a cobertura da rede sanitária é ainda fraca, iniciativa que permitiu capacitar as mulheres assistentes de partos, garantindo a realizado de partos mais seguros.Igualmente, säo implementados programas de planeamento familiar, de vacinado da mulher grávida e da crianza, de prevenzäo da transmissäo vertical do HIV e SIDA, de tratamento intermitente e preventivo da malária em mulheres grávidas, de despiste da sífilis e de atendimento especial para lactantes e crianzas até aos 5 anos. Também, foram elaborados e implementados sistemas de controle de mortes materno e neonatais; o plano de despiste de tratamento de cancro de útero ou cancro de colo de útero; a caderneta da mulher sobre saúde materno-infantil.Como resultado dessas medidas e das aczöes de responsabilidade multi-sectorial - porque eu disse que nós envolvíamos todos - registámos uma melhoria na adesäo ao servizo de saúde por parte da mäe. Muitas mäes agora procuram os hospitais, há reduzäo da mortalidade materno-infantil, o aumento da cobertura das consultas pré-natais, podemos dizer que as mulheres no nosso país já tem capacidade de determinar, com o seu marido, o número de filhos que pretendem ter.Apesar desse cenário, distintos Colegas, ser encorajador, persistem ainda desafios cuja resposta carece de recursos materiais, humanos e financeiros e, sobretudo, da sensibilizazäo. Há necessidade de se continuar a expandir a rede sanitària até às regiöes mais recónditas; a formazäo e capacitazäo permanente dos profissionais de Saúde, dos activistas, sobretudo no campo; dos agentes da medicina tradicional; dos líderes comunitários em matéria de saúde básica, alicerzada numa eficiente comunicazao entre os diferentes intervenientes do processo.ExcelenciasNós, mandatários do povo, cabe-nos um papel relevante na aprovazao de leis, mas a aprovazao de leis nao é por si só suficiente, por isso, cabenos também garantir ou desenvolver aczoes de divulgazao, advocacia, fiscalizazao de medidas tomadas - como estava a dizer a nossa Comissária - sobre a matèria, por forma a assegurar que no nosso continente, nenhuma mae morra por gerar uma vida e que nenhuma crianza perca a oportunidade de ser feliz. Temos que fazer da maternidade um momento de alegria e nao de incerteza derivada de perigos à espreita, como tem acontecido até agora.Vamos trabalhar juntos para salvar mulheres e crianzas!Senhor Presidente, muito obrigada pela concessao da palavra.HON. SUAD EL FATEH AL-BADAWI [SUDAN]:الرحيم الرحمن هللا ب Thank you very much sir. I hope to be quick because I have got a lot to say. But before that, I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity and want to thank both ladies for their speeches.And I want to start by saying that poverty is the number one enemy of humanity. You can live without education and you can live without democracy but you cannot live without food, if you are hungry you will die. The question is, is it the scarcity of food that is causing poverty or is it something else? I think it is something else; it is not only the scarcity that is causing poverty.So if we know that only one percent of the cultivable land in the globe is only exploited in rainfall and if we know that USAID lay down terms of which to maintain prices balance and that every half an hour four millions of good food is being thrown in the garbage in the USA. Why is this? Why is it so? What is stopping us from cultivating the land? We have the land, we have the people, we have water, but we don’t have the will. Our farmers are sleeping and their farmers are working.We can make Africa the food basket of the whole world but we are not doing this. We just meet, discuss, report and our leaders meet and spend millions and their BM’s, travelling, answer speeches and then the space for more spending and establishment of air-conditioned offices, cars, houses, swimming pools etc..I think government expenditure in Africa is enough to finance all the projects of poverty eradication.Mr. President Sir, to be more practical myself, I want to share with you and my colleagues two projects, one of them I have just presented towards a Google, it is the midwifery kits. But the other one is the new one; I call it in Sudan, food for all. It is a very simple project and I have no time to go into the details but I want to say the ultimate goal of this project. It aims at making the house, a factory of food production. We tried this and it worked. What we did is that we went to (interruption with a bell). Can I finish this please?THE PRESIDENT:قة ن , half a minute.HON. SUAD EL FATEH AL-BADAWI [SUDAN]:We give the women a free newly hatched chicken, seeds to grow vegetables and we give them fruit trees and we also give them a goat as a source of milk and milk production which we teach them how to process it and sell it. All this is not a gift but we give it as a loan to be returned, to be recycled again and to have another part of families to work on these. This is very simply the gist of this project and I hope it works in the Sudan. Every house which has got this project, profit has received from it and I hope that our learning speakers here will try to read this project and respond to it. And let us just share ideas with each other and I think at the end of the day by patience and will, poverty Insha’Allah is going to be lifted from the poor people of Africa and NGO’s and the civil societies who have just vacuity, they are not doing their work. They go to Europe and they go to the parades of fashions and they drink and they eat and they enjoy themselves and they have names for NGO’s but the real work with the grassroots, with the poor people, with the harassed, with the oppressed, they have nothing to do with this. Now I want new... (Interruption by the bell).HON. DERY AMBROSE [GHANA]:Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, let me thank Her Excellency, Gawanas. She always impresses me and my colleagues who have given statements here.But let me reiterate the position I stated yesterday that the key to the MDGs is MDG 3. I say here again that the empowerment of women is the No.1 key and No.2 it should be community based and I will demonstrate to you.The Chairman of our Committee has given a report of impressive meetings. The question is how many women were at those meetings? All those slogans coming down. When we go to our countries, take the Ministry of Health, take the Ministry of Education and let me demonstrate to you that whatever you do, if a woman is not empowered you do not get it.In Ghana, basic school is free, school feeding too, but if you go in rural area you will realize that half way of the girls they do not go through. So we went to a community to study. What did we find out? We realized that the girls are considered as productive agents of the families and when they go to school today, the next day the mother says, stay, do something so that the house, we had to get a program by which we get food to the various families from which the girls came and the girls stayed in school. So, the mindset. Why is it that the boy child, when he is not an adult, is not supposed to take care of the house but it is the girl child?Let me go to health. In Ghana, we have free services; antenatal and delivery services are free. Some pregnant ladies would not go. Why? They need the permission of their husbands to go. If they were empowered, that would not happen.You have got maternal, infant and child health. Why haven’t you go to paternal? I will tell you why. Traditionally we are more taken care of than the women. Go to a typical home, and I am afraid that is our homes and meets them at meal times and sees where all the meat goes (Laughter) whether it goes to the father or to the woman and children? When a woman is pregnant, she needs to eat well. By the time she is going to deliver she is already dead when she is arriving there.Mr. President, I mean serious business. We are the people to check the governments if it does not do well. Earlier today when we were discussing about women, what was the attitude of Members in this House? We, we, (Laughter) we were saying the women had were their own problems. We have missed the point. Mr. President, I tell you, we have missed the point, if we do not take that basic step we are not going to go anywhere. We will go and the meetings will come and we will go and come back with nothing.I was a Minister of a Region and I told you how I reduced infant mortality in two years from 208 to 113 centered on women. Why? Two thousand five hundred bicycles were given to by traditional birth attendants, all of them women. They were trained. They entered the community and the figures went down. But if you give it to the health services, they buy more cars for the Directors of Health at the Regional Level, at the District Level and the workshops; the women who matter will not go there. So, I am saying that we need to change our mindset, make the women central, when they are okay, the rest of us will be okay. Otherwise, I am telling you all that we are doing is useless. (Applause)And finally, we the Members of Parliament let us ask ourselves: we do very well taking care of Executive but how many of us have got a strong communication with our Constituents? Let me ask you that. How many of us have community entry techniques? You go home in a suit, you call a meeting with the CHIPS and you do not get any results because the women who come there are already intimidated by your suit and your shining gold; they are alienated. I am telling you, the basic issues that have to be concentrating on the empowering of women, make the CHIPS (Community Health Facilities) so we should deal with CHIPS compounds and you will find that if you put a CHIPS compound in your community you have low level health personnel, who visits the farmer.. (Member timed out)HON. KALYAN VINITA SANTOSH [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Mr. President. I wish to take the point made by the Commissioner a little further. Every three minutes, a woman dies giving birth. That is twenty women every hour, 480 women every day. In the ten days that we have set here, 4 800 women will have died.Now maternal mortality is a human rights issue. It is a violation of women’s rights to life, health and equality when she is unable to access quality health care and dies while giving birth. It is further complicated by the infection with HIV and AIDS. If she is diagnosed early, she can be treated appropriately and the baby can also have the risk production programme in place. It is at the government’s responsibility to ensure that a woman’s right to health is met. We heard earlier on by Professor Badawi that the midwifery kit that she is advocating and we had a point by another Honourable Member about Frontina Hlophe who said old wisdom is what it is all about. I think we have to go back to basics. Go back to basics and practice the midwifery in the community. I think that is what my colleagues are also saying. Given that there is such a critical shortage of health care workers, this is a starting point.We heard the Chairman of the Finance Committee saying that it is time to stop talking and I also feel that way that we are talking a little bit too much. What should we as Parliamentarians be doing to help achieve reduce maternal mortality by twothirds by 2015?There are three critical things that we as Parliamentarians can do. The first one is request briefings from every relevant department on all issues relating to maternal health services. Conduct oversight visits of health care facilities with a special focus on maternity issues and thirdly, I think this is the same thing that has been spoken about or published, but not practiced. Nearly five billion cell phones in the world are in use at the moment. By 2012, nearly half the people in rural areas will have use of cell phones. Now, as Parliamentarians, you can advocate the use of cell phones to achieve better health. Ghana is doing it, Rwanda is doing it, and India is doing it. What happens is the midwife in the community communicates by cell phone to the specialists if there are complications in the process.In India, what is happening is that they send a text on your cell phone to tell you this is what available. In Rwanda, if you need an ambulance, if you need emergency services, this is how you can communicate. We can’t do without cell phones in our lives, why can’t we use it to improve the health of people who are at risk. In conclusion, I fully associate myself with the resolution, thank you.HON. LABELLE MARIE NOËLLE FRANÇOISE [MAURITIUS]:Thank you Mr. President.I would like to thank and congratulate Excellency Madame Gawanas for the most and reach presentation on this important issue. I also wish to commend AU for having made maternal, infant and child health its theme for July last AU Summit. This translates the concern of policy decision makers for this important subject and the situation which prevails in our Continent.Mr. President, during the past days we have been provided with a lot of information and I can’t refrain myself from reminding the House of two facts; every minute eighty children die from easily preventable and treatable condition. Secondly, more than 90% of the yearly 430 HIV/AIDS infection in children occur in Africa and 40% of the infections occur through breast feeding.Mr. President if certain realities differ from one country to another, we do face some common challenges. We have the shortage of qualified personnel, a skilled professional, lack of the basic infrastructure needed for a healthy population in many African countries particularly in the rural regions such as safe drinking water, sanitation adequate shelter. Mr. President, in front of this situations what can we do as national and continental Parliamentarians?Last week Prof. Badaoui of Sudan and she just reminded us of this project implemented in her country the midwifery kits. I think this is an interesting project. It does not seem to cost a lot of money and why we as Parliamentarians think over that? There is the Honorable Member from Ghana who was just shared the same experience. So as Continental Parliamentarians, one thing we can do share experiences that have been implemented in different countries. Let’s learn from each other.Mr. President, when we talk about sharing experiences allow me to share very briefly the motion experience regarding family planning and we have just been told how inadequate family planning is one of the causes which affects maternal health.Mr. President, in the 50’s and early 60’s Mauritius experienced very high rate of population growth and eradication of malaria seems to be one of the causes. However, in the late 60’s early 70’s the total fertility rate dropped from 6.2 children per woman to 3.4 in the early 70’s. So, this is a clear example of how...(Member time out)Mr. President, I just wanted to finish on that it is an experience that we as a Continental Parliamentarians can look into that but we can also have closer look to budget as Parliamentarians, do we allocate the proper budget to implement all the decisions we are talking about.I thank you Mr. President. (Applause)THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much Honorable Françoise Labelle, Honorable Rosine Vieyra Soglo.HON. VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président. Je voudrais d’abord remercier les trois orateurs qui ont pris la parole, cet après-midi.La première, c’est la Commissaire qui m’a beaucoup intéressée, parce qu’elle était très imprégnée de son sujet et qu’elle connaissait à fond son dossier. J’ai été impressionnée, dis-je, parce qu’elle nous a donné un exemple très simple. Lorsque nous entendons dire qu’il y a un avion qui s’est écrasé, et qu’il n’y a eu aucun survivant sur les 200 ou 300 passagers qui étaient à bord, alors que c’est une chose qui arrive tous les jours, cela nous laisse dans l’indifférence générale et totale. C’est le cas de nos sœurs et de nos mères qui meurent en donnant la vie, et que nous acceptons comme une fatalité, parce que nous avons pris l’habitude de voir cela. Alors, comment faire pour éradiquer ce mal?Le second orateur nous a indiqué la façon de pouvoir éradiquer ce mal, c’est-à-dire les finances, le nerf de la guerre. Sans argent, nous ne pouvons aller nulle part, et cela, ce sont nos dirigeants, les chefs d’Etats qui ont les moyens et qui peuvent avoir les moyens, pour éradiquer ce mal, et qui ne le font pas.Alors, comment nous, femmes et hommes parlementaires, pouvons-nous décider ces chefs d’Etats? Quel pouvoir avons-nous sur eux, pour qu’ils se décident? Mais, comme a dit l’orateur, on va, peut-être, créer une chaire en faculté, pour apprendre à dépenser correctement l’argent que nous avons. Car, il y a de petits pays qui ne sont pas plus riches que nous; je veux parler, par exemple, de la République cubaine. C’est un petit pays où il n’y a pas de femmes qui meurent en couches, il n’y a pas d’enfants qui meurent, il n’y a pas de SIDA, et toute la population est, non seulement en bonne santé, mais elle est aussi éduquée. Alors, est-ce que nous ne pouvons pas prendre cet exemple-là?Enfin, il s’agit de la dernière oratrice, la présidente, notre sœur, qui a parlé de ce qu’on vit déjà. Elle vit dedans tous les jours. Alors comment pouvons-nous arrêter cela? Je vais, peut-être, vous choquer mais, c’est ce que j’appelle le génocide des femmes. Quand est-ce que nous allons arrêter ce génocide qui fait que la moitié de l’humanité disparaît tous les jours, sans que cela ne nous concerne? Cela nous laisse totalement indifférents.Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.HON. MATAMISA ERIMENZIAH EDITOR [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you again Mr. President. I have been looking closely at the presentation that has just been made. A closer look at the causes of maternal, new born and child mortality brings to the fore the inter-linkages amongst the MDGs. Mr. President, for instance dealing with MDGs entails that there is food security, poverty reduction, healthy kids with healthy minds who are capable of learning and being helpful. Mr. President, it also means ability to send children to school whether government funded or funded by the families.Gender equity will be a sure case and women empowerment will become the norm. The women and girl children can take charge of their lives and their future when they are healthy. This ensures that children born to educated parents are well cared for and healthy. On the other hand Mr. President, the expectant mother is healthy and the environment is conducive and user friendly to expectant mothers.I therefore call on all of us to consider reprioritization of MDGs so that nations refocus on where to invest for national interest, especially on maternal new born and child health. Mr. President, currently too much investment is being put on security issues, especially the army in most of the countries, to the detriment of the more pressing areas. Considering the Africa Health Strategy, one knows that various instruments are in place, but the children still die of malnutrition. There appears Mr. President to be lack of political will on the part of the governments to implement commitments within the instruments. Hear it for me Honourable Members, Africa is good at coming up with well crafted documents, but very poor at implementation.My final call is; women are human resource number one for Africa through creation of humanity, management of family, national cheap labour and first teacher for the children, culture upholders, and entertainers for our men. What is it that we do not have as women or that we cannot do? We cannot wait and watch while this great work goes to nothing. Action should be now because procrastination will take us nowhere. I conclude therefore, Mr. President by saying that I fully support the recommendations on health financing for maternal, new born and child health.I thank you.HON. MABILETSA ISAAC STEPHEN [BOTSWANA]:Thank you Mr. President. The three presenters are actually challenging us as MP’s to do something about maternal and child’s health.Mr. President, let me start by making a quotation from the Progress Report on the Millennium Development Goals in Botswana, this quotation is the preface were made to this report by Keen Sandi Luin, the UN Ambassador Coordinator in Botswana and she has this to say: "Botswana second MDG progress report is once again testimony to the commitment and drive of the country to strive for the achievement of all Millennium Development Goals. The report registers positive improvements in social indicators over the past five years. This includes decline on HIV prevalence among the 15 to 19 years old pregnant women and the 20 to 24 years old pregnant women from 24.7% to 13% and 38.7% to 24.3% in 2001 and 2009 respectively". End of quote.Mr. President, having made this quotation, let me also then go on to just highlight a few statistics about what we as MP’s do jointly with the government in Botswana. But I will only base my remark on Development Goal No.4 and No.5 and I will start with No. 4. The statistics between 1991 and 1994 indicate that the under five mortality rate fell from 63 to 50 per 1000 life birth in 1997. Over the same period the infant mortality rate fell from 48 in 1991 to 37 per 1000 live birth in 1996. Both the under five mortality rate and the infant mortality rate has been deteriorate respectively which is 76 per 1000 and 57 per 1000 in 2007. This reflects the effects of HIV/AIDS. The numbers on key programs suggest strong coverage as this study demonstrates. 90% of children are fully humanized by one year old, 94.1% pregnant women attempt antenatal clinics, 94.6% of all the deliverance take place under skill states have professionals. 89% of HIV/AIDS positive pregnant women receive ARVs or therapy in 2008. Only around 4% of children born of to HIV mothers tested HIV positive.Now on Millennium Goal No. 5 (Member time out). One more minute Mr. President. It says the proportion of mothers during or immediately after the death dropped from 326 deaths per 1000 in 2001 to 139 per 100,000 in 2006.Mr. President, all these efforts and achievements that I am elucidating are actually as a result of your vigorous campaign, spear headed led by the former President of the Republic, his Excellency Festus Mogae. Nowadays even though the indicators would show a higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS, people are living healthy lives because most of them almost 90% of them are under HIV therapy and they are healthy and contributing effectively to the growth of the country.I thank you. (Applause)HON. SESAY MOSES [SIERRA LEONE]:Thank you very much Mr. President, I would like to lend my support to this motion because I think it is very important. They are few issues we have to grapple with. The first and perhaps the most important one is the question of the political will. It is extremely important because whatever we may be saying here, in any country if you look around the success stories, it is the political will that has been the decisive factor. Throughout Africa, the leaders who are very assertive, who are interested in their people and they have got the will to move this health debate along are the ones that have succeeded.I will give you a simple example of our humble Sierra Leone for instance, despite all the problems we recently elected a president with foresight and very keen on this health issue. Just this year in April 27th, which is the anniversary of our independence, he made a declaration that all circling mothers, all children under the age of five and all pregnant women will have free medical services anywhere in the country. That pronouncement alone has brought a lot of smiles in the faces of many women throughout the country, and if you go to any hospital in any village in Sierra Leone, you find women in there and they are actually getting the benefit of this. It is too early to say whether it’s going to be successful in the long run, but so far the result is satisfactory. So this is the type of political will we are talking about.The next thing we have to talk about is the training of the personnel themselves, both the doctors and the nurses. If you look at a medical school, they are very few people who have the capability in terms of finances, of entering medical schools. The African medical schools have remained so expensive that they have become elitist business, and that is very sad. Medicine is not for elitist people, it is a down to earth profession and it should be made that way. If you look at the history of medicine, the people who are very successful are the people who are very humble. If you try to prize people out of entering medical schools, then you are depriving the country of brilliant people and this should be stopped.The other thing is that having trained people both nurses and doctors; how do we retain them? If we don’t, they slip away to better pastures; they go to Europe and other countries, the Middle East where they are paid much higher salaries and so on. So they leave the country and go away. And this is the thing; it is quite a loss for these countries. So we must entice them to stay.Then the third thing that I want to talk about is prevention. In Africa the question of preventive medicine is partly a luxury for many African countries. Therefore, our business should be prevention and in fact if we do active preventive medicine in terms of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, diarrheas, these are the killers. Those are all preventable conditions; they are very simply prevented by simple sanitation, good nutrition, simple basic education and so on. So we should concentrate on those and 80% of our problems would be solved, just by these preventive measures. Thank you Mr. President.HON. KINGSLEY NAMAKHWA [MALAWI]:Thank you Mr. President, allow me to salute all the presenters who have actually presented issues pertaining to our mothers and the new born babies. The information that has been presented to this House, it was very motivational and I regard it as the future of Africa.Mr. President, in Africa our mothers die during child birth, unfortunately, and yet in developed countries, mothers die of breast cancer. The figures presented that approximately 12,000 children die every day in Africa is not acceptable and it is time that we as Parliamentarians should take part in reducing if at all eliminating this number to zero. This is an African problem, which requires and African solution.Mr. President, I would have loved if the presenters had brought in a new dimension to say what the role of men in safe motherhood. I believe men can play a very important role in efforts to reduce maternal and neonate mortality rate. Unfortunately, men are left out of safe motherhood education.In Malawi, a newly constructed maternity wing called Ethel Mutharika Maternity Wing; it is actually trying to bring in this dimension of involving men to be present during the maternal education, as well as during delivery. This is a way of ensuring that men appreciate the hardships that our women go through. Our woman needs our support, they need our love and we as Parliamentarians we need to take a leading role in sensitizing the people that we represent.Mr. President, child birth should actually bring joy in our society and not sorrow. As MPs, we can ensure that the health facilities are within reach in our communities. I will give you an example, in my own Constituency, after encountering these problems, I actually initiated a construction of a Health Centre which was funded by well wishers and the traditional leaders were so supportive, I am happy to say that this health centre will be operational from 30th of October, 2010. (Applause) I am not drumming this issue for myself but I am just giving an example that we can also play a role as Parliamentarians in reducing the alarming figures that have been presented.The development partners, more specially the private sector have been of great assistance to me to ensuring that this Health Centre is actually equipped with modern equipments and I will be handing it to Government with everything. And they will just bring in their own staff and start running it. So, as MPs really, I am talking from experience, we can play our role in ensuring that these health facilities are accessible to the grassroots because the people who die unfortunately are the poor. They do not deserve to die.Mr. President, allow me to stop here, I support the resolution, thank you. (Applause)HON. LAHAI BERNADETTE [SIERRA LEONE]Thank you Mr. President, I want to add my voice to those who have debated before me in commending the presentation.I want to identify myself with all the sentiments which have been made concerning the issue of maternal and child and infant health. Let me start by saying that according to Ban Ki-moon, in his recent speech when addressing the Summit, he said that the figures that are being shown are not just mere figures, these are people who are dying and what is more, people should not die because we know what to do, we know where and who has to done, what is appropriate for these children and women not to die and even what is more is that the strategies can be very, very little in terms of costs, just like exclusive breast feeding, the mere provision of safe and clean drinking water, education on health and sanitation. These can go a long way in reducing the ills that we are talking about.Mr. President, Honorable Members, Sierra Leone in 2002, while the war was raging had the highest maternal and mortality death in the world, 1,800 women out of 100,000 lives just died, 1,700 infants out of 100,000 lives just died. We had a lowest attendance of specialized and trained Doctors at birth. Although over the years, a lot of resources have been put especially by building the health infrastructures which was totally damaged during the war, still grapple with the issue of maternal and child health. Sierra Leone, untrained Doctors, put together in the largest number in America and Europe than we have in Sierra Leone, their rumination is very poor, and therefore, these have been all the problems we have.As my colleagues, Senior Honorable from Sierra Leone has said, we have put a lot of innovative measures; we now have the free health care for mother, children and lactating women. We now even have emergency ambulances which are available in Health Centers and now are given telephones, mother phones where they can immediately call for ambulances services and for the fire services.We have in Parliament, the Parliamentary Action Group who is working with UNFPA, on child and mortality health; we now have a series of Coalition Groups in the country also monitoring health services. We are now reviewing the abortion laws, so that we ensure that we have safe abortion and we have also passed laws like Earlier Marriage, Devolution of Estates and Domestic Violent Act. All of this meant to reduce child and maternal mortality.Mr. President, Honorable Members, in July 2010, some of us were in Uganda where the Summit of the Heads of State were going on and about 20 countries African Women Leaders were brought together by the AWDF, the Billgate and Melinda Foundation, the PAKATI Foundation to bring these women together from all works of life to serve as ambassadors in promoting reproductive health and my elder sister from Cameroon was there, it was a very, very important meeting and these women are to serve as advocates to bring the voices of women louder and clear. I hope that in the near future may be with a permission of this House, we, that is my sister and myself who attended that meeting will like move a motion so that we will explicate this important network in this Parliament because I think we are best to lead the discussion and the advocacy on child and mortality other than the African Parliament that should speak with one voice, our own continental Parliament.Mr. President, Honorable Members, when the World Bank President was asked, if you were to invest all the money at the World Bank, where would you invest? He did not hesitate; he said I will invest in the education of the girl child because once you educate women and girls all the others will follow in place. Therefore, whatever we do, either now or in the long time, we should prioritize education of women because when you educate a women, all other things will come down, maternal mortality will come down, child death will come down, access to food will increase because even a few years of education of a rural woman will greatly improve the production from her farms. A few years of education of a woman, will greatly increase her markets access. We are yet to access markets internationally and where we put all of this together Mr. President, the world will be a better place but let us all resolve that never again women should not die while giving birth. It is not right and it is just and never again should children die before they reach the age of five. They deserve better than what we are giving them. It is all our responsibilities, both in Parliament, the legislature and the judiciary, national and international organizations to make sure that we will give everything it takes for us to address this ills. And no money, no time, no energy for us... (Member out of time)HON. KASINGO L. LOIDE [NAMIBIA]:Thank you Vice President for giving me the floor. First of all I would like to thank all the presenters who presented the papers on maternal, infant and child health. And I would like to recognize my sister there, an Advocator, Her Excellency Bience Gawanas for taking really the time and ensure that she come to address us at PAP. But doing that my sister, it is indicating that you are not only an Advocate, but you are also a grass root person. Being a woman, I feel relieved because I am sure, fellow women here will agree with me that we have now a partner at the headquarters of AU. Thank you so much. I hope you are going to sensitize the other Commissioners to come and address the PAP.My comment is general, that I should think PAP we should move from debating issues to being action oriented. The issues we have been debating from the time when we had Women Caucus, yesterday and today are almost the same. I would like to suggest that instead of, for example, I am standing here, I am given 5 minutes and I am expected to elaborate not only continentally, but also the progress being made by my own government, it is not fair. Henceforth, I would like to propose perhaps in the future, we must break our reports on a certain critical issues. For example, Southern Caucus Women, they come and report on the progress and challenges facing women in that caucus. The same applies to the other caucuses as well. By doing that, we will be able to know the challenges the North caucus is facing. There will be examples to learn from them.I just want to say that I was late, but I want also to say that during the women caucus, the Professor from Sudan, Professor Badawi, presented and explained to us the midwifery kit, which can be used by the rural women across the board. I would like to appeal to my sister Advocate Bience, to research on that so that you ensure that the whole of the continent can make use of this. It is a shame for all of us to think and to talk about death at child birth because midwifery has been there before the coming of the so-called western methodology.The problem with us is that we forget our traditional and cultural ways of doing things and we just follow what the western have brought to us. Of course, I am not going to say we throw them away. I am saying, we are politicians and everybody who is here has got a constituency. Maybe among others, we must also train the locals, whether young or elderly, so that they will also be able to help in the delivery of the child at birth.In addition or lastly, Namibia is doing well. The Ministry of Health and Social Services has ensured that ARV is provided across the board, to all. We have also legal mechanism which is backing our very good constitution, which is gender related laws. I am not going to elaborate them here, they are many. When it comes to ratifying the international instruments and continental instruments, I should think Namibia is one of those. The problem is just implementation. Henceforth, and maybe the next time we are going to debate, we should debate what we did in terms of implementation of such laws, conventions etc.I have to thank you.HON. MASEBO TEMBO SYLVIA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you very much, Mr. President. I just want to join others in commending the three presenters and in particular, I want to congratulate my sister, Madam Biance, on her show of commitment and passion in these matters of social justice and human development.Mr. President, let me just say that Zambia has moved some mile in MDGs 4 and 5. Whilst we were at 729 deaths per 100,000 live births, we came down to 529 by 2007. On MDG 4, we were at 168 deaths per 1000 live births and we improved to 119 by 2007. I was talking about maternal mortality ratio, which was at 729 deaths per 100,000 live births and skilled attendant was at 43. There has been some improvement to 591 per 100,000 live births, and skilled attendants also increased by 4 percent to 47 percent.Let me just share with Members here, Sir, on some of the actions that Zambia has taken to achieve this progress. We have increased the use of modern methods of contraceptives, that is from 9 percent in 1992 to 33 percent in 2007; skilled attendants at delivery; we have introduced direct midwifery intake; we have reopened closed nursing schools; we have provided direct funding for training institutions, we have authorized midwives to administer a corset of interventions; we have costed roadmaps for maternal child and newborn to guide implementation of all interventions; our President launched CAMIS recently and Madam Commissioner for Social Affairs was present and I was privileged that she visited my constituency, Chongwe, in Zambia.On clinical care for sick children, we have adaptation of integrated management of childhood illness to include newborn care from zero to one week; new Diarrhea and Malaria treatment guidelines; community case management for Malaria in selected districts and now to include Pneumonia and Diarrhea.On infant and young child feeding, we have policies, which include; infant and young child feeding, operational strategy that is, EBF, which now stands at 61 percent, international code of marketing basic need substitutes was launched and a promotion of exclusive breast feeding up to six months.We have sustained routine EP1, and we have what we call the child health- (Member timed out.)THE PRESIDENT:Half a minute.HON. MASEBO TEMBO SYLVIA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you. We also have child health week, which takes into account various actions on children. All these have helped us attain what we have achieved.To conclude, I just want to say that there is need for the involvement of all stakeholders in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and issues of governance when it comes to the effective use of resources in the health sector. Thank you.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Mr. President, let me start by thanking you for giving me the floor. Allow me also to thank Her Excellency Madame Gawanas and two other colleagues Chairpersons of the Pan African Parliament Committees for their elaborate and comprehensive reports. The estimated figure of 12,000 children dying every day in Africa and the figure of 1 in 16 chances of women dying in pregnancy or child birth are both shocking and very alarming. The question is who is to apportion the blame for these deaths? Many will say it is the Executive arm of government, and as I have seen some few years back, in my own country, Botswana, there was an outbreak of diarrhea where a number of children died as a result of this outbreak and many were apportioning the blame on the Ministry of Health, saying that the Ministry should actually apportion the blame. I personally I do not want to point a finger at anyone because they say if you point a finger at someone or anyone, know that the other finger is pointing at you.Mr. President, I think all persons who hold any position of leadership in the running of governments in Africa are to be blamed for all these deaths. We are all to be blamed because ask yourself, what did I do to stop all these deaths when they happened? What action did you take to assist to stop all those deaths when they happened?Mr. President, I wish to tell this House that we in the leadership, history is going to judge us very harshly because in one way or the other, directly or indirectly, we have contributed to these statistics that have been put before this House. Some of these deaths are a result of poor or inadequate health facilities, lack of trained health personnel. We Members of Parliament are responsible for budget allocations then are we doing enough in that aspect? Do we analyze budget allocations properly? Are we given enough time to review the budgets and its supporting documents by the Executive? [A bell rung] - 30 seconds Mr. President.THE PRESIDENT:Yes, half a minute.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Do you know the population ratio vis-a-vis the health facilities that are in our Constituencies? Talking about legislation and policies pertaining to health, do we as MPs perform our oversight role well to ensure that what the Executive arm of government has promised the masses has been delivered? Do you constantly visit your health facilities to check their status? There is nothing so hurting Mr. President as to go to a hospital and find people lying on the floor, flies flying all over the hospital, that is really bad, it is very, very bad. We are all to blame Mr. President for all these things. Unless we do something like I said history is going to judge us very harshly. So, it is time that we as MPs should start the ball rolling. Let’s do something. Let us assist all these people who are being hit by these phenomenons.I thank you very much Mr. President. (Applause)HON. NAWASES EVELYN [NAMIBIA]:Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to make my few remarks.First of all, let me take this opportunity to thank our dynamic, very iconic, African lady in the name of Her Excellency Comrade Biance Gawanas for presenting such a brilliant presentation. This is just one of her landmarks that she have made and I am happy too once again with such occasion to see that you are still keeping the shape of Africa higher, keep it up.Mr. President, Her Excellency has presented a well enriching presentation that sends a very clear signal that the health of our women is very essential to all human kind. Without a health woman, we cannot have any nation in existence. Therefore, primary health care should be considered to be given free of charge to enable all the people of Africa to live health lives. Neonatal care and the care of the pregnant women will certainly ensure that no child will die after birth and no woman will die while giving birth. This is exactly agreed in pertinent to the development of Africa.Mr. President, the support of missionary institutions, development partners and civil societies are key in developing a National Health Strategy, to enable effective and efficient care for the mothers and the children of Africa. We need to ensure when legislations are passed that maternal health care is addressed and that adequate funds are available to face the challenges of maternal health care.Let me on this note urge all of us to promote public private funding in our own respective countries to enable us to become self sustainable and that we do not need to always depend from outside aid. Because we do not have control over these funds, and if we are caught in such a corner that we will not be able to fund our own programmes, we will be in trouble as Africans.On that note, I will associate myself once again with the two presentations by Chairpersons of the Committees on Health, Finance, Gender, Youth and People living with disability.I thank you Mr. President. (Applause)HON. CHIEF CHARUMIRA FORTUNE [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you. May I also thank Mrs. GAWANAZ for doing us proud by being here with us representing the AU, considering that it has been difficult to draw them to Midrand. More so, she has been with us for three days now, and sure you’re worthy of our support from Pan-African Parliament. I think we need to praise her openly as they say when you praise, praise loudly and when you criticize of course lowly, so I want to praise loudly because she has done a good thing. (Appraisal)Coming to the substantive issues on the table, the figures given, show that the situation is pathetic. What I would have wanted also is to disaggregate them into rural and urban. That way, we will be able to tell the number of people who are dying in rural and urban areas, respectively. I don’t need to be told; I know that not less than 75 percent of these are in rural areas where the politics of everybody takes place. It then brings into question the issue of political will. These are the areas that people campaign and get their votes from, but when they win, the policies do not support those same areas. This is a big issue. We have heard that there is the issue of ALMA ATA; ALMA ATA ,30 years ago the World Health Organization decided to emphasize the issue of primary health care, and I think this is the critical point. If we are going to decrease the numbers in maternal mortality, child mortality and all that, we have to strengthen primary health care. The support that is currently given to traditional mid-wives - in Zimbabwe we call them traditional mid wives, in other countries traditional birth attendants - traditional mid wives, that is where we should put more efforts and more money. Those women need to be supported, but unfortunately all this moneys we are talking about and even those in the gummers, the lobbying, are a elitist. It doesn’t get to the women at this level, which is why you find even the home based care, those women that are assisting at the village level, in most countries there is no compensation for them, they don’t get any money. This includes pre-school educators, pre-school teachers; there is nobody supporting them directly. So, I am saying, if we are going to win this war of reducing maternity and child death, we have to focus at the local level and the village. The women at that level need to be capacitated; otherwise we will continue making these statements about pathetic figures without much success.The other issue is of free medical care Mr. president, a number of countries are telling us that there is free medical care for women and antenatal services and all that, but one of the key issues for a woman who is pregnant is the issue of the scan. So these free services are for blood pressure, and may be some panadol, but the real issues that will make you know that there will be a complication; the women are made to pay. I think we should make these services free and everything that relates to maternity should be free because a woman is providing a service not only to herself, it is not self inflicted, it’s for society and we have to make all the services free.I also want to speak on the issue of abortion, there is nothing like safe and unsafe abortion. Abortion Mr. President is abominable, is not good, is harmful, dehumanising and degrading, they don’t even want to praise it. It is bad, and we don’t want to hear about abortion. We can debate about it, but this is an area that I beg to differ with all of you and I will certainly differ with all of you.THE PRESIDENT:Conclude.HON. CHIEF CHARUMIRA FORTUNE [ZIMBABWE]:Then let me conclude; one area that we are living out Mr. President about these problems of sorry one important area, which has never been mentioned here, which as a chief I see every day is girls who fall pregnant. There is what we call paternity disputes. A girl falls pregnant, the person responsible disowns the pregnancy, and the girl moves into the boy’s home; then the parents say we don’t want to see you here, go back! In the end, this girl has no fixed aboard, has no time to go to the clinic and they give birth without any antenatal care. I think we need also to address those areas, thank you.HON. SHAMAKOKERA THARCISSE [RWANDA]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président, de me donner cette opportunité afin de parler d’un point de vue qui n’a peut-être pas été suffisamment abordé dans les différentes présentations.La plupart des problèmes qui ont été évoqués, excusez-moi de le dire ainsi, sont la conséquence de naissances venues en dehors de toute planification familiale.Monsieur le Président,Je viens d’un pays, le Rwanda, dont la surpopulation est l’un des problèmes majeurs qui handicapent son développement. Dans certains districts, la densité de la population arrive à plus de 500 habitants au km2. C’est pourquoi, chez nous, la planification familiale est toujours tenue en considération quand on parle de la santé maternelle et infantile.Nous parlementaires, même ceux venant des pays, aujourd’hui, peu peuplés mais, qui, demain, seront peut-être comme le mien, si l’on n’y prend garde, nous devrions encourager nos gouvernements à mettre en place des programmes d’éducation de nos concitoyens, pour qu’ils apprennent les voies et moyens de mettre au monde des enfants pour lesquels ils ont planifié. D’où viendra la nourriture de tant d’enfants que nous mettons au monde?Nous devons penser à leur éducation et à leur santé, en un mot à leur avenir. Il ne faut pas y réfléchir après les avoir mis au monde mais, c’est bien avant que nous devons y penser. Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.LE PRÉSIDENT:J’invite Son Excellence Madame Biance GAWANAS à répondre et surtout à apprécier les différentes contributions des honorables membres.Excellence, vous avez la parole!S.E. BIANCE GAWANAS [AUC]:Mr. President, hon. Members, I will be very brief. I think we are in agreement with much that has been said. I wish to state that achieving the Millennium Development Goals is five years from now. We do not have a lot of time. We have five years to show that Africa cares.What therefore is very critical is firstly, the need for cooperation and harmonization, and I am saying this because I do not think hon. Members that you disagree with the actions that have been adopted by our Heads of State. I also do not believe that you disagree with the many instruments that I have highlighted that were adopted by our organization, the African Union. I would therefore plead that rather than each and every organ in the African Union starting to adopt more or less actions that are the same, I should ask the Pan-African Parliament, to adopt and endorse and support the eight action points as adopted by the Heads of State.In the action points adopted by the Heads of State, there are two things I did not mention earlier in my presentation. The Heads of State have agreed that: a) maternal and child health will be on the agenda of the Assembly every year; b) the Commission of the African Union must establish a taskforce consisting of various stakeholders in order to monitor and to report on the outcomes of the Assembly.I would therefore suggest that the taskforce should also include especially the sub-committees of the Pan-African Parliament. What that would definitely mean, and I want to commit myself to report or brief the Pan-African Parliament on an annual basis and at the same time to also use the same report to present to the Heads of State. (Applause) I think it is important that we all pull in the same direction and to use whatever energies and resources to really complement rather than duplicate our efforts.I think what some of the Members have said, what is the oversight role of the Pan-African Parliament? I like the idea of regular briefings. I like the idea of constituency level interventions. One Member of Parliament gave an example, and I really want to applaud the hon. Member, that he facilitated at the district level in his constituency, the establishment of a health centre. Imagine if each Member of Parliament should do that in their respective countries. That is action. That is something that you then deliver at the Primary Health Care level, at the lowest level within our countries for the women and children of Africa. (Applause)Maternal and child health is indeed, hon. Members, a human rights issue. I know many of us shy away from recognizing health as a human right because by recognizing that health is a human right, we have to give resources in order to make that human right a reality. Let us not shy away. The minister of health has recognized it, WHO has recognized it and the world is recognizing health as a human right.We are in the process of encouraging our member states to do maternal death audits and the maternal death audits are very critical for us to know exactly what are the causes of death; how many women have died and as a result we may also be able to provide the segregated data between rural and urban areas as was requested.I also want to say that the idea of cell phones has proven to be an innovative intervention mechanism. It has been used within countries. Again many of us have interactions with MTN and Vodacom and all the cell phone companies. We have talked about private public partnership. Private public partnership is not just about the dollars and cents in terms of money. Private public partners could be that you as hon. Members can convince the cell phone companies to make cell phones available to the midwives as we heard, to make cell phones available - in fact in some countries they have not just made cell phones available. In a village for example, somebody was identified who then has got the cell phone, but the cell phone companies also pledge, for maybe the next five years, to also provide the air time. So it is not just the physical handset, but it is also providing the air time and that person then becomes the contact as was said earlier.These are practical interventions and these are not only going to save the lives of our women and children, but also will promote the private public partnerships.Free access to pregnant women and under fives: hon. I was in Sierra Leone. I was present at the launch of CARMMA in Sierra Leone. I come from Namibia and I have always said, "Sometimes when you come from certain countries, you take a lot of things for granted." I had to travel across Africa to know how privileged some of us were.When I addressed the Heads of State during the Kampala Summit, I said to them that I was not speaking to them merely as a Commissioner for Social Affairs, but that I was speaking to them as a mother who gave birth three times and was maybe privileged because I had an education. I was privileged because I was in a position that I could afford. How many of my sisters and my mothers and my aunts on this continent are dying because they do not have that privilege?I also spoke to them as a grandmother. Having a daughter that did everything by the book - antenatal, everything - and unfortunately she still had to have a cesarean section. If she did not have the privilege of being in the city; if she did not have the privilege of having gone for a cesarean section, I would have lost my daughter and I would have lost my grandson.So when we are talking about this, let us talk about it as mothers, as fathers, as grandparents, as uncles and aunts. Let us not talk about the women and children of Africa as if they are abstract and are far removed. I am sure in this august house today, hon. Members; there are those of you who may have experienced the death of a mother while giving birth. I did not realize that until I asked that question in a meeting and many people in fact said, "Yes, I lost my aunt; I lost my sister; I lost my child." So, all that I am really saying before I sitting down, Mr. President and hon. Members of Parliament is, you have the power. You have the power to say that it is a shame for Africa as a rich continent; it is a shame that today birth does not lead to joy; it leads to sadness. Why should a woman in Africa die if a woman in Europe and in Asia and some parts of the continent does not die? These are the questions, hon. Members, as Africans that we need to ask ourselves.So, before I sit down again, I want to plead with you to support the campaign on accelerated reduction of maternal mortality in Africa that we are now expanding to also include children.Let us coordinate and harmonize our efforts and as I have said, I commit my department to come and brief Parliament and to present a report to Parliament in the same way as we would report to the Assembly.We want to promote a CARMMA week in solidarity with the women and children in Africa. I will be providing you with the necessary information, but it is in that week that I am asking for every man, woman and child in the country to be part of the process of saving lives.During the liberation struggle, Mr. President and hon. Members, we stood in front of supermarkets in Europe when we were students and we asked people in the name of solidarity with the people of South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique and all those that were struggling for freedom to donate simple things like toothpaste, toothbrushes, a bar of soap, sanitary towels and those are the things that we sent to the refugee camps that benefitted me and many of us who are sitting here.During the CARMMA week, in solidarity with the women and children of Africa, we will ask every woman, man and child to just donate a baby blanket, a bar of baby soap and we will donate those to each and every rural clinic in Africa. It is then that we will say that Africa cares and no woman will die while giving life and no child will die before reaching the age of five.Mr. President, honourable Members, it has been a pleasure to be with you, and I have no doubt that I go back to Addis feeling completely satisfied with the fact that I have found within you, supporters for the cause of women and children of Africa. I thank you. (Applause)HON. NJINGUM MUOSA MBUTOH [CAMEROON]:Thank you Mr. President. I first of all want to thank our great lady, Her Excellency for having exhausted all our preoccupations and in fact, we want say she should extend our thanks to the African Union Commission for allowing her to come to us for the first time to do this wonderful presentation.I just want to make little contribution Mr. President because she exhausted everything. I have gathered from all the interventions of Members of Parliament, and I want to thank you very much because you have contributed a great deal on this topic. We are going to exploit your ideas for good use for Africa. We have learnt a lot from you on all matters of actions that we can undertake. I think now we should base ourselves on being action oriented. Once we do that, we should be able to go back to our homes as Members of Parliament and take on our responsibilities.I have gathered from all your contributions that Members of Parliament have a duty, a very big duty on issues of this nature. One, to educate; in your various constituencies, you have to undertake serious education in your various constituencies. Even on the issue of vaccination; sometimes in some constituencies, when they want to carry out the exercise, women run away saying that they are coming to give them vaccines not to deliver. That has happened and I have witnessed that in many cases. So, it is our duty as MPs to undertake serious campaign, to explain to our people on issues of this nature. And even the issue of some women going to Health Centres. Many women in the rural area do not like to go to health centers, if you visit the health centers today, they are not there. They deliver the traditional way in the house. They have some women in their various villages that they say are experts in receiving children at birth. Those are the things we have to do to educate our local people, our poor people who have no access to medical facilities. We have to capacitate our women by making seminars, training them, educating them, undertaking this as a duty of MPs. These are important issues we have to undertake before looking to the government. But it is our role to reinforce the government, to complement government. To make sure that it concentrates on issues like that in our various constituencies. You also have to play a very good role on sanitation.Sanitation is very important. In the olden days, there was something they used to call Sanitary Inspectors. These Sanitary Inspectors would identify people who did not have toilets, clean environment, who polluted their waters and they were charged. They were made to pay fines. And each time you saw the Sanitary Inspector, everybody would run to wash and clean their toilet. I think those are issues which we need to assist the government to make sure they are followed up.We also have to monitor corruption, because most imported medicine that is been allocated for our constituency is not implemented. It is your duty as an MP to follow up and follow all your various Public Health Ministries to make sure that whatever is allocated your area, be it a health centre, medication; you follow up to make sure that the thing goes where it is supposed to go. That is a very serious duty for MPs. MPs must also monitor the activities and contributions of our partners. More often than not, we appeal to partners who pay huge amounts of money and contribute to our countries and we never know about it. I think it is our duty to call upon our development partners or donors and say that when you are bringing those huge investments on health, let MPs be aware of it, so as to monitor it. It is also our duty to follow up all these things.Training and motivation of personnel. Sometimes you want to transfer a doctor to a local area and he says he not going there. I know some countries that have introduced incentives to motivate doctors. When a doctor is going to work in the rural areas, they motivate him/her, so you are happy to go there. They will increase their salary, and allowance. They say that those who work in this type of area will get this allowance. So you motivate workers to work in such areas. When some doctors are transferred to another area, they don’t want to go there, even nurses say those areas are very rural and remote. So, as MPs, we have to encourage them and facilitate that with all our stakeholders.The issue of motivation will help us to avoid brain drain. Most of our doctors are trained in Africa, but Europeans take them away from us. In Africa we train Medical Doctors, hundreds of them, but finally we have three remaining in your hospitals because all of them go away from us to find some good medical conditions to work under. As MPs, we should fight that together with our stakeholders.Agriculture investment; I want to say that food eradicates poverty and when poverty is eradicated, many diseases are cured. Many poor people will escape from all dangers of illness because they have enough food to eat. There is big land for us to invest, there is big land for us to cultivate, but how are we going to do this? It is only we the MPs who have to educate our local people. So we should try to assist or to make sure that agriculture is being promoted in our rural areas to avoid poverty, because poverty causes all the illness. Poverty forces women and girls to go out and flirt, carry HIV and die. They want to move from rural areas to urban areas where they will go and dress, meet men, make a lot of money and come back because of poverty. So, all these are issues we have to sensitize our people about so that they can avoid them. It is our duty as MPs.The most important one is, please help to finance MPs. The Chairpersons have asked me to tell you, to help them, those other MPs as you go back in the Budget Committee, so you handle the budget, you monitor your budget with the finance and health to make sure this 15 percent, which the health sector must get is contributed. If the budget of my country has about 2 percent, and you keep 20 percent or 15 percent of it and contribute to health, I think that will be enough money. If we do that from the beginning, I think many things would be done in the health sector. In fact it would help saved many situations. The control of investments; this is where I am insisting because even in my own country, my constituents have a lot of problems with investors because they give investment and it is not done. When I ask them what is happening, he say, he has diverted the budget into a different direction. We should encourage and look at mobilization of resources. We should not just be depending on donors, because if we keep on depending on donors, we shall one day be disappointed. We should try to look out for the small resources that we have, and use them in our various constituencies. That way we will eradicate many problems in this health sector. (Applause)Thank you very much. I want to appeal to you that let our declaration be adopted and give us the way forward to carry it to our various National Parliaments to work on it, and to make sure that the health situation is improving in Africa. (Applause)HON. NGUINI EFFA MARIE-ROSE [CAMEROUN]:Je vous remercie, très honorable Président.Je remercie tous les collègues pour l’intérêt qu’ils portent à cette question des droits humains. Je remercie beaucoup Madame le Commissaire.Je pense qu’il y a un proverbe qui dit chez moi que « on ne conseille pas le sage pendant longtemps ». Vu vos contributions, je crois que la mayonnaise a pris et que chacun de nous sait désormais ce qu’il y a à faire, et je sais que vous êtes tous très intéressés par ce problème.Je voudrais également remercier Madame le Commissaire. Nous sommes disposés à accueillir, non seulement vos rapports mais, nous espérons que vous allez aussi nous inclure dans votre plan d’actions, parce que le Parlement panafricain et la Commission de l’Union africaine doivent travailler en symbiose. Donc, on ne va pas se contenter d’écouter vos rapports, ce qui est déjà une très bonne chose mais, on aimerait aussi que le Parlement panafricain et sa Commission de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales soient inclus dans votre plan d’actions.Je voulais aussi, pour finir, remercier cette collaboration future comme je l’ai dit et vous dire que nous sommes disposés à travailler avec vous et je remercie de nouveau tous les collègues pour l’intérêt qu’ils portent. J’espère que chacun parmi vous va amplifier ou relayer ce qui a été dit ici, hier et aujourd’hui, dans les parlements nationaux, parce que cela ne sera pas suivi d’effets si nous ne le prenons pas dans nos pays respectifs.Comme disait Madame GAWANAS aussi, je crois que c’est le Président WADE qui avait donné cet exemple de ces mamans qui n’ont qu’un téléphone portable dans les villages et qui contrôlent toutes les femmes enceintes prêtes à accoucher. Il y a des petites choses qu’on peut faire avec très peu de moyens.Je vous remercie beaucoup, pour l’intérêt que vous accordez à la femme et aux enfants.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, honorable présidente.Honorables membres, je vous soumets le rapport de la mise en œuvre de la décision du Sommet de l’Union africaine sur la santé maternelle, néonatale et infantile et le développement en Afrique, et de ses résolutions, pour adoption.(Applaudissements).Je vous remercie beaucoup. En adoptant la mise en œuvre de cette décision du Sommet des chefs d’Etat, honorables membres, nous sommes interpellés pour sa mise en œuvre, pour que, à notre tour, nous interpellions, conformément à nos constitutions et aux règlements intérieurs de nos assemblées, nos gouvernements respectifs, et plaidions lors de l’examen de la loi des finances, pour que la déclaration d'Abuja devienne une réalité, ou bien que la tendance aille vers les 15% de la déclaration d'Abuja. Dans beaucoup de pays, c’est la session budgétaire. Je pense encore qu’ilspourront se rattraper, pour qu’on puisse faire quelque chose au niveau de la loi des finances.Nous avons aussi été interpellés par rapport à nos circonscriptions, et l’honorable Suad El Badaoui a donné un exemple de terrain. C’est le moment de nous dire que nous devons aussi suivre notre chemin, et que nous pouvons faire poser des actes concrets dans nos circonscriptions.Excellence, Madame le Commissaire,Nous prenons date et rendez-vous pour la CARMA. Nous prenons également rendez-vous pour la semaine de la CARMA, et c’est avec plaisir que nous allons vous accueillir à nouveau au Parlement panafricain, pour nous entretenir des derniers développements et de la situation de la santé maternelle et infantile en Afrique.Vous avez dit, hier, que les Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement ne sont pas des chiffres. Cela nous a beaucoup émus. Vous avez dit que ce ne sont pas des chiffres mais, derrière ces objectifs, il y a la vie des êtres humains, celle des Africains, des femmes, des enfants et des hommes. Vous avez dit que les chiffres ne sont pas importants, et nous sommes d’accord avec vous.Les parlementaires sont engagés, comme ils l’ont démontré par leurs interventions. Nous allons vous accompagner, et nous ferons de notre mieux, aussi bien en interpellant nos gouvernements qu’en essayant d’augmenter la part qui revient à la santé au niveau des lois de finances, en essayant également d’être plus proches et à l’écoute de nos populations dans nos circonscriptions, et de commencer des projets simples, viables, mais qui peuvent être porteurs.Au nom du Parlement panafricain, je vous remercie et je vous félicite pour vos brillantes interventions.Pour finir, je vous félicite également et je voudrais informer la plénière que grâce à vous, au Sommet de Kampala, la dimension parlementaire a été incluse dans les décisions, pour qu’une place digne de ce nom soit réservée aux parlementaires, dans l’ensemble des résolutions. Pour cela également, vous avez les remerciements du Parlement panafricain.Une dernière fois, je vous demande d’applaudir notre hôte, Son Excellence, le Commissaire.(Applaudissements).Monsieur le Secrétaire général,Vous n’avez pas de communication? Non!Honorables membres,Nous sommes arrivés à la fin des travaux de ce jour. Par conséquent, la séance est suspendue jusqu’à demain, jeudi 14 octobre 2010, à neuf (09) heures.La séance est levée à dix-sept heures trente-deux jusqu’au lendemain, 14 octobre, neuf heures.
Thursday, 14th October 2010
LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables Membres, la séance est reprise. J’invite le Secrétaire général à donner lecture du premier point inscrit à l’ordre du jour.THE CLERK:Thank you Honourable President.Presentation, consideration and adoption of the reports on the work activities, recommendations and resolutions of the Permanent Committees of the Pan-African Parliament.(S’adressant aux parlementaires)
1.0 – PRÉSENTATION, EXAMEN ET ADOPTION DES RAPPORTS RELATIFS AUX TRAVAUX, ACTIVITÉS, RECOMMANDATIONS ET RÉSOLUTIONS DES COMMISSIONS PERMANENTES DU PAP.
LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie.J’invite l’honorable Dieudonné Maurice Bonanet, vice-président de la Commission permanente des Transports, de l’Industrie, des Communications, de l’Energie, des Sciences et de la Technologie, à présenter le rapport de la Commission.HON. BONANET DIEUDONNE MAURICE [BURKINA FASO]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président. Je voudrais, exceptionnellement, demander à passer en deuxième position. Je suis en train de terminer.LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorable président, vous êtes dans la salle de plénière. Vous êtes invité à présenter votre rapport.
1.1 – Rapport de la Commission permanente des Transports, de l’Énergie, de l’Industrie, des Communications, des Sciences et de la Technologie
HON. BONANET DIEUDONNE MAURICE [BURKINA FASO]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Avec votre permission, j’ai l’honneur de présenter à la plénière, en l’absence du président BOUDINA, le rapport de la Commission permanente des Transports, de l’Energie, de l’Industrie, des Communications, des Sciences et de la Technologie.Il faut dire que, au cours de sa dernière réunion, tenue les 5 et 6 août 2010 au siège du PAP, à Midrand, en Afrique du Sud, consacrée à l’évaluation des Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement en Afrique, la Commission des Transports, de l’Energie, de l’Industrie, des Communications, des Sciences et de la Technologie, après un large et profond débat, et prenant en compte les constats des précédentes réunions, a décidé à l’unanimité de ses membres, de saisir le Bureau de la plénière du PAP, par le présent rapport analytique sur la situation critique de notre Institution qui se limite à exister, en consommant un budget insignifiant sans produire d’activités. Il y a bientôt deux ans que notre Parlement est entré dans sa deuxième législature, après avoir capitalisé toute une expérience dans la pratique parlementaire et après avoir procédé au renouvellement de tous les organes, et affirmé ses capacités à accéder au pouvoir législatif dès 2011, et ce, conformément aux dispositions du Protocole de l’Union africaine.C’est donc avec un nouvel état d’esprit, une discipline librement consentie, et une volonté sincère, que tous les nouveaux organes de notre Institution se sont engagés dans une nouvelle démarche pour une collaboration permanente et fructueuse avec tous les autres organes de l’Union africaine, notre Institution mère.Cependant, des efforts restent à faire, puisque les problèmes qui ont toujours entravé notre Institution restent les mêmes. La Commission a donc produit ce rapport et souhaite le verser au dossier de la Commission d’évaluation administrative et financière du PAP pour un suivi.Notre budget, au lieu de connaître une augmentation en rapport avec le volume d’activités de tous les organes du PAP, a été au contraire revu à la baisse par le COREP. Les responsables des différents départements de la Commission de l’Union africaine répondent rarement aux invitations des Commissions permanentes qui traitent des mêmes domaines, ce qui rend toute collaboration impossible. Les informations fournies par le NEPAD et le MAEP bien qu’appréciables, ne nous ont pas permis d’évaluer l’état d’application des programmes de développement à court et moyen termes, ainsi qu’à long terme dans les 5 régions.Jusqu’à maintenant, l’insuffisance d’informations et de statistiques n’a pas permis au PAP de formuler un avis objectif sur les résultats réalisés en matière de développement, au niveau de chaque sous-région d’Afrique.Il s’agira également pour nous de faire, ici, état de tous les problèmes qui ont bloqué et qui bloquent toujours le fonctionnement de l’activité de notre Institution.L’indemnité de responsabilité prévue pour les parlementaires par les dispositions du Protocole de l’Union africaine, est toujours refusée par le COREP. L’indemnité qui couvre les communications des parlementaires a été supprimée, pendant que des responsables au sein de l’Union africaine, bénéficient eux de la gratuité du téléphone mobile dans l’exercice de leurs fonctions.Aussi, pendant que le coût de la vie augmente de plus en plus en Afrique du Sud, siège du Parlement, le taux des perdiems a été réduit pour les parlementaires d’une manière abusive.Nous sommes toujours en divergence d’interprétation des textes de l’Union africaine qui prévoient que le budget global de celle-ci soit soumis au PAP pour débat et avis avant son adoption par les chefs d’Etats.Il est temps aujourd’hui, de porter officiellement nos divergences devant le Sommet des chefs d’Etats pour arbitrage, et devant la Cour de justice africaine, s’agissant de l’interprétation des textes qui régissent tous les organes de l’Union africaine, y compris le PAP.Notre Institution est ouverte à une collaboration sincère et responsable, avec les autres organes de l’Union africaine. Les divergences avec les autres organes ne sont pas les seules qui entravent le bon fonctionnement du PAP.Il y a aussi les causes internes qui ont influé négativement au point d’affecter les pleines capacités de notre Institution et de bloquer ses activités. Le corps squelettique des Traducteurs n’arrive pas à produire et à diffuser à temps les documents de travail, dans toutes les langues officielles de notre Parlement.Les Commissions permanentes n’arrivent pas à fonctionner normalement, faute d’assistance spécialisée, pourtant prévue dans l’organigramme de notre administration et agréée par la Commission de l’Union africaine.L’Administration, de par ses prérogatives, fixe elle-même l’ordre du jour des réunions des Commissions statutaires sans consulter leurs présidents.Les sessions de notre Parlement se tiennent deux fois par an, sans grande couverture médiatique en direction de nos pays. Le peuple ignore de quoi nous parlons, de quoi nous débattons, et ce que nous décidons. Les programmes de déroulement de nos sessions sont souvent en surcharge par des points secondaires, au détriment des points essentiels. Ainsi, la surcharge de l’ordre du jour oblige le Président à réduire le temps de parole à son minimum. Ce qui rend nos débats infructueux, voir bâclés.La collaboration et la coordination avec les parlements régionaux et nationaux est très faible. De leur côté, les parlements nationaux en majorité ne consacrent même pas une séance, par an, aux activités parlementaires régionales et continentales. L’Union parlementaire africaine, en tant qu’association continentale qui représente les parlements nationaux, n’a jamais été invitée à une de nos sessions.Depuis 2009, l’activité de nos Commissions a cessé complètement parce que les moyens de financement ont été annulés par nos partenaires qui sont la GTZ, l’AWEPA, etc., ce qui ne nous a pas empêchés de continuer à nous réunir souvent pour nous lamenter sur cette triste situation.Les programmes et les plans d’actions de nos Commissions ne sont pas appliqués depuis la fin 2008, pour cause de problèmes suscités.Le Fonds spécial a été créé par notre Parlement lors d’une session spéciale, pour permettre le financement des principales activités de nos Commissions en attendant que le problème du budget soit réglé avec l’Union africaine.La mise en opération du site web du PAP qui devait renforcer ses capacités institutionnelles, nécessite une plus grande maîtrise de sa gestion, et une mise à jour permanente.Le centre d’études, de documentation et d’information prévu dans l’organigramme du PAP n’a toujours pas vu le jour.Le comité de coordination qui regroupe le Bureau du PAP et le bureau des Commissions permanentes n’a pas de prérogatives claires quant à l’élaboration et à l’adoption des programmes des sessions.Les comités des sous-régions, caucus, n’arrivent pas à assurer un équilibre dans la répartition des parlementaires de leur région au sein des Commissions permanentes, ce qui fait que certaines Commissions ont dépassé le nombre de 30, alors que d’autres sont à peine à 10 membres.Les résolutions et les motions adoptées par nos sessions parlementaires n’ont pas connu de suivi dans leur destination et dans les suites réservées par leurs destinataires. Est-ce que les organes hiérarchiques de l’Union africaine en ont donné régulièrement suite? Est-ce que les parlements nationaux sont rendus destinataires de ces importants documents?Honorable Président,Honorable parlementaires et chers Collègues,Dans ce rapport, nous avons tenté d’identifier les problèmes qui ont rendu la situation de notre Parlement à la fois critique et inquiétante à savoir:D’une part, que les problèmes proviennent de l’incompréhension, voire d’une certaine hostilité de la part de certains organes de l’Union africaine, qui ne sont pas habitués à la pratique parlementaire, et qui ont entravé et bloqué l’activité même de notre Institution.D’autre part, les problèmes internes à notre Institution ont aussi une grande part de responsabilité dans l’affaiblissement des capacités de notre Parlement.Les suggestions que la Commission a faites:Il est temps de saisir l’autorité supérieure, à savoir le Sommet des chefs d’Etat par une résolution qui exposera nos divergences avec certains organes de l’Union africaine, et de demander un arbitrage qui peut redonner confiance à notre Institution pour sortir de l’immobilisme actuel, et aller de l’avant dans l’accomplissement de sa noble mission. Nous sommes, à notre avis, en droit d’exiger des rencontres périodiques de coordination avec le COREP, le Conseil des ministres, ou la Commission de l’Union africaine qui vient d’être dotée d’un pouvoir exécutif. Ces réunions doivent nous permettre d’exposer et de défendre le point de vue de notre Institution.La question du budget du PAP et la question du budget de tous les organes de l’Union africaine restent pour nous un point capital que le Sommet des chefs d’Etat doit trancher.Nous sommes aussi en droit de demander un débat semestriel avec le Président de la Commission de l’Union africaine. De pareilles rencontres permettront une meilleure collaboration qui peut constituer pour notre Institution, un répondant à la solution des problèmes rencontrés.AN HONOURABLE MEMBER:Thank you Mr. President, I am sorry to interrupt the Vice Chair but I do not understand the relevance of what he is discussing in relation to the mandate of the Committee that he represents. Thank you.LE PRÉSIDENT:C’est l’impression générale, honorable BAHDI, mais par courtoisie, on va le laisser finir les deux dernières pages. Je vous remercie. Finissez, Honorable!HON. BONANET DIEUDONNE MAURICE [BURKINA FASO]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je disais donc qu’il a été souvent demandé au PAP de faire du lobbying pour la mise à jour des contributions des Etats retardataires, ainsi que les ratifications des différents textes. Cela nécessite des tournées des délégations parlementaires à travers l’Afrique. Malheureusement, le PAP n’a pas les moyens financiers.L’Union africaine pourrait imposer une taxe aux entreprises multinationales de téléphonie mobile qui font des profits énormes sur le dos des peuples d’Afrique, pour le peu qui leur sera demandé de verser au budget de l’Union africaine. Cette solution permettra à l’Union africaine de financer sans difficultés les activités de tous les organes et de renforcer ses capacités d’actions d’intervention à travers le continent.Il est aussi urgent pour le Bureau du PAP, de lever le voile sur le fond spécial, de faire connaître les sommes disponibles et de les utiliser dans le financement des activités des Commissions.S’agissant des votes en plénière, le Bureau du PAP peut mettre en place un tableau électronique à l’instar des parlements modernes. Le pays hôte pourrait prendre en charge la réalisation de ce tableau. Le programme de déroulement des sessions doit être débattu en réunion de coordination regroupant le Bureau du PAP, les bureaux des Commissions permanentes et les présidents des caucus, et ne doit retenir que les questions essentielles et prioritaires à débattre en plénière. Ceci permettra des débats fructueux avec des temps de parole conséquents.Les rapports des Commissions peuvent ne pas être présentés, en même temps, dans une même session. Il est urgent de recruter des traducteurs de haut niveau et en nombre suffisant afin de permettre à tous les parlementaires de participer pleinement aux sessions en toute connaissance des questions traitées. Il est aussi urgent de procéder au recrutement des assistants permanents qui permettront d’assurer une efficacité permanente dans le fonctionnement des Commissions statutaires.Le Bureau du Parlement doit entreprendre des négociations avec les partenaires GTZ, AWEPA et autres, qui ont cessé de financer les activités des Commissions, pour débloquer la situation née de la mauvaise publicité sur l’ancienne gestion.Le Bureau peut entamer des négociations avec les chaînes de télévision parlant les différentes langues officielles de l’Union africaine pour couvrir les sessions de notre Parlement. Cela permettra à nos peuples d’être informés sur la prise en charge de leurs préoccupations par leurs représentants.Dans cette démarche, la Commission a proposé la compilation des documents des débats du PAP sur format CD- ROM qui permettra entre autres de faciliter le transport des documents par les parlementaires en fin de session, mais également de transmettre des documents aux parlements nationaux pour suivi.Ce projet a été soumis au Bureau du Président du PAP pour approbation. Nous pouvons saisir officiellement, par une résolution, nos parlements nationaux, pour les exhorter à organiser, en leur sein, des débats consacrés à l’activité parlementaire continentale, à l’accession du PAP au pouvoir législatif, et à l’évaluation périodique des réalisations du NEPAD.Nous suggérons, enfin, une rencontre annuelle avec la diaspora africaine, pour les sensibiliser et les engager dans le développement de l’Afrique.Il est utile aussi, d’organiser un forum tous les deux ans qui regroupera le Parlement panafricain, l’Union parlementaire africaine, les parlements régionaux et les parlements nationaux. Ces rencontres pourront renforcer l’activité parlementaire horizontale et verticale.ConclusionNotre Parlement doit se battre dans la légalité et le respect des prérogatives des uns et des autres, pour s’octroyer les meilleurs moyens indispensables à son fonctionnement. C’est le passage obligé qui lui permettra d’être au rendezvous, en 2011, pour son accession au pouvoir législatif.Il doit enfin prendre toutes les mesures pour renforcer les capacités d’actions et d’interventions, au niveau continental et international. Les pionniers de ce Parlement que nous sommes, n’ont pas le droit d’échouer dans leur mission. Nous avons des responsabilités que l’histoire retiendra. C’est pourquoi nous suggérons que cette session soit consacrée à un débat responsable de fond sur le devenir de notre Institution et sa mission future au service de nos peuples et de l’Union africaine.Nous devons exposer nos positions et nos divergences dans une résolution que nous présenterons au prochain Sommet des chefs d’Etat.Je vous remercie, pour votre compréhension.(Applaudissements)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, Honorable Dieudonné Maurice BONANET, vice-président de la Commission permanente des Transports, de l’Industrie, de la Communication, de l’Energie, des Sciences et de la Technologie.Honorable président,Vous avez présenté le rapport de la Commission permanente des Transports, de l’Industrie, de la Communication, de l’Energie, des Sciences et de la Technologie. Dans ce rapport, il y a une ligne, une proposition qui fait référence à un appel aux opérateurs de téléphonie pour qu’ils puissent apporter leur contribution. Ce passage concerne la grande Commission permanente des Transports, de l’Industrie, de la Communication, de l’Energie, des Sciences et de la Technologie.Vous avez dit dans votre conclusion, Monsieur le président, qu’il faut travailler dans le respect des prérogatives des uns et des autres. Vous avez été tout le long de votre rapport complètement à côté de vos prérogatives. Bien que vous ayez évoqué quand même des sujets importants qui concernent la vie de notre Parlement, votre rapport est complètement à côté de votre Commission.Vous parlez des partenaires, vous avez cité GTZ et AWEPA qui ont cessé de nous aider. Nos partenaires sont là, dans cette Chambre même, du côté des observateurs, ils nous accompagnent.Vous parlez des divergences, des antagonismes, d’arbitrage entre le PAP et les organes de l’Union africaine. Vous êtes très en retard, parce que tout le monde sait ici que, aujourd’hui tout le COREP arrive en Afrique du Sud, et demain une soixantaine de parlementaires du PAP et une quarantaine d’ambassadeurs du COREP vont avoir une rencontre. On a eu hier et avant-hier l’honneur de recevoir la Commissaire aux Affaires sociales de l’Union africaine.Honorables membres,Je propose que chaque Commission, le Bureau, le Secrétariat et chacun de nous considère ce document comme un apport venu des membres de la Commission permanente. Si vous regardez, ils ont dit: « Rapport analytique sur la situation du PAP après sept ans d’existence », et chacun, en sa capacité et en ses prérogatives, peut l’utiliser comme un sous-main, parce que, à l’intérieur, il y a des choses intéressantes, quoique le contenu ne relève pas de la Commission.Honorables membres,Si vous êtes d’accord, on va laisser ce rapport à l’appréciation individuelle des membres et du collectif des différentes Commissions permanentes et à l’appréciation du Bureau et du Secrétariat pour qu’on puisse s’inspirer de ce qui peut être positif.La seule chose qui concerne la Commission, c’est l’apport de la téléphonie mobile qui peut être retenu et j’encourage vivement le président de la Commission de retenir ce point-là avec une contribution ultérieure de sa Commission.Est-ce que la plénière agrée à ma proposition? Ou bien vous voulez en faire un débat?(Applaudissements)Je vous remercie.Honorable ASCOFARE OulématouTAMBOURA, présidente de la Commission permanente de l’Egalité en Genre, de la Famille, de la Jeunesse et des Personnes handicapées, vous êtes priée de présenter votre rapport.
1.2 – Rapport de la Commission permanente de l’Egalité en Genre, de la Famille, de la Jeunesse et des Personnes handicapées.
HON. TAMBOURA ASCOFARE OULÉMATOU [MALI]:Monsieur le Président du Parlement panafricain,Mesdames et Messieurs les membres du Bureau,Chers Collègues,Bonjour!J’ai l’honneur de vous présenter le rapport d’activités de la Commission permanente de l’Egalité en Genre, de la Famille, de la Jeunesse et des Personnes handicapées. Je fais cette présentation suite à l’absence de la viceprésidente de la Commission par intérim, du Rapporteur de la Commission par intérim, parce que nous n’avons pas les membres du Bureau de notre Commission au complet. Il y a deux postes, je ne vais pas prendre le devant pour annoncer leur vacance, mais les occupants de ces deux postes ne sont pas présents cette fois-ci. Je vais faire l’économie du rapport.Conformément à l’article 26.8 du Règlement Intérieur, la Commission permanente de l’Egalité en Genre, de la Famille, de la Jeunesse et des Personnes handicapées est chargée, entre autre:d’examiner les questions relatives à la promotion de l’égalité en Genre;d’assister le Parlement dans la supervision de l’élaboration et de la mise en œuvre des politiques et des activités de l’Union relatives à la famille, à la jeunesse et aux personnes handicapées.Ce rapport couvre les activités menées durant la période allant de décembre 2009 au 02 octobre 2010.Pendant cette période, nous avons participé à la réunion conjointe des bureaux des Commissions permanentes de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales et la Fédération Internationale de la Planification Familiale (IPPF), région Afrique, du 22 au 23 janvier 2010.La Commission a participé à la quatrième Conférence africaine sur les Droits et la Santé de la Reproduction, à Addis-Abeba (Ethiopie) du 09 au 12 février 2010.Elle a tenu des réunions statutaires aux dates suivantes:du 1er au 2 mars 2010;du 2 au 3 août 2010.Du 2 au 3 août 2010, la Commission a participé à la réunion des présidents des commissions des Finances/Budgets des parlements nationaux, avec les membres de la Commission permanente de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales, les membres de la Commission permanente des Affaires monétaires et financières et les membres de la Commission permanente de l’Egalité en Genre, donc notre Commission.
Rencontre avec la fédération internationale de la planification familiale - Région Afrique - janvier 2010
Les bureaux des Commissions permanentes de l’Egalité en Genre, de la Famille, de la Jeunesse et des Personnes handicapées et de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales ont tenu une réunion avec les représentations de la Fédération Internationale du Planning Familial - Région Afrique - en janvier 2010 au siège du Parlement panafricain.La réunion a eu pour but de définir un cadre de coopération entre le Parlement panafricain et l’IPPF et de renforcer la collaboration entre les deux Institutions. Aux termes des travaux, il a été retenu une définition des domaines d’intervention suivants:(i).renforcement de la coopération entre les Institutions;(ii).implication du PAP dans les programmes de l’IPPF;(iii).appui à la participation du Parlement panafricain aux fora régionaux et internationaux.
Quatrième conférence africaine sur les droits et la sante de la reproduction, Addis-Abeba, Ethiopie du 09 au 12 février 2010
Les bureaux des Commissions permanentes de l’Egalité en Genre, de la Famille, de la Jeunesse et des Personnes handicapées et de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales ont participé à la quatrième Conférence africaine sur les Droits et la Santé de la Reproduction, tenue à Addis-Abeba, en Ethiopie, du 09 au 12 février 2010.La Conférence avait pour objectifs d’instaurer le débat sur la sexualité et de dégager de nouvelles pistes de solutions dans la lutte contre la pandémie du VIH/SIDA en Afrique.Il y avait plus de 700 participants qui ont pris part à cette rencontre y compris les représentants de gouvernements, de la société civile ainsi que les parlementaires africains. La délégation du Parlement panafricain était conduite par l’Honorable Dr. Idriss Ndele, Président du Parlement panafricain.Parmi les principales questions débattues figuraient celles qui attiraient surtout l’attention du Parlement panafricain, à savoir le renforcement des activités de plaidoyer au plan régional avec un accent particulier sur la promotion des Droits humains et des Droits en matière de santé reproductive de la femme.A l’issue des travaux, la Conférence a adopté le Projet de Déclaration sur l’Initiative de la Jeunesse et l’appel à l’action.Le Projet de Déclaration sur l’Initiative de la Jeunesse invite toutes les parties concernées à poser des actes en faveur de la promotion des Droits en matière de sexualité et de santé de la reproduction de la jeunesse en Afrique. Ceci devant s’effectuer avec l’entière participation de la jeunesse à tous les niveaux, sans discrimination aucune, conformément à l’Acte constitutif de l’Union africaine et des Constitutions respectives des Etats africains.Dans ce cadre, les Gouvernements et les Parlementaires sont invités à mener, entre autre, les actions suivantes:(i)accélérer la mise en œuvre des recommandations de la Conférence internationale sur la Population et le Développement (CIPD), le plan d’action de Maputo et la tenue des engagements des Gouvernements africains concernant la Campagne contre la Mortalité maternelle en Afrique;(ii)élargir le champ d’accès aux services relatifs aux domaines de la sexualité et de la santé de la reproduction, ainsi qu’à l’information y afférente en faveur des personnes les plus vulnérables. Ces actions peuvent s’appuyer sur des cas spécifiques, la formation des formateurs et l’inclusion d’une approche basée sur les droits humains;(iii)abroger les lois, les politiques et les pratiques qui contribuent à la pénalisation des relations homosexuelles, des activités de prostitution, l’avortement et la transmission du VIH/SIDA. Il est à noter que ces lois sont en violation des droits fondamentaux humains et continuent de favoriser l’accroissement de la prévalence du VIH/SIDA.
Réunion statutaire de la Commission tenue du 1er au 2 mars 2010
Lors de ses travaux qui se sont déroulé du 1er au 2 mars 2010, la Commission a effectué les activités suivantes:(i)Adoption du programme du travail au titre de l’année 2010;(ii)Prise en compte de l’exposé fait par le Comité International de la Croix Rouge (CICR);(iii)Organisation de la réunion conjointe avec la Commission permanente de l’Economie rurale et de l’Agriculture, des Ressources naturelles et de l’Environnement.
Adoption du programme de travail au titre de l’année 2010
La Commission a recommandé, dans le cadre des priorités, le renforcement des capacités dans les domaines ci-dessous:(i)Intégration du Genre dans le budget;(ii)Politiques de l’Union africaine en matière de famille, de jeunesse et de personnes handicapées.A cet égard, je dois souligner que, compte tenu des contraintes budgétaires auxquelles le Parlement a eu à faire face, la plupart des activités de la Commission Genre n’ont pas pu se réaliser. Il en est de même pour les autres Commissions. Donc, nous ne sommes pas les seuls concernés.
Prise en compte de l’exposé fait par le Comité International de la Croix Rouge
La Commission a pris acte de l’exposé fait par le CICR sur le thème La femme dans les situations de conflits armés en date du 1er mars 2010.La Commission a également noté que le mandat du CICR comporte la protection de la vie et de la dignité des victimes dans les situations de conflits armés et leur protection des effets de bouleversement interne tout en leur fournissant l’assistance nécessaire.Dans un sens large, le mandat du CICR vise l’octroi d’une assistance aux femmes victimes des conflits, compte tenu du caractère spécifique de leur protection en matière de santé.La Commission a émis le vœu d’une coopération constante entre les deux Institutions particulièrement, dans le domaine d’échanges d’information et d’expertise technique.
Organisation de la réunion conjointe avec la Commission permanente de l’Économie rurale et de l’Agriculture, des Ressources Naturelles et de l’Environnement
Cette rencontre a noté l’intervention du NEPAD concernant les liens entre l’agriculture et les questions du Genre dans le cadre général du Programme Détaillé du Développement Agricole en Afrique (PDDAA). Il a été reconnu, lors de cette rencontre, que les contributions de la femme n’étaient pas suffisamment exploitées ou reconnues. De même, elles ne bénéficient pas adéquatement des avantages liés aux programmes de développement.L’un des obstacles majeurs à la sécurité alimentaire et à l’économie plaçant l’homme au centre du développement en Afrique a pour cause la marginalisation de la femme vis-à-vis des politiques et des programmes agricoles. L’accès de la femme aux ressources telles que la terre, les semences et les engrais favoriseraient une production égale pour l’homme et la femme, étant donné que l’agriculture représente le moteur de la croissance économique et du développement en Afrique sub-saharienne.La nécessité de s’engager dans la voie d’un développement durable se ferait alors grâce à l’implication, à la formation et au traitement équitable et égal de la femme.Le rôle qui incombe aux parlementaires comporte, entre autre, l’affectation budgétaire appropriée, l’élaboration des politiques et des programmes, leur mise en œuvre effective, leur suivi et leur évaluation. Il revient alors aux parlementaires de remplir leur rôle aux niveaux suivants:
Processus de prise de décision dans le domaine agricole et ses sous-secteurs
Il s’agira, pour les parlementaires, de promouvoir les politiques et le cadre de réglementation, tout en améliorant les processus de prise de décision grâce à la circulation de l’information. Ils peuvent également examiner les lacunes portant un frein à l’émancipation de la femme et engager le plaidoyer pour arrêter des mesures de correction à cet effet. Les parlementaires inscriront alors leurs actions aux plans législatif, judiciaire et exécutif.
Au plan national
Les parlementaires peuvent mener les actions suivantes:promouvoir la connaissance endogène et collaborer étroitement avec les partenaires locaux;faire participer les organisations de la société civile, les medias, les chefs traditionnels, les chercheurs et les universitaires;procéder au renforcement des capacités;sensibiliser quant à l’amélioration des méthodologies.
Au plan régional
Les parlementaires peuvent mener les actions suivantes:promouvoir les échanges transfrontaliers et interrégionaux;établir des réseaux d’échange d’expériences et de savoir-faire et prendre en compte les questions d’égalité des sexes;procéder à des évaluations par les pairs.
Conclusion et Recommandations
Considérant le rôle vital joué par la femme dans le domaine agricole, la Commission a, en conclusion sur ce point, recommandé ce qui suit:Les parlementaires pourraient:(i)pérenniser les acquis grâce à la poursuite de leurs engagements vis-à-vis du Genre et de l’émancipation de la femme;(ii)concevoir des cadres de participation de la femme dans le CAADP à tous les niveaux, la participation pleine et entière de la femme en milieu rural et la signature du CAADP au plan national;(iii)prendre des mesures nécessaires à la mise en œuvre des quatre piliers du CAADP; ceci garantirait le droit et les subsistances de la femme de manière durable;(iv)identifier les voies et les moyens contribuant au renforcement du rôle de contrôle et de supervision des parlementaires grâce aux affectations budgétaires concernant les rubriques, statistiques, politiques, communications et sensibilisations relatives au Genre.
Réunion statutaire de la Commission tenue du 2 au 3 aout 2010
Les travaux de la Commission se sont déroulé effectivement les 2 et 3 août 2010. Les activités suivantes ont été effectuées:
Prise en compte des interventions suivantes:
«Africa Public Health Alliance » (Alliance pour la Santé Publique en Afrique) portant sur les conclusions et les résolutions du quinzième Sommet des chefs d’Etats et des gouvernements de l’UA tenu à Kampala, Ouganda, en Juillet 2010 lors d’une réunion conjointe avec la Commission permanente de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales.« Fair Play for Africa » (Franc Jeu pour l’Afrique) portant sur les conclusions du Sommet des chefs d’Etats et de gouvernements de l’Union africaine, l’état de mise en œuvre des engagements d’Abuja et la campagne pour le plan adopté d’application des Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement conjointement avec la Commission permanente de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales.Le Programme Détaillé du Développement Agricole en Afrique portant sur les Femmes et l’Agriculture.
Réseau parlementaire africain sur la santé publique portant sur les résolutions du Sommet de l’union africaine
Le Coordinateur de ce Réseau M. ROTIMI SANKORE a informé la Commission conjointe du Genre et de la Santé, à propos des conclusions du quinzième Sommet des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement de Kampala, en juillet 2010, de l’attention du Sommet portée, pour la première fois, sur la santé de la mère et du nouveau-né. Les chefs d’Etats ont exprimé leur intérêt et leur engagement s’agissant de l’amélioration de la situation en matière de santé dans leurs pays respectifs. Ils ont alors réaffirmé leur engagement quant à la Déclaration d’Abuja, et à la consécration de 15% de leurs budgets nationaux au secteur de la santé.C’est au cours de cette réunion que les trois Commissions permanentes à savoir Santé, Finances et Genre ont décidé d’organiser une rencontre avec les CER (Communautés économiques régionales), les parlements nationaux, pour trouver les voies et les moyens favorables à l’amélioration et à l’accélération des OMD, particulièrement les OMD 4 et 5, qui connaissent un grand retard.Je pense que la suite vous la connaissez, ce sont ces travaux qui ont abouti à la résolution que la plénière a adoptée hier, et c’est l’occasion pour moi de féliciter tous les membres du Parlement et particulièrement le Président et le Bureau du PAP pour leur engagement et leur vigilance qui ont permis l’adoption de cette résolution dans un délai record.L’exposé par Fair Play for Africa avait les mêmes objectifs et comme vous l’avez compris, ce sont toutes ces activités qui nous ont permis d’aboutir aux résultats que j’ai signalés tout à l’heure, à savoir l’adoption d’une politique du Parlement panafricain pour l’amélioration et l’accélération des objectifs de la santé maternelle, néonatale et infantile, comme cela a été fait hier, en plénière. Ce n’est pas nécessaire de revenir sur tout cela.
Exposé sur le programme détaillé du développement de l’agriculture en Afrique sur les femmes et l’agriculture
L’objectif de cette présentation était de mettre l’accent sur les obstacles auxquels les femmes font face dans le secteur de l’agriculture malgré leur apport dans ce secteur. Il s’agit de l’accès à la terre, du manque de ressources. Il s’agit aussi bien des ressources financières que des ressources énergétiques.Ainsi, les parlementaires, que nous sommes tous, les vieux représentants des populations, doivent demander à leur gouvernements de reconnaître les droits des femmes dans les constitutions, d’abolir les pratiques discriminatoires, de consacrer 10% de leurs budgets à l’agriculture, de promouvoir les énergies alternatives et d’harmoniser leurs lois avec les conventions relatives aux droits des femmes.
Réunion des présidents des Commissions des finances/budgets des parlements nationaux avec les membres des Commissions de la Santé, des Finances et du Genre du PAP
Nous avons tenu à prendre en compte cette activité qui s’est déroulée du 1er au 2 octobre 2010. C’est beaucoup plus pour des programmes d’harmonisation de la forme puisque toutes les questions, en tout cas, la majorité des questions abordées dans ce rapport avaient un lien avec ce séminaire que nous avons eu à Sandton. Et, c’est surtout pour des questions de fonds, pour marquer l’importance de cette résolution sur les objectifs des OMD 4 et 5, que nous avons tenu à en faire mention.Sur ce, je vous remercie pour votre aimable attention.Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.(Applaudissements)HON. NGUINI EFFA MARIE-ROSE [CAMEROUN]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je tiens à féliciter Madame la présidente de la Commission genre pour son rapport, dont elle nous a fait l’économie. Je voulais tout simplement insister sur le fait que cette Commission, eu égard à son appellation genre, concerne les hommes et les femmes parlementaires de ce Parlement panafricain.Je voudrais attirer l’attention de nos collègues hommes, afin qu’ils continuent à collaborer et à adhérer à cette Commission, et soutiennent comme ils l’ont démontré hier, les problèmes discutés dans cette Commission. Ce sont des problèmes assez transversaux, qui concernent tout le monde, qui concernent nos parents, nos enfants. Il est important pour tous les membres, ici, de ne pas considérer cette Commission comme une Commission qui concerne uniquement les femmes.C’était l’attention que je voulais attirer, surtout, vis-à-vis de mes collègues hommes.Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.HON. MAKGALEMELE DIKGANG PHILLIP [BOTSWANA]:I thank you Mr. President. I want to start by congratulate the Chairperson for the report that she has just presented before us.Mr. President, I want to acknowledge, right from the onset, the proposals indicated at 5.1 where the Committee in their proposed work plan or in the work plan that is currently being implemented. They have intentions of building capacity on mainstream gender in budgets and the African Union Policies on family, youth and disability. These two activities are very important, especially the issue relating to gender as discussed in this session. There was an emphasis on the need adequate resources being availed in the area of gender.Mr. President, on the same token, I also wish to urge the Committee to consider a workshop for PAP Parliamentarians so that our capacity can be enhanced in the area of gender and equity; especially after my proposal was not accepted on the need to change the Women’s Caucuses into Gender and Equity Caucuses. But I think that through this Committee there is a window for us to participate at a more enhanced level as the men folks.Mr. President, at page 6, the Committee is making a plea to us as Members of Parliament within the overall legislative responsibility which we have. They are simply calling on us to perform certain functions that can help in terms of ensuring that certain policies and relevant legislations are put into place. I wish to associate myself with that and indicate my support.Mr. President, on page 7, the Committee is making some recommendations on women in agriculture. I think that is very important and I am happy that they have referred to the Comprehensive Agricultural Development Programme for Africa, CADP. When you go through that programme, it is quite comprehensive in terms of what needs to be done for us to take this sector forward. Obviously, the fact that many women in our respective countries are involved in agriculture, for me, it is really important that CADP should be supported and I am also happy that they were able to have some interactions with CADP officials.Mr. President, having said that, I have two proposals to make. Obviously, part of the Committee’s responsibility is on youths. Young people in our respective countries are facing various challenges, especially the youths who are out of school. I want to appeal to this House that we do everything possible to appreciate the environment under which the young people live; the plight of young people. In Botswana for example, our Parliament approved a process whereby a thorough study of out of school young people is going to be undertaken. These are some of the concepts that we can look at and see whether there is opportunity for us to replicate them because there are quite a number of out of school young people that needs to be supported.Mr. President, my second proposal is with regards to people living with disabilities. People living with disabilities are faced with various challenges which range from appropriately constructed buildings, etc. But one that worries me is where discriminatory language is used against people living with disabilities. In this context, I wish to propose that the Committee considers partnership with the academia for example, in may be developing a book or a document that guides us on appropriate language that can be used when we referring to people living with disabilities.Mr. President, with those comments, I thank you. (Applause)HON. SESAY MOSES [SIERRA LIONE]:Thank you Mr. President for giving me this opportunity to add my voice to this important debate.The first thing I would like to say here is that the Committee encapsulates the entire essence of the world and of politics. We have gender itself which in fact implies both men and women that comprises the entire world. Then you have a family which is actually the microcosm of world itself; and you have the youths who constitute perhaps a sizeable proportion of the people on earth; and in general, people with disability there on the other side minority. These are the components of the world and therefore, I submit that this Committee is the most important Committee in this organization, and we should treat it with the respect it deserves.Unfortunately, however, it is very often misunderstood and there are very few people who opt to join them and I think we should educate ourselves here that this Committee is as wealth any rather than going into International Relations or Health, and others like that. We can contribute more significantly to the activities of PAP if we join this Committee.Mr. President, next thing I would like to say is that this Committee is one that is for the rural people. If you look at the geography or the components of our constituents all over Africa, the vast majority of them are rural people; and therefore we should focus attention on their activities, especially on agriculture. If we can solve the problems of the rural communities, then all this problems we are talking about in Africa would be solved by large. The problems of transportation, as we know, agriculture especially the stable foods such as rice, water supply, sanitation, etc. These are the areas we have to look at.Most of the activities that occur in African countries are confined almost exclusively in the large cities and towns. This is just a wrong and the mistake. If we wish to solve the problem of Africa, we should start from the rural areas where the majority of the people live and where the majority of the problems emanates. As I have pointed out, the question of agriculture here is paramount; the health of the people in that area is also very paramount. They should have very little access to hospitals and medical care, clean water and sanitation. These are the people we represent and we must work in their interest and make sure that they get the best from our activities.The next group of people involved here in this Committee’s is the disabled people. This is unfortunate connotation because it gives the impression that these people are probably not capable of doing things; but this is the opposite. Most of them are brilliant people, I have come across an "Africa disabled" they are highly intelligent people. I have met about two of such people who are professors of very important subjects. Therefore, these people should not be neglected when they are young; we should have special schools and institute for them so that they would grow up to be very useful members of the community.Mr. President, with these remarks, I thank you. (Applause)HON. MASEBO TEMBO SYLVIA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you Mr. President. I would like to commend the Chairperson of this important Committee for her good report. I have one comment to make on the issue of the Abuja declaration. Mr. President, it concerns the 15 percent commitment by our Heads of state, and I see that at the last meeting of the Heads of state in Kampala, there was a reaffirmation of this 15 percent.My only question to the Chairperson is that, do they have a list of member countries that shows the level of our countries in terms of this 15 percent? If we have that information as Members of PAP, maybe when we get back to our homes we can actually try to push for the attainment of the 15 percent.The other point that I wish to raise relates to the budget of health, vis-à-vis the issue of governance as it relates to the usage of the resources that some of our countries are doing. How are the monies being effectively utilized for the work that they are intended for?I have noticed that sometimes it is not really the matter of money, but how the money is being applied. You will find that in some cases there is no capacity by the relevant ministries to use the resources.The other point related to this issue Mr. President, is the issue of the support that African nations are getting from donors. I keep asking and wondering, when the time comes when these donors stop to finance the health budget, what will happen? I have in mind Mr. President the budget on the ARVs. In most of our countries, we have a lot of women that are on free ARVs, which are supported by donors. And the question is, when these monies stop flowing, what will happen to our people? What steps are our governments or indeed our continent taking in advance to ensure that when the donors pull out our people will not die on account of lack of resources?The other point is on the youths. Indeed we have a challenge in most of our African countries relating to youth employment. But, I know that in some of our countries, there are some innovations that are being put in place. For example in Zambia we have the Youth Empowerment Fund. This is an allocation of resources in the budget, which can be accessed by the youths that are unemployed. But we have a challenge, and the challenge that I find is that most of our youths are failing to access these resources. They are failing to access the resources and the question that I would have on the Committee is; is it possible for them look at how youths can be assisted in terms of coming up with viable projects that may have worked in other sister countries within the continent, which projects can be replicated in our various countries and indeed in our constituencies?Lastly, Mr. President, I just wanted to say that I noticed that the Committee has had a number of very important presentations. I am more interested in the last presentation that they had recently, but I see that they have indicated that they will give us the outcomes of this report later on. Is it possible that before we adjourn, we can get this document?Thank you.HON. LAHAI BERNADETTE [SIERRA LEONE]:Thank you, Mr. President. Indeed this is a very important Committee in Parliament here because it is this Committee whose activities and subject actually has implications for all the other Committees. Therefore I am not surprised that this is a very busy Committee based on the number of activities that they have undertaken, particularly the joint activities, and also the participation in many important regional and continental conferences.Mr. President, I want to thank the Chairperson of this Committee for the work they have done and we want to encourage them to continue because by working for gender, the family, the youth and the disabled, you are actually working for everybody.The issue particularly of the youth is of a very big concern as my senior brother from Sierra Leone said, almost everywhere in the world, the youth are may be in the majority apart from women because even within the population of women, you also have female youth and even among the disabled you also have a good proportion that are youth. Therefore it is important that we pay special attention to them because we have seen that countries that are emerging from war and conflict, because our youths’ energy was not directed to productive uses, at the end of the day they became ready recruits for rebel activities. We know that is true in Uganda and in countries that are undergoing conflict and therefore for us to develop, we need to pay special attention to our youth.In Sierra Leone, we have actually enacted a Youth Commission and we are in the process of filling the various boards and trying to make this Commission work. We have had a lot of support from the Peace Building Front in providing youth employment schemes and a lot of capacity building, particularly for our youths that were involved in the war who still are traumatized and need to be fully integrated into the society.The issue of disability is also very important and I hope this Committee will pay special attention to it. I may be wrong but I do not see much report or activities and on how this issue has been addressed. We know that there is a UN Convection on the Rights of People with Disability and countries have been asked to actually ratify those Conventions. Sierra Leone ratified that Convention last year and as I sit here, we now have a draft Bill in Parliament for us to enact the Peoples with Disability Act because we tend to forget them.I want to congratulate these countries where either in their laws or in their electoral laws, they have made special provision for the youth, like Uganda. I know that there are special seats for the youth and in other countries like Rwanda, there are also special seats for the disabled and the disabled have said that they are the most suited persons to talk for them especially when it comes to national participation. So, I hope that we will encourage various countries to actually enact Disability Bills or if you have not already ratified the UN Convention, may be this Committee can encourage us to do so.Of course the issue of women and agriculture under the CADP has been highlighted here. Under CADP, one of the most important pillars is actually transforming our high percentage of subsistence farmers to become commercialized in their activities and you cannot commercialize if you do not have absolute control over the basis of production particularly land. Women continue to be marginalized when it comes to access and control over land and land is the most important basis for production.In Sierra Leone our Land Policy is such that it is communal and it is vested in the head of the family and because of the situation where most of the heads of the family are men, women find it difficult to access land and that determines whether they will go on for commercial crops for crops that are to be in the international market. We must also integrate women into the international market and we can only do that if they have control over land and over finances and credit. I hope that Sierra Leone very recently has been awarded a champion for the CADP and I hope that with this title we can go further to ensure that women are part and parcel of this important issue.Mr. President, Honorable Members, this is a very important Committee and their work is important and with women, youth and disability now as the - (Interjection )- I do not see any reason why this Committee should not- (Member timed out). (Applause)HON. JARJU BINTANDING [GAMBIA]:Thank you very much Mr. President. I rise as a member of this Committee to add my voice to the debate on the report that was ably presented by the Chairperson. Mr. President, as rightly mentioned by the Chairperson, the joint meetings with the Committees on health level, on social affairs and that of agriculture, rural economy and natural resources were a testimony that gender issues are cross cutting. I hope such interactions will continue because it is only through these interactions that a lot can be achieved together.Mr. President, gender issues are cross cutting and as a Member earlier mentioned that male counterparts could be capacitated in order to understand gender issues. I think he made the right point because gender is seen as a women issue, but it is not the case. Gender is for both male and female. We have been advocating for our male counterparts to join this Committee ever since PAP was established, but I think the effort has been futile. I believe these joint meetings with other Committees will encourage our counterparts to join the Committee in order for the Committee to better perform and better serve our rural people.Mr. President, I would like also to take this opportunity to thank all those presentations made to the Committee. This has given a wider scope for the Committee in order to understand the various activities that these NGOs or other sectors are involved in, especially in conflict areas. Mr. President, I think I would like to thank the Bureau and yourself for availing the Committee to this exposure, and I believe this will be a continuous process because it is only in these interactions that we will become aware of the activities relating to gender that have been taking place around the Continent. Mr. President, I hope these collaborations with the various Committees will grow from strength to strength, otherwise the duplication of efforts will always take place, but if we interact closely, streamlining of gender issues will take place in a better form and we will come to understand gender issues better. That way the issues will be addressed holistically thereby allowing other areas to take off.In conclusion Mr. President, I would like to say that the joint meetings of these various Committees should not only be limited to the gender. The Committees should interact closely, that way, it will make the work of the Committees easy for all because then, if a special Committee has taken up a venture to these joint meetings, all the committees will come to know where to start from so that we are on the same footing. Mr. President, I support the report and I wish to thank you for the opportunity.HON. LAROUSSI HAMMI [ALGERIE]:Je vous remercie, frère Président.Nous venons d’entendre le rapport de la Commission de l’Egalité en Genre qui m’a, dans un paragraphe bien précis, beaucoup touché et en profondeur. Mais, il me semble que cette respectable Commission ne fait pas la différence entre égalité en genre et autres choses.Mon intervention sera brève, Monsieur le Président, chers Collègues, après l’écoute de ce rapport qui m’a profondément blessé, comme je l’ai dit, ce rapport entaché d’un paragraphe que je considère comme celui de la honte. Il s’agit du paragraphe (iii) de la page 3 en français. Il est demandé d’approuver un rapport qui dit: « Dans ce cadre, les gouvernements et les parlementaires sont invités à mener entre autres les actions suivantes: abroger les lois, les politiques et les pratiques qui contribuent à pénaliser des relations homosexuelles ». Et là, je sens que notre respectable Commission confond l’égalité en genre et l’égalité entre un homme qui est un homme et une femme surtout à certains endroits précis. L’égalité en genre n’est pas de transformer l’homme en femme. Mais, c’est une égalité.Vous nous voyez, en tant qu’Africains musulmans ou chrétiens dans cet auguste Assemblée, en train de mener une campagne auprès de nos gouvernements et de nos peuples pour encourager cette pratique ignoble et inqualifiable, contre nature?A l’instar des représentants des autres peuples ici, si mon peuple algérien savait que cet auguste Assemblée parlementaire continentale, à laquelle il attache une très grande importance et qu’il considère comme digne représentant des peuples historiques d’Afrique, œuvre pour la pratique d’actes contre nature, ignoble, et j’ai honte d’en parler; si ce paragraphe de la honte est maintenu, j’aurai honte de prononcer mon appartenance à cette continentale Institution qui fait notre fierté d’Africains. Mais, étant fier d’être au milieu de ma famille qui partage avec moi ma désapprobation au contenu de ce paragraphe indigne, je reste convaincu que ce passage sera rayé de ce rapport, par ailleurs, excellent dans les autres chapitres de son contenu.Ayons un peu de pudeur, s’il vous plaît, pour respecter les cultures authentiques et les croyances profondes des peuples africains qui attendent de nous beaucoup d’autres choses!Nos peuples, nos gouvernements, attendent de nous, de cette Commission, de ce Parlement, qu’on les aide pour la promotion et l’intégration de l’Afrique et non d’écrire noir sur blanc ce qui restera une tâche noire pour cette Assemblée si respectable.Monsieur le Président,Chers Collègues,Je vous en supplie de rayer ce paragraphe de ce rapport, parce que mon cœur et certainement le cœur de la majorité pleure en larmes, et du sang. Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.(Applaudissements)HON. TAMBOURA ASCOFARE OULÉMATOU [MALI]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je voudrais tout d’abord remercier tous les collègues qui ont apprécié le rapport de la Commission, et qui ont aussi apporté beaucoup de contributions, parce qu’il y a beaucoup plus de contributions que de questions.Je voudrais, peut-être, commencer par le dernier intervenant. C’est une question très sensible, mais il n’appartenait pas à la Commission de censurer ce qui avait été dit lors de cette Conférence d’Addis-Abeba. Alors, nous avons voulu le porter à l’appréciation de la plénière, parce que c’est la plénière qui apprécie.Je sais que c’est un débat de société, c’est un problème d’actualité qui touche à l’essence de la culture de tout un chacun. Donc l’appréciation, Monsieur le Président, reviendra à la plénière. C’est à elle de décider s’il faut maintenir ce paragraphe ou pas.Pour ma part, j’ai ma propre appréciation de la situation, mais ce n’était pas cela qui devait apparaître dans notre rapport, surtout qu’on transmettait les conclusions d’une réunion à Addis-Abeba sur la jeunesse.Monsieur le Président,Ceci dit, comme je l’ai évoqué tantôt, ce sont beaucoup plus des contributions. Il y a des propositions également, par rapport aux autres aspects que recouvre la Commission Genre, et je suis d’accord avec mes collègues qui ont évoqué les problèmes de la jeunesse et des personnes handicapées, qui ne ressortent pas de nos activités. Cela est vrai! Mais, je dois dire qu’on avait mis en place une sous-commission jeunesse qui était présidée par l’honorable collègue défunt du Togo; malheureusement, on n’a pas eu le temps de mener des activités sur ces points.Nous acceptons ces remarques qui sont fondées. Ce sont des questions importantes qui relèvent des prérogatives de la Commission, et en rapport avec le Bureau du Parlement. Je pense que nous allons remédier à cela, d’autant plus que, déjà, des propositions de thèmes ont été faites. On va donc y revenir lors de nos prochaines sessions, pour que la Commission puisse jouer pleinement son rôle et couvrir tous les secteurs qui la concernent.La question qui a été posée, assez clairement, vient de l’honorable Sylvia, je pense. Elle voudrait connaître la liste des pays membres qui ont atteint les objectifs concernant l’allocation de 15% au secteur de la santé, relativement à la déclaration d’Abuja. Nous avons les statistiques, je pense que c’est le réseau sur la santé publique qui nous avait donné les éléments. Egalement lors de la réunion du caucus des femmes, on avait donné les statistiques. Le document est là. On pourra lui donner une copie.Par rapport au défi de l’emploi des jeunes, on pose la question de savoir comment soutenir les jeunes pour qu’ils puissent accéder à des projets viables.Je pense que, dans presque tous nos pays, nous sommes confrontés à ce même défi qui est l’emploi des jeunes. Et, d’une manière générale, il y a des structures qui ont été spécifiquement créées pour l’emploi des jeunes et qui prennent en compte la formation, l’allocation des ressources, etc.Je pense, peut-être, que cela relève de notre pouvoir de contrôle en tant que parlementaires, pour que l’Exécutif puisse faire face à ces questions. Il s’agit donc de les interpeller, puisque les structures existent, et les fonds d’emploi existent aussi, afin qu’ils puissent améliorer l’accès des jeunes à l’emploi. Ce sont les plus grands défis auxquels nos pays sont confrontés.Monsieur le Président,Je pense que c’était là les questions posées. Je répète encore qu’il y a eu beaucoup plus de contributions et de propositions, qui suggèrent de prendre en charge l’aspect de la jeunesse et des personnes handicapées, au sein de notre Commission.Encore une fois, je remercie les collègues qui ont contribué à ce débat, et qui ont félicité notre Commission.Je vous remercie.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, Honorable présidente de la Commission.Nous avons eu beaucoup d’apports. Avant de soumettre le rapport de la Commission pour adoption par la chambre, comme j’ai été cité également au paragraphe 4 (iii) qui a fait l’objet de l’intervention de l’honorable Hammi LAROUSSI, je voudrais rassurer la plénière que la présidente de la Commission et la Commission ont fidèlement rapporté le contenu de la réunion d’Addis-Abeba, du 9 au 12 février.Néanmoins, avec votre permission, je propose la formulation suivante à ce paragraphe (iii) de la page, dans la version française: « Abroger les lois, les politiques et les pratiques qui contribuent à la violation des droits fondamentaux humains ». Ainsi, chacun saura la limite de ses droits.Etes-vous d’accord avec cette formulation, Honorables membres?Madame la Présidente de la Commission?HON. ASCOFARE OULEMATOU TAMBOURA [MALI]:Oui, Monsieur le Président! Je suis d’accord avec le libellé.LE PRESIDENT:Bien! Je soumets à la Chambre, pour adoption, le rapport de la Commission ainsi amendé en sa page 3 de la version française.Pas de réaction?(Applaudissements)Je vous remercie.Donc, le rapport amendé en sa page 3, version française est adopté.HON. ASCOFARE OULEMATOU TAMBOURA [MALI]:Monsieur le Président!LE PRÉSIDENT:Oui!HON ASCOFARE OULEMATOU TAMBOURA [MALI]:Juste un autre aspect. C’est par rapport aux membres de la Commission, parce qu’il y a également des collègues qui ont soulevé cet aspect. La Commission est composée de beaucoup plus de femmes. A l’heure actuelle, nous avons un homme, l’honorable député du Togo, que je félicite. Et, je voudrais donc joindre ma voix à celles de mes collègues pour que les hommes puissent rejoindre cette Commission, étant donné qu’il y a eu beaucoup de plaidoyers dans ce sens -là, dans la salle. Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie. Si vous nous acceptez, nous viendrons à votre Commission.(Rires)HON. ASCOFARE OULEMATOU TAMBOURA [MALI]:Le Président doit donner l’exemple.(Rires)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie.Avant de passer à la Commission suivante, je vais donner la parole à l’honorable BONANET pour un point d’information.HON. DIEUDONNE MAURICE BONANET:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président pour votre compréhension. Suite à l’exposé du rapport de la Commission des Transports, de l’Industrie, de la Communication, de l’Energie, des Sciences et de la Technologie, vous avez tiré des conclusions que nous partageons entièrement. J’ai consulté rapidement les membres de la Commission qui étaient dans l’hémicycle et nous avons estimé qu’il était utile que nous fassions les mises au point suivantes:Il faut préciser que, au cours de la réunion de la Commission, au mois d’août, on avait discuté des problèmes de fonctionnement, des problèmes de réalisation du programme de la Commission et on avait demandé au président d’écrire un rapport sur ces questions.C’est ce rapport que le président BOUDINA a rédigé et, avant le début des travaux de la session, il l’a distribué aux membres de la réunion conjointe, à savoir, Bureau du Parlement, bureau des Commissions.Il nous a affirmé que le Président du PAP a donné son accord pour la programmation de ce rapport en plénière.Je voudrais vous dire qu’il y a eu des débats houleux au sein de la Commission -les membres de la Commission sont dans l’hémicycle-, et Monsieur BOUDINA nous a posé le problème de confiance. Il a demandé si nous n’avions pas confiance en ce qu’il a dit. Il a ajouté que le Président du Parlement est d’accord et les membres de la Commission ne le sont pas.C’est sur cette base que ce rapport a été rédigé et la réaction des collègues et du Président du Parlement ne nous a pas surpris.Donc, nous tenions à faire cette mise au point pour lever toutes les équivoques, car nous sommes tous conscients, au sein de la Commission, que le rapport tel qu’il a été proposé ne rentre pas dans nos attributions. C’est pour cela que dans la lecture du rapport, j’ai ajouté « la Commission a produit ce rapport et souhaite le verser au dossier de la Commission d’évaluation administrative et financière du PAP ».Je crois que c’est dans ce cadre que ce rapport devait être soumis. Sinon, au niveau de la Commission, nous avions eu à examiner un rapport introductif sur les questions de communication au niveau du PAP et sur l’opérationnalisation du site web du PAP ainsi que la proposition de mettre sous format CD-Rom l’ensemble des documents qui sont distribués aux membres du PAP. Comme vous le savez, à la fin de la session, on se retrouve avec des kilos de documents qu’on est souvent obligé d’abandonner ici. Cette mise sous format CD-Rom permettrait également de communiquer plus facilement avec les parlements nationaux et régionaux.Voilà donc la mise au point que je voulais faire, au nom des autres membres de la Commission qui sont là, pour clarifier la perception que les uns et les autres ont eue de ce rapport. Sinon, nous partageons entièrement les conclusions du Président du PAP, suite à notre exposé. Je vous remercie.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, honorable BONANET, viceprésident de la Commission des Transports. L’équivoque est levée. Ce rapport a été présenté à la réunion conjointe des membres du Bureau, des présidents des Commissions permanentes et des présidents des Caucus et la décision qui a été prise, c’est de renvoyer ce rapport au Bureau du Parlement panafricain. Voilà, pour votre information et il n’est pas nécessaire de prendre à témoin les présidents des Commissions et les membres du Bureau. Ceci reste dans les minutes de la réunion conjointe. Je vous remercie beaucoup.Ceci dit, j’invite, à présent, l’Honorable Tidjani Ismail SERPOS, Président de la Commission permanente des Règlements, des Privilèges et de la Discipline, à présenter le rapport de sa Commission.
1.3 – Rapport de la Commission permanente des Règlements, des Privilèges et de la Discipline.
HON. TIDJANI-SERPOS ISMAËL [BENIN]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Je voudrais d’abord, d’entrée de jeu, inviter les collègues à corriger en première page qu’il ne s’agit pas du projet de rapport d’activités intérimaire, mais bien du rapport d’activités de la Commission permanente des Règlements.Monsieur le Président,Chers collègues,Depuis la dernière session ordinaire qui s’est tenue du 12 au 20 avril 2010, la Commission permanente des Règlements, des Privilèges et de la Discipline a mené un certain nombre d’activités, dont les plus importantes sont:la réunion de consultation tenue le 10 mai 2010 au siège de la Commission de l’Union africaine à Addis-Abeba, entre une délégation du Parlement panafricain, la Commission de l’Union africaine et le Bureau du Conseiller juridique de l’Union africaine, pour la mise en œuvre de la décision de la 12e Session ordinaire de la Conférence des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement de l’Union africaine sur la révision du Protocole du PAP;la réunion de la Commission des Règlements qui s’est déroulée les 05 et 06 août 2010 au siège du Parlement panafricain;la participation d’une délégation de la Commission des Règlements à l’atelier de validation du Protocole révisé au traité instituant la Com=munauté économique africaine relatif au PAP qui a eu lieu du 10 au 13 août 2010 à Midrand.Ces activités qui s’inscrivent dans le cadre des attributions de la Commission des Règlements, conformément aux dispositions de l’article 26(10) du Règlement intérieur du PAP, s’articulent à titre principal, autour de la préoccupation majeure que constitue la transformation du PAP en un organe doté de pouvoirs législatifs et la révision subséquente du Protocole relatif au PAP.Qu’il s’agisse de la mission réalisée par une délégation de la Commission des Règlements à Addis-Abeba le 10 mai 2010, de la participation du Président de cette Commission au Sommet de l’UA à Kampala ou de la participation d’une délégation de notre Commission à l’atelier de validation du rapport du consultant désigné par la Commission de l’Union africaine pour effectuer l’étude sur la révision du Protocole, tenu à Midrand du 10 au 13 août 2010, l’objectif principal a été d’assurer de façon dynamique et proactive le suivi de la mise en œuvre de la décision de la Conférence des chefs d’Etat de janvier 2009 relative à la révision du Protocole et la transformation du PAP.Outre ce point cardinal de ses activités, la Commission des Règlements a examiné ou évoqué, au cours de ses réunions statutaires, pendant la période sous référence, certains points non moins importants relatifs à son budget au titre de l’exercice 2010, à la question du nouvel organigramme de l’administration du PAP, à la Charte africaine de la statistique, à la question récurrente de non ratification des traités adoptés par l’UA, à la finalisation du code de conduite des membres du Parlement panafricain, au vote des amendements au Règlement intérieur du PAP, toujours en standby faute de quorum, et à la nécessité de la définition d’une politique cohérente, rationnelle et efficace de communication du PAP.
Activités de la Commission relatives au processus de transformation du PAP
J’ai déjà eu à évoquer cette question au début de notre session, dans la communication que j’ai eu à présenter sur les progrès connus par ce processus. Mais, à titre de rappel, je pourrai dire:
1.1 – Réunion de consultation au siège de la Commission de l’Union africaine entre une délégation du Parlement panafricain et la Commission de l’Union africaine
Une réunion s’est tenue, comme je l’ai dit tantôt, le 10 mai 2010, au siège de la Commission de l’Union africaine entre une délégation du Parlement panafricain, le bureau du Conseiller juridique de l’Union africaine et la Commission de l’Union africaine.Lors de cette rencontre, la Commission des Règlements a recueilli des informations sur la mise en œuvre de la décision Assemblée/AU/Dec.223 (XII) en janvier 2009. Les actions de la Commission de l’Union africaine ont porté, entre autres, sur l’élaboration des termes de référence de l’étude sur la révision du Protocole et le recrutement d’un consultant en la personne du Pr. Kofi Kumadu du Ghana.La réunion a convenu de la feuille de route cidessous en vue de mettre en œuvre la décision de la conférence de janvier 2009 sur la révision du Protocole relatif au PAP:a.en principe, le 25 août, le consultant est censé avoir finalisé son étude et sa proposition de révision du Protocole, et l’avoir déposé à la Commission de l’Union africaine;b.du 10 au 13 août, comme je l’avais rappelé, nous avons tenu ici une réunion de consultation sur le projet de Protocole révisé et proposé par le consultant. Nous avons rendu compte des grandes orientations de tout ceci;c.dans un troisième temps, en septembre/octobre - mais en réalité ce sera en début novembre - réunion des experts gouvernementaux des Etats membres (ministre de la justice-gardes des sceaux) du COREP et des autres organes de l’UA, pour se pencher sur la dernière version des propositions du consultant;d.selon notre souhait, janvier/février, prochain Sommet, soumission du projet de révision du Protocole relatif au PAP, aux organes délibérants de l’UA. Du moins, nous l’espérons fortement.Voilà en ce qui concerne ce point.
1.2 – Participation du Président de la Commission des Règlements au dernier Sommet de Kampala.
Cette participation m’a permis, entre autres, en tant que président de cette Commission, de finaliser, avec les structures compétentes de l’UA, l’organisation pratique des progrès à impulser au processus de révision du Protocole. C’est en effet, au cours de ce Sommet, que les modalités pratiques de la tenue à Midrand du 10 au 13 août 2010 de l’atelier de validation des propositions de l’expert, commis par la Commission de l’Union africaine, ont été arrêtées, de concert entre la Commission de l’Union africaine et moi-même.
1.3 – Atelier de validation du Protocole révisé au Traité instituant la Communauté Economique Africaine relatif au PAP.
Monsieur le Président,Vous me permettrez de rappeler brièvement ceci, parce que tous les collègues n’étaient pas à la séance consacrée à cette question. Sinon, nous aurions zappé là-dessus pour aller directement au point suivant.Cet atelier s’est déroulé du 10 au 13 août 2010 au siège du Parlement panafricain à Midrand. La délégation de la Commission des Règlements a été représentée par les membres de son bureau, appuyée par l’honorable Mahlangu Mnimwa de l’Afrique du Sud et du consultant de la Commission des Règlements, le Professeur Larba Yarga.Les conclusions de cet atelier ont été abondamment relayées dans le rapport que j’avais présenté dans le point de l’ordre du jour de la présente session relatif aux progrès réalisés par le processus de révision du Protocole, et qui peuvent être synthétisées comme suit:Convergence de vues du consultant avec le PAP sur le mode de désignation des futurs membres du PAP, sur le nombre de parlementaires par pays et sur l’égale chance de représentation accordée aux deux sexes;Accord sur le principe de doter le PAP de pouvoirs législatifs dans certains domaines, mais désaccord sur les domaines concernés et sur les organes détenteurs de l’initiative législative;Désaccord sur le rôle d’organe de ratification des traités de l’UA que pourrait jouer le PAP;Désaccord sur le pouvoir du PAP en matière de vote du budget de l’UA, etc.A défaut d’une étude exhaustive préalable en Commission, au cours de sa réunion du mois d’août, du rapport de l’expert commis par l’UA, faute de traduction dans toutes les langues de travail du PAP, la délégation de notre Commission a tout de même déposé des observations écrites sur le document du consultant, avec la ferme conviction que les arguments qui y sont développés l’amèneront à approfondir son travail qui, soit dit en passant, s’est appuyé fortement sur la contribution du PAP.Suite aux travaux de cet atelier auxquels ont pris part, outre la Commission de l’Union africaine et le PAP, des personnes ressources provenant des diverses communautés régionales d’Afrique et autres experts, rendez-vous a été pris pour début novembre 2010, probablement entre le 05 et le 10, toujours en Afrique du Sud, pour la validation du dernier état de la proposition de révision du texte qui doit être revue, suite aux observations recueillies lors de l’atelier tenue du 10 au 13 août 2010.
1.4 – Rencontres régionales de consultation sur le processus de transformation du PAP et la ratification de la Charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance.
Au cours des mois de juillet et de septembre 2010, le président, le vice-président et d’autres membres de la Commission des Règlements ont eu à participer à trois réunions régionales de consultation sur le processus de transformation du Parlement panafricain et la ratification de la Charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance.Ces rencontres, organisées par le PAP, ont eu lieu respectivement à Kampala, en Ouganda, pour la région de l’Afrique de l’est, à N’Djamena, au Tchad, pour l’Afrique du centre et à Victoria Falls, au Zimbabwe, pour l’Afrique australe. Elles avaient pour objectif de sensibiliser les gouvernements, les parlements nationaux et régionaux sur la nécessité de soutenir le processus de la transformation du PAP et d’accélérer la ratification de la Charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance.Au cours de ces différentes rencontres, les représentants de la Commission des Règlements ont procédé à une présentation du processus enclenché, en vue de la transformation du PAP en un organe doté de pouvoirs législatifs, et fait un plaidoyer pour son aboutissement d’ici la prochaine session ordinaire de la Conférence des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement de l’UA.
AUTRES ACTIVITES DE LA COMMISSION DES REGLEMENTS
La Commission permanente des Règlements, des Privilèges et de la Discipline, a examiné, entre autres sujets inscrits à l’ordre du jour de ses rencontres, les comptes rendus de ses réunions précédentes, son projet de budget au titre de l’exercice 2011, la structuration administrative du PAP, la Charte africaine de la statistique.
(i) – Examen et adoption du budget 2011 de la Commission des Règlements
Outre l’adoption des procès-verbaux de ses réunions précédentes, la Commission a examiné son projet de budget, exercice 2011, estimé à 285,000 dollars US. Au cours de l’examen de ce budget, les membres de la Commission ont fait observer qu’il est nécessaire de reformuler les titres des activités prévues dans ce budget, afin de faciliter leur financement par les partenaires du PAP.De même, les dates proposées pour la mise en œuvre de ces activités doivent être fixées en fonction de celles prévues pour l’adoption du Protocole révisé par la Conférence des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement en janvier 2011, afin de prendre en compte les activités prévues en vue du plaidoyer qui devra être fait pour la ratification diligente du nouveau Protocole.
(ii) – Nouvel organigramme de l’administration du PAP
S’agissant de l’examen de la nouvelle structure administrative du PAP, la Commission n’a pas pu aborder le sujet, en raison de l’indisponibilité du rapport dans toutes les langues de travail du PAP. L’examen de ce dossier a donc été renvoyé à la prochaine réunion de la Commission.Il est à préciser que la nécessité de doter le PAP d’un nouvel organigramme résulte de la décision du Conseil exécutif de janvier 2009.A l’issue des deux jours de réunion qu’elle a eue, la Commission a déploré l’incapacité de l’administration du PAP à résoudre la question de la disponibilité des documents de travail. Cette situation a considérablement affecté le bon déroulement des travaux, qui ont été peu fructueux, situation fortement déplorée par rapport au gaspillage de temps et de ressources, surtout lorsqu’on sait que les parlements nationaux investissent d’importants fonds pour assurer la participation de leurs représentants aux travaux du PAP.
(iii) – Charte Africaine de la Statistique-
point que nous avons trouvé inscrit à notre ordre du jour.Elle a été présentée à la Commission par M. Dossina Yeo, fonctionnaire de la Commission de l’Union africaine.Selon le présentateur, l’adoption de cette Charte par la 12e Conférence des chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement le 03 février 2009 répond à la volonté des chefs d’Etat d’accélérer le processus d’intégration du continent africain qui recommande l’utilisation de données statistiques harmonisées et fiables dans tous les domaines d’activités de la vie politique, socioéconomique et culturelle.Elle a pour objectifs, entre autres, de:servir de cadre d’orientation pour le développement de la statistique en Afrique;contribuer à l’amélioration de la qualité des données statistiques;renforcer la coordination des activités des institutions statistiques en Afrique;renforcer les capacités institutionnelles des structures en charge de la gestion des statistiques au plan national, régional et continental;promouvoir le respect des principes fondamentaux de la statistique publique en Afrique, et la prise de décisions politiques basées sur les faits.Au regard de ce qui précède, il importe que les Etats parties à cette Charte, prennent des mesures appropriées pour l’harmoniser avec leurs législations nationales.Selon le communicateur, le Parlement panafricain a un rôle de premier plan à jouer, en vue de la ratification de cette Charte par tous les Etats membres. Pour y parvenir, le PAP doit mener une action concertée avec la Commission de l’Union africaine.La question du respect du principe de la protection des données individuelles et des sources d’information par les Etats et celle relative à la ratification des instruments juridiques de l’UA, en souffrance au niveau des Etats membres, ont préoccupé les membres de la Commission au cours des discussions, et ils ont suggéré que le PAP, en plus des actions de sensibilisation qu’il mène actuellement au sujet de la ratification des instruments juridiques adoptés par l’UA, élabore un mémorandum bien documenté sur la question des ratifications, et en assure la large diffusion en direction des parlements et des gouvernements du continent, ainsi que de tous les organes de l’UA.Les statistiques ne sont pas dans le domaine de notre Commission, mais je crois que le sujet était de nous sensibiliser sur la nécessité de procéder à la ratification de cet instrument très important. Nous en avons pris acte, et c’est sur cette base que nous avons formulé cette recommandation, tendant à élaborer un mémorandum bien documenté sur la question des ratifications, afin qu’une large diffusion y soit assurée et s’inscrive dans le cadre de la sensibilisation déjà engagée par notre Parlement.
RECOMMANDATIONS
A l’issue de la dernière réunion de la Commission, les participants ont formulé une recommandation visant à définir une politique de communication pouvant faciliter la visibilité des activités du PAP, aussi bien à l’intérieur qu’à l’extérieur du continent.La Commission a demandé également que l’étude commandée à un consultant sur le code de conduite des membres du Parlement panafricain, en application de l’article 13 du Règlement intérieur du PAP, soit promptement finalisée et soumise à la Commission des Règlements, en vue de son examen et de son adoption par la plénière du PAP.Enfin, la Commission des Règlements a suggéré que le Bureau du PAP prenne les dispositions utiles, afin que les amendements au Règlement intérieur du PAP, consécutifs aux décisions de la Conférence des chefs d’Etat de février 2009, en souffrance au PAP faute de quorum, soient utilement programmés.Je crois que nous avons été entendus par le Bureau. Mais, malgré les dispositions qui ont été prises, ces propositions d’amendement sont toujours là, faute de quorum, ce que nous avons vécu encore au cours de cette session.Telle est, Monsieur le Président et chers collègues, la substance du présent rapport que la Commission des Règlements soumet à votre haute et éclairée attention.Je vous remercie.(Applaudissements)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, Honorable TIDJANI ISMAËL SERPOS, président de la Commission permanente des Règlements, des Privilèges et de la Discipline.J’ai devant moi une liste de 12 orateurs, je vais commencer par l’Honorable GITOBU IMANYARA qui est le rapporteur de la Commission des Règlements, des Privilèges et de la Discipline.HON. GITOBU IMANYARA [KENYA]:Thank you Mr. President for this opportunity, firstly, to support the report that has just been read by my Chairperson and secondly to commend the leadership of Honorable Serpos, the Chairperson of that Committee and the contributions that he has been making towards getting the Rules and the other documents of the Pan African Parliament brought up to date and in fact for his work generally as a Chairperson of that Committee.Mr. President, the reason I sought to speak is that you may recall the Chairman on the English version page 4, talked about the meeting that is set for November 5, I just want to inform Members that indeed an invitation has been since sent out for the validation workshop to take place here in Midrand on 14th of November, so, it is not on 5th because I have received that communication and I thought it is important Mr. President that Members do be updated on that issue.Finally Mr. President, I just want to underscore the point that the Chairman made in the report that some of our sittings, we were unable to proceed to make any meaningful contributions to the debate because of absence of working documents, particularly when we were dealing with the consultant’s report and this of course undermines the work not only the Committee but other institutions and also reflects badly on our own national governments that fund the attendance of these meetings. Therefore, Mr. President, I think it is important that while adopting this report, we do emphasize the need for working documents in the official languages of the PAP.Thank you Mr. President. (Applause)HON. CHARUMBIRA FORTUNE [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Mr. President. I will try to be brief. I will also join the previous speaker in thanking Honorable Serpos for the dedication and commitment, energy and enthusiasm he has put in this work on the transformation of PAP and the review of the Protocol. I have two issues.One is that as Members, we have never seen this consultant’s report. We do have the confidence in the Committee but I think it is procedural that there should be a copy of what the consultants have been saying so that we make a meaningful input also. Because of may be financial constraints, it would have been proper that once these evaluation workshops and meetings in November are done, the very final document that goes to the AU is also finally had an input from all the Members. The final document is one which they have passed through the Chamber so that we own it together because when you leave and no meetings is take place there is going to be a bit of amendments may be here and there but unfortunately may be because of financial constraints it will not happen like that, which is not the best way to proceed.The last one is the issue of the inability for the House or the Chamber to adopt Rules of Procedure because of lack of quorum. I want to endorse the idea that in the event, this does not happen this time round, when we convene next time for plenary, can we schedule such business for the first two days when the House is still full so that we at least dispose of those pending issues.Thank you Mr. President. (Applause)HON. ALORAFY MOHAMED GEBRIL [LIBYA:شكرا شكرا،أنا أشكر وأحيي اللجنة على هذه الجهود التي بذلتها. وأشكر السيد التيجاني على قيادته لهذه اللجنة بكفاءة.أنا فيما يخص تعديل البروتوكول المؤسس للبرلمان اإلفريقي، لقد الحظت أن السيد الخبير. هل توجد ترجمة؟ هل توجد ترجمة؟ أعود وأبدأ من جديد؟ }الرئيس: نعم انتظر قليال{ بسم هللا } English is fine, French O.K. بعد ليس: الرئيس} }الرئيس: تفضل}شكرا،بدأت بتحية اللجنة على الجهود المبذولة، وبتحية السيد التيجاني على قيادته لها بكفاءة. ولكن اطلعت، قبل يومين، على موضوع يتعلق بتقرير الخبير الذي وظفه اإلتحاد اإلفريقي، لمراجعة بروتوكول البرلمان، وتحويله إلى جهاز تشريعي. فأنا أعتقد أنه، من وجهة نظري، لم يقدم شيئا.فمثال فيما يخص التصديق على البروتوكوالت واالتفاقيات الصادرة عن قمة اإلتحاد اإلفريقي أو عن المؤتمر العام لإلتحاد اإلفريقي، كل ما في األمر هو أننا أعطينا صالحية استشارية أو، بالعكس، وظفنا حلقة جديدة زائدة. ولكن القرار النهائي سيعود، إلى البرلمانات الوطنية، في التصديق على االتفاقيات الخاصة باإلتحاد اإلفريقي.إذن حقيقة الصيغة المعروضة اآلن، من السيد الخبير، ليست الصيغة التي نحلم بها. نحن برلمان، وفقا للبروتوكول المؤسس له، وهو برلمان تشريعي ورقابي. ولكن مؤقتا، لمدة خمس سنوات، يتولى كجسم استشاري. ولكن اآلن رضينا بمرحلة انتقالية أو بخطوة إلى األمام. وهي، على األقل، التصديق على اإلتفاقيات التي تقرها القمة والقضايا العامة الخاصة بالتعليم وبالهجرة والخاصة بـ.... ولكن بالصياغة، التي هي مطروحة اآلن، من السيد الخبير.هذا بالدرجة األولى، فيما يخص التصديق على اإلتفاقيات، أضفنا حلقة جديدة استشارية ولكن الكلمة النهائية ستكون للبرلمانات.أرجو من األخ رئيس اللجنة أن يوضح لنا هذه النقطة وشكرا.HON. SESAY MOSES [SIERRA LEONE]:Thank you Mr. President. I would like to add by voice to this because I am also a member of this committee. I know that my chairman, honourable Serpos has been working very hard and diligently to submit this report. He has done so much hard work that some time he gets very tired I can see it in his eyes. The fact of the matter is that the constitutive act of 2000 that eventually created this PAP, has constrained us to such an extent that it is very difficult for my Committee, the rules Committee to do very much regarding the changes that we are looking forward to. We are aware as the last speaker just said; that in fact this Parliament is a Parliament, and one of the acts of Parliament is the legislative ability. If we are denied that then in fact it is not a Parliament. So, I would implore all members here to work very hard through your own local legislatures to make sure that we try and push the Heads of State as much as possible, to allow us to have legislative power. Unless we have that, we will just be in talking show here, and we won’t be doing very much at all. I very much appreciate what the chairman has just presented that he is pushing very hard towards this end and we should all join him.Fortunately in the next couple of days, there is an opportunity for some members here to meet with the important members of the AU, certain Committees and significant membership of those Committees in the AU. This is the opportunity the members will have to discuss in detail these issues that we are bringing out here and we will do that in no uncertain terms. We are looking forward to the next two days and we hope that a lot of us who are participating in these deliberations will voice out vociferously what we have been saying here. Thank you Mr. President.HON. JATTA SIDIA S. [GAMBIA]:Mr. President, thank you. I am sorry that I was not in when you called I was doing some work with the other Committee.I will begin by thanking the Chairperson of the Permanent Committee on Rules for their dedication to work and for the informative nature of report that we have before us in this Assembly.I want to comment on only two aspects. The first is the issue of Code of Conduct for Members of this Parliament. Taking into consideration of what they have said about the conduct of Members in this Assembly, yesterday and day before yesterday, I think it is absolutely necessary that this Code of Conduct is finalized as soon as possible and made available to the Committee for consideration.Secondly, I join Honorable Chief Charumbira in saying that I think it would be very worthy if the Report of the Consultant is made available to Members of this Parliament for consideration.Thank you very much. (Applause)HON. MASEBO TEMBO SYLVIA [ZAMBIA]:Mr. President, I want to join others in commending this Committee for the very good work. Clearly, from the Report you can tell that the chairperson and members of this Committee are indeed committed to their work. I would like to congratulate them and urge them to keep it up.I have two comments to make. The first relates to the review of the protocol and the final transformation of PAP into a full legislative body. I make this comment considering the differences that have been alluded to in the report between the PAP and the consultant, which are still outstanding. I also take note of the meeting which would be taking place on the 14th of November. I am thinking that we may not as a House be given the opportunity to go through the final report before it goes to the AU. My question therefore is, should we therefore, not be considering giving the Committee the full mandate to adopt the document if it is not possible for us to do so as a full house before it goes to the AU. If that be the case, I would like also to say that I personally think that if we indeed want the legislative function to be given to us in January 2011 when the Heads of States meet, we need to agree that we cannot expect to get full legislative powers in all the areas that we are looking for; and I would like to say what I said earlier that we need to start slowly. Maybe what is important is to get full legislative powers, but we have to accept the areas of the powers that we want to exercise in terms of legislative function. This is because if we ask for too much, I have a feeling that the Heads of State may not ratify our requests. So, I think that we should move step by step.The next issue I want to talk on is on the issue of working documents. This is a very serious issue that I would like to appeal to the President and the Bureau to look at. Indeed, it makes work very difficult if working documents are not in place.Finally, I want to comment on the recommendation of the Committee and I want to support the recommendation, which states that PAP should draw up a properly documented memorandum on the question of ratifications and ensure its wide distribution thereafter.Thank you very much.HON. SUAD EL FATEH AL-BADAWI [SUDAN]:Mr. President, small note, I put my name to discuss the Committee on Gender and I have very important proposals. I was very concerned about this Committee because I think it is the most important Committee in PAP, but I did not get the chance unfortunately. Thank you.HON. MOISERAELE MASTER GOYA [BOTSWANA]:Mr. President, thank you very much for giving me the floor. As this marks the last day of our sitting for this session, allow me to commend you and the entire members of the Bureau, and indeed the Secretariat for a very fruitful and vibrant session. To me, this is by far the best session in comparison to the May one. You need to be commended and applauded for the work well done.My comments pertain to all the reports of the Committees and I crave for your indulgence to allow me to make that comment because it cuts across all the Committees.The reports are indeed comprehensive and weighty in terms of the activities that have been carried out by the Committees despite being subjected to statutory sittings only. I suggest that in future, all the Committees should attach a sheet at the end of their report showing all the activities that they are supposed to carry out, the name of the person assigned to carry out that action item and the target date when the action item is supposed to be completed. I think that kind of information will assist members of Parliament to see the activities the different Committees are carrying out or are intending to carry out.I want to associate myself with the recommendation of the Committee on the issue of lack of quorum in this House. I think the Bureau and indeed the entire members of this Parliament need to see how this issue could be nipped in the bud. I believe that it has very serious repercussions on the operations of this House. Therefore, we need to make sure that we find ways of sorting out this issue as a matter of urgency; otherwise, if nothing is done soon, it would affect the operations of this Parliament.There are some things which happen in this House that have caught my eye. I think the Rules Committee should see to it that some of these things are nipped in the bud. Take for instance, I have realised that when the President comes into the Chamber every morning, there is that respect given to him and the entire Bureau as contained in our rules, in terms of standing up and allowing the President to move to his chair. But when the House adjourns, and the President is walking out, you will see even those who are seated in the gallery rushing out of the House before the President moves out of the Chamber. I think something needs to be done to make sure that this does not continue. Even some members of Parliament walk in front of the President and the Bureau when they are walking out of the chamber. I think this thing needs to be nipped in the bud. I believe it is the responsibility of the Rules Committee to do something about it. If we need to come out with a disciplinary Committee as an Ad Hoc Committee from the Rules Committee, we need to do that so that members and visitors in the gallery will not give this sign of disrespect to our President and the Bureau; and if this happens, action must be taken against the culprits.I rest my case, and I thank you very much.HON. KASINGO L. LOIDE [NAMIBIA]:Thank you Mr. President for giving me the Floor. Allow me to join others in thanking the Chairperson of this Committee for the commitment and seriousness he has shown since he was elected as the Chairperson of this Committee. Notwithstanding the importance of the other Committees of the PAP, to me this Committee is the heart of PAP. It is so important that when it collapses the whole of PAP collapses. When PAP for example is in a crisis, this is the Committee which is supposed to come up quickly with the strategy to rescue the situation. Yes, I take note that they try but I urge that they must try to do more.With that, allow me to comment on two issues that is the Communication Policy which is contained in the recommendation of the report. Yes, I do agree that we need such a policy as soon as possible. PAP is not known. For example in this country of South Africa, the host country, we are not known. I say that because I find out for example at the shops and in the hotel where we are, you introduce yourself as a Member of PAP and the people ask, "Who is PAP? Are you coming to the conference of His Excellency, Mbeki’s Foundation?" People do not know us.Against this background, we do not need to wait for that Communication Policy to come up. We can start right away. For example, every year when we start, we can, with the assistance of the South African Government, they can select some few scholars or students and then during the opening session the students can come and seehow we operate. Through that we will sell ourselves to the young generation. It is very important. We should start as soon as possible. This plea is not only aimed at this Committee but also at your Excellency, the President, the Administration and the Clerk, they can just implement this as soon as possible.I also support the others when they said that the Code of Conduct should come as soon as possible because it is through policy that will give us the flesh to talk about good governance and transparency.With these few comments, Sir, I support the report. (Applause)HON. PETER HITJITEVI KATJAVIVI [NAMIBIA]:Mr. President, I wish to associate myself with the Chairman of our Committee for this important report. I also appreciate the work that has been done by this Committee. While I do so I am equally sharing the concern expressed by our Chairperson with specific reference to issues relating to the question of lack of quorum as well as the disappointment expressed over the non availability of working documents.Mr. President, I have taken note as a new comer the fact that the question of lack of funding of the work of most of the PAP’s Standing Committees cut across all the Committees and it is an issue of great concern to the work of the various Committees. I wonder therefore whether it would not be wise to seek collective approach to this important matter. I will leave that in the hands of the President and the Bureau to look into.Mr. President, on page 6, the Chairperson of our Committee in the report suggested that and I quote "PAP should draw up a well documented memorandum on the question of ratifications and ensure its wide distribution to Parliaments and governments of the Continent as well as the whole organs of the African Union". This sounds good. Such document if careful crafted could help us at the National Level, to make a well coordinated case in favor of ratifications.On the whole, Mr. President, I fully support our report and I thank you. (Applause)HON. MAKGALEMELE DIKGANG PHILLIP [BOTSWANA]:I thank you, Mr. President. I wish to start by thanking the chairperson of the Committee and the Committee members for the work that has been done and for a well documented report.Mr. President, just like my colleagues who spoke on the issue of the code of conduct, I want to support their line of thinking and urge that the code of conduct be finalized as soon as possible with the aim of presenting it at the next session of this Parliament. Mr. President there are quite a number of disturbing case studies that dictate that a code of conduct be put in place: issues relating to dress code, issues relating to attendance and general management of business of this House. I am a new Member of Parliament in Botswana and at times when I compare certain procedures that we follow at our Parliament with the Pan-African Parliament, I really feel that what we are practicing in Botswana is far much better than what we are observing here. I think that is not good at all for the Pan-African Parliament.Mr. President, I do support that we have a document on ratifications, but I want to ask the Committee maybe to expand on their thinking. I am trying to understand whether they are looking at a document that we can use to lobby our respective Parliaments or maybe the processes that we can follow in order for us to convince our respective Parliaments? I wish that in their response, the chairperson could just add more meat to that line of thinking.Mr. President, I also want the Committee to answer or to provide more information on their budget, whether the budget as proposed on page 5 was actually approved because the statement is not explicit.I also want to find out from the Committee, if there are any activities that were undertaken in relation to the privileges component of their responsibility. I could have missed it in the report Mr. President, but if they could highlight if there has been some work that has been done in that area.Mr. President, I have two general comments on the business of Permanent Committees in general. Mr. President, I think consideration should be given to ensuring that the reports of Committees are presented maybe during the first week of the sitting of our sessions because I think the reports from the respective Committees are key to the business of this Committee to a point that we need the report so that as we debate other reports and presentations, we already know where we are in terms of our business as PAP.And then finally, Mr. President, I just want to appreciate the justification for having certain Permanent Committees presenting and certain Permanent Committees not presenting. For example, I am a member of the Committee on Trade, Customs and Immigration and during the last session we did not present and even now we are not presenting, yet there has been some work that has been done, which I believe that members of this Committee needed to appreciate.Mr. President, with those few words, I once again want to congratulate the Committee and I thank you for this opportunity.HON. FARHAT LUTFI MOHAMED [LIBYA]:شكرا سيدي الرئيس على إعطائي الكلمة.أريد أن أتدخل، فيما يتعلق بما قدم إلينا، بشأن مراجعة بروتوكول البرلمان اإلفريقي. أريد أن أذكر الجميع بأننا قمنا، في البرلمان اإلفريقي، بمراجعة هذا البروتوكول وتقديمه إلى األجهزة ذات اإلختصاص. وقد أكدنا على ست نقاط نراها، كبرلمانيين، ضرورية لعمل البرلمان اإلفريقي وتحوله.النقطة األولى: تتعلق بتفويض البرلمان باختصاصاته التشريعية، وكما رأيت من خالل ما ورد إلينا من تقارير، هذه النقطة محل خالف خاصة بيننا وبين المستشار القانوني الذي عينته مفوضية اإلتحاد. وإن كان هناك، من الناحية المبدئية، رغبة في تفويضنا بالمصادقة على اإلتفاقيات التي يمكن أن تعقد من خالل اإلتحاد اإلفريقي. وأيضا مراجعة وتوحيد القوانين في اإلتحاد اإلفريقي. وهي نقطة نحتاج إلى مناقشتها، بجدية، مع المستشار اإلفريقي وتأكيد دور البرلمان في هذا الشأن.النقطة الثانية: طريقة انتخاب أعضاء البرلمان وعددهم وتوزيعهم بين الجنسين وهي، كما رأيت من خالل التقارير، ليست محل خالف كبير.النقطة الثالثة: وهي مدة والية البرلمان واألجهزة التابعة له. وهي أيضا ليست محل خالف كبير بيننا وبين المستشار القانوني.النقطة الرابعة: وهي ميزانية اإلتحاد اإلفريقي وميزانية البرلمان اإلفريقي. وإن كنا قد أعطينا اإلختصاص، في البروتوكول السابق، لمناقشة ميزانيتنا وميزانية اإلتحاد اإلفريقي، إال أن هذه النقطة ما زالت معلقة. ولذلك يجب أن نؤكد، في البروتوكول الجديد الذي نحن بصدد مراجعته، على ضرورة وأهمية تقديم ميزانية اإلتحاد اإلفريقي للبرلمان، لمراجعتها والمصادقة عليها، قبل تقديمها إلى مؤتمر الرؤساء. هذه نقطة مهمة جدا جدا.النقطة الخامسة: وهي وضع نفقات ومخصصات البرلمانيين، حسب نص المادة العاشرة (10 )وهي موجودة في البروتوكول القديم، ولكن يجب أن نؤكد عليها وقد أكدنا عليها، من خالل دوراتنا السابقة، وهي وضع نفقات ومخصصات البرلمانيين، ضمن ميزانية اإلتحاد اإلفريقي، حتى يتمكن البرلمان من دفعها للبرلمانيين وحتى تكون هناك مساواة في المعاملة. ألنه، في الوقت الحاضر، ليست هناك مساواة في المعاملة بين البرلمانيين. هناك برلمانات تدفع مبالغا معقولة وهناك برلمانات تدفع مبالغا زهيدة جدا ال تغطي نفقات البرلمانيين. وإذا ظل الوضع على ما هو عليه، فإن وضع البرلمانيين يكون فعال مهددا، من الناحية األمنية ومن ناحية المشاركة، وبالتالي فهذه النقطة ضرورية بحيث تكون واضحة، في البروتوكول، وأن تكون المخصصات موضوعة، في ميزانية البرلمان، حتى يتمكن البرلمانيون من المشاركة الفعالة في نشاطات ومداوالت البرلمان.النقطة السادسة: وهي مراعاة الطبيعة الخاصة للبرلمان واستقالليته عن األجهزة األخرى. يعامل البرلمان، في الوقت الحاضر، كإدارة وأؤكد على ذلك: يعامل كإدارة من إدارات اإلتحاد اإلفريقي وليس كجهاز مستقل. الوضع اآلن هو أننا نحن تحت رحمة اللجنة الدائمة وتحت رحمة الجهاز التنفيذي، وليس لنا أي دور في اتخاذ أي إجراء وفي اتخاذ أي قرار يمكن أن يؤثر، بشكل فعال، على نشاط البرلمان.نريد أن يتغير هذا الوضع. البرلمان إذا أريد له أن يكون برلمانا فعاال تشريعيا، يجب أن يتغير هذا الوضع وإال يسير وفقا لمنظمة الوحدة اإلفريقية. اآلن الوضع هو تماما مثل منظمة الوحدة اإلفريقية، ليس برلمانا، البرلمان وجد اآلن بشكل شكلي فقط، له دور شكلي ال أهمية له حتى توصياته وقراراته ال يلتفت إليها.وبالتالي، هذا الوضع ينبغي أن يتغير حتى يكون البرلمان برلمانا فعاال قادرا على اتخاذ القرارات، التي تؤثر في مسار النهضة والتقدم والحركة في إفريقيا وتعزيز الديمقراطية.شكرا سيدي الرئيس.HON. TIDJANI-SERPOS ISMAËL [BENIN]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Vous l’avez déjà dit, la plupart des intervenants ont encouragé la Commission à continuer à suivre de très près l’évolution de ce dossier, afin que les visions du PAP soient prises en compte dans le processus de révision et de transformation du PAP.Mais, je me dois aussi, Monsieur le Président, de rappeler que le contenu de la décision 223 prise par les chefs d’Etats, en 2009, est libellé approximativement de la manière suivante: Essayer de faire une étude en tenant compte des vues du PAP et faire une proposition de révision du Protocole en tenant compte des visions du PAP.De façon proactive, le PAP, depuis 2006, a actionné la Commission des Règlements et celleci a mis en place un groupe de travail qui a finalisé un travail ayant conduit d’abord à l’autoévaluation du PAP suivi maintenant de notre propre contribution à la révision du protocole. Nous avons adopté ce document en novembre 2009. Ce document a été communiqué à la Commission de l’Union africaine. Et, le consultant qu’ils ont désigné là-bas pour faire l’étude, celui que les chefs d’Etats ont recommandé, s’est appuyé sur l’essentiel. Il a pris en compte notre contribution, notre rapport d’autoévaluation et notre proposition de contribution à la révision du Protocole. Mais, il y a des points sur lesquels nous divergeons.Les collègues ont demandé à prendre connaissance du rapport du consultant et ils ont raison. Donc, je me suis rapproché de l’administration du PAP pour faire en sorte qu’on balance cela dans les boîtes de tous les collègues.Le rapport n’existe pourtant pas dans toutes les langues. Il n’existe, aujourd’hui, au PAP qu’en français et en anglais. Je pense que le PAP peut prendre sur lui l’engagement de faire le reste de la traduction et de balancer cela dans les boîtes de tous les collègues pour qu’ils soient au même niveau d’information que nous, parce que les résumés que nous faisons, dans nos rapports, ne peuvent pas rendre compte, totalement, de ce que le consultant a mis dans son rapport.Les points sur lesquelles nous sommes tombés d’accord pour l’essentiel, c’est quand il s’est inspiré de notre contribution pour faire le travail. J’ai fait un travail pendant notre session, c’est pour cela que je n’étais pas souvent présent en plénière. J’étais assis dans mon bureau et j’ai soumis ce travail au Président. Je crois qu’il a approuvé et nous allons commencer par l’exploiter lors de notre rencontre avec le COREP. C’est un tableau comparatif entre ce que nous avons proposé et ce que le consultant a proposé. Ceci est précédé d’un rapport qui traduit les différentes étapes que nous avons parcourues. Nous avons voulu l’exploiter en premier lieu au niveau du COREP. Toutefois, j’ai suggéré également qu’on balance cela dans les boîtes électroniques de tous les collègues.Pour ceux qui auront le privilège de participer au colloque, ils vont l’exploiter là-bas mais, pour ceux qui n’auront pas ce privilège, ils devront tous se transformer en combattants de cette cause et en faire la sensibilisation au niveau de leurs différents Etats, pour que nous ayons beaucoup de gens qui contribuent à appuyer les points de vue du PAP.Alors, s’agissant de ceux qui ont demandé le rapport du consultant, je prends la plénière à témoin, encore une fois, en sollicitant de l’administration qu’on mette cela dans les différentes boîtes électroniques de tous les collègues. Cette cause n’est pas seulement celle de la Commission des Règlements, c’est une cause commune à l’ensemble des parlementaires. Ils doivent pratiquement, en temps réel, être informés de l’évolution de ce dossier.S’agissant de la question du quorum, je crois que la plus belle femme ne peut donner que ce qu’elle a. Je ne sais pas ce que le Bureau peut faire par rapport à cela, c’est nous-mêmes qui devons mieux sensibiliser. Chaque délégation, chaque caucus, doit sensibiliser les membres de ce réseau pour que nous soyons là et que cette question soit inscrite comme cela a été le cas, cette fois-ci, en début de session, ou qu’elle soit inscrite en permanence.Au moment où nous verrons que le quorum est atteint, nous mettrons cela en priorité à l’ordre du jour, et cela sera réglé; surtout la question concernant les amendements du Règlement intérieur. A chaque fois que nous avons l’occasion de joindre Addis-Abeba, on dit: « Mais, la décision qui a été prise en 2009! Vous avez exécuté pas mal de décisions, vous avez changé de Bureau, vous avez défini la durée du mandat du Bureau, et cela fait maintenant 3 ans que la question de la mise en conformité de votre Règlement intérieur est là. » Je dis: « Mais, écoutez! En ce qui concerne la Commission des Règlements et même pour ce qui est de la volonté de beaucoup de collègues, ce travail est achevé. Cependant, le texte dit - c’est l’article 92 du Règlement intérieur - qu’il faut les 2/3 de l’ensemble des parlementaires pour adopter un amendement du Règlement intérieur. » Tout au long de cette session, nous avons vérifié, nous n’avons jamais atteint les 2/3 du quorum de l’ensemble des parlementaires du PAP. Donc, cette question demeure et nous devons tous ensemble faire la sensibilisation.Alors la question a été posée de savoir si nous adoptons le dernier état de la révision du Protocole avant sa soumission aux chefs d’Etats. Malheureusement, le calendrier que nous avons risque de ne pas nous mettre en mesure de passer cela au tamis de la plénière avant que cela n’aille là-bas. Il est vrai, ce n’est pas nous qui adoptons la révision, c’est la Conférence des chefs d’Etats, mais il était bon, je le concède, que le dernier état de la question soit examiné à notre niveau, ici et que, éventuellement, il y ait une réaction favorable ou défavorable ou qu’il y ait des réserves officiellement exprimées pour que nos Chefs d’Etats sachent exactement ce que pense le Parlement panafricain. Mais, nous avons une opportunité, au cours de la prochaine rencontre, dans deux jours, de le dire, au moins, à l’un des organes de décision, parce que les décisions de nos chefs d’Etats sont préparées par les ambassadeurs, les ministres avant qu’ils n’entérinent. Ils n’ont pas beaucoup de temps pour examiner à la loupe tout ceci.On a assisté une fois au Sommet des chefs d’Etats, quand vous avez passé le tamis du COREP, le tamis de la Conférence du Conseil exécutif, après c’est le maillet qui tombe: « point adopté! » Et, c’est terminé. Donc, c’est une étape très importante, que nous puissions dire au COREP ce que nous pensons de la révision du Protocole. Nous nous fondons sur la contribution que nous avons envoyée, les débats ultérieurs que nous avons eus ici pour leur dire: « Pour vous faciliter la tâche, il sera mis à la disposition des collègues ce tableau comparatif, les observations qu’il y a eu au cours des ateliers de validation que nous avons eus ». Et, cela permettra déjà de faire remonter à un dernier niveau de décision les préoccupations qui sont celles du PAP.Concernant la question posée par notre collègue GOYA sur le Protocole qui doit être suivi ici, nous prenons note. Nous allons faire un travail de sensibilisation, avec le Protocole, du Président qui devrait pouvoir nous aider à réaliser cet objectiflà. Parce que, je pense que, c’est une question élémentaire. C’est une question que j’ai évoquée dans cette Chambre! Mais, étant donné que la maison se renouvelle tous les jours; pratiquement, à chaque session, notre PAP se renouvelle, dans une certaine mesure, ce sont des choses qu’il faut rappeler, ne serait-ce qu’au début de chaque session.Le protocole, sous la houlette du Secrétariat général, devrait rappeler ces règles élémentaires, parce que, nous autres, nous n’avons pas, en tant que Commission, l’opportunité de diriger ce Protocole-là. Donc, nous prendrons les dispositions au niveau de la Commission pour demander à l’administration de faire en sorte que ce minimum de protocole soit observé et leur faire des propositions d’actions dans ce sens.Un collègue a demandé à avoir l’ensemble des documents pour le lobby au niveau des parlements nationaux. Nous sommes totalement d’accord, nous avons déjà pris des initiatives dans ce sens.Pour l’approbation du budget dans notre contribution, nous avons demandé même à aller plus loin. Ce n’est pas seulement l’approbation. Mais, cela doit être un système de vase communicant de courtes décisions, comme cela se fait au Parlement européen, en ce qui concerne le budget de l’UA. Ce n’est pas le peu qu’on nous a concédé et qu’on n’a même pas pu appliquer.Il a été dit qu’on devait soumettre le budget de l’UA avant que cela ne soit adopté par les chefs d’Etats. Jusqu’à présent, pendant cette période transitoire, cela n’est jamais venu ici pour que nous donnions notre point de vue là-dessus. Même pour que cela vienne après coup, c’est difficile. Je crois qu’on a eu l’occasion de l’avoir une seule fois. C’est programmé encore cette foisci. Je ne sais pas si mes allers et retours dans la chambre ne m’ont pas permis de constater, mais je n’ai pas ouïe dire qu’on ne vienne nous présenter le budget de la Commission de l’Union africaine. Si c’était le cas, je vous présente mes excuses, mais c’est une question qui est difficile.Néanmoins, dans notre contribution, nous avons demandé qu’on mette en place une procédure permettant à notre Parlement, qui demande à exercer le pouvoir législatif, de faire en sorte que cette question soit admise. Mais, c’est un point qui semble tendu, c’est un point de pouvoir essentiel sur lequel, si on nous l’accorde, en tout cas, nous, nous allons nous battre pour cela, si on nous l’accorde tant mieux. Mais si on ne nous l’accorde pas, ce sera un combat sur lequel il faudra revenir pour que les représentants des peuples africains se prononcent sur le pouvoir.Nous avons pris bonne note de la contribution du Président FARHAT, nous allons l’intégrer dans nos interventions au niveau de nos rapports avec la Commission de l’Union africaine. Nous avons pris bonne note mais, je crois que c’est l’administration et le Bureau. En guise de contribution, que les rapports d’activités des Commissions soient présentés non pas en fin de parcours mais, peut-être, au début ou au milieu de la session pour que nous puissions en tirer profit, parce que nous constatons généralement que, à la fin de la session, il n’y a plus grand monde.Monsieur le Président,Nous avons pris bonne note de toute cette contribution. Nous allons l’intégrer dans notre démarche, pour que le PAP s’en sorte dans les meilleures conditions, dans l’intérêt supérieur des peuples africains.Je vous remercie.(Applaudissements)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, Honorable président.Honorables membres,Je vous soumets maintenant, pour adoption, le rapport de la Commission permanente des Règlements, des Privilèges et de la Discipline.(Applaudissements)L’Honorable président a pris bonne note de toutes vos contributions, je vais demander au Secrétariat de prendre également note. Le rapport du Consultant, le tableau comparatif que vient de réaliser le président de la Commission entre les propositions du Parlement panafricain et les propositions du Consultant ainsi que la note de présentation du président de la Commission doivent être envoyés aujourd’hui même aux adresses électroniques de l’ensemble des parlementaires. Après cela, il faudra faire traduire dans les autres langues; maintenant, il n’y a que deux langues qui sont disponibles. Vous prendrez les dispositions pour faire traduire dans les autres langues aussi bien le rapport du consultant que le tableau comparatif et la note de présentation.Nous allons continuer l’exercice et les plaidoyers pendant la retraite, ainsi que le renforcement. Vous prenez note, Secrétariat! Pour la rencontre de novembre, nous avons des compétences au niveau de la plénière, au niveau du Parlement, à défaut de réunir tout le monde, dans la mesure des moyens que nous avons, nous allons adjoindre au bureau de la Commission quelques compétences avérées que nous avons au niveau de la plénière. Et puis, quand vous aurez les versions dans les langues respectives, il faudra aussi réagir en envoyant au Secrétariat qui enverra, à son tour, à la Commission des observations, des propositions d’amendements. Ceci, même à distance, va permettre d’apporter notre contribution.Sur ce, nous allons passer maintenant à la prochaine Commission. J’invite à présent l’Honorable Marie Rose Nguini-Effa, Présidente de la Commission permanente de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales à présenter le rapport de sa Commission.
1.4 – Rapport de la Commission permanente de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales à présenter le rapport de sa Commission.
HON. NGUINI EFFA MARIE-ROSE [CAMEROUN]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président. Avec votre indulgence, le rapport en français vient d’être disponible à l’instant. Il ne l’était pas depuis ce matin. Je crois que, depuis cinq minutes, il l’est pour ceux qui ne l’ont pas.Très Honorable Président,Honorables Vice-présidents,Honorables parlementaires,Mesdames et Messieurs,C’est avec un profond respect que la Commission permanente de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales se soumet à son devoir, qui est de présenter à la plénière ce rapport d’activités.La Commission permanente de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales est chargée - c’est un rappel - d’examiner les stratégies et les programmes visant à l’amélioration de la qualité de vie des populations africaines pour ce qui est de son volet santé, et pour ce qui est du volet travail et affaires sociales, d’examiner les questions relatives à la coopération régionale, internationale, en matière de planification stratégique, et de mise en œuvre des politiques et programmes de développement social et sanitaire.Nous avons participé à plusieurs activités très instructives, mais, hélas, je pense, comme la plupart des Commissions, notre plan d’action n’a malheureusement pas pu être respecté. J’ose croire, très Honorable Président, que la situation va s’améliorer dans un futur très proche, car notre Commission traite de la vie, des droits humains, et surtout de la santé, sans laquelle nous ne pourrions vaquer à nos occupations. D’où, pour nous, l’impérieuse nécessité de mettre en œuvre notre plan d’action.Très Honorable Président,Avec votre permission, je souhaiterais que l’honorable Matamisa Editor puisse faire l’économie de notre rapport d’activités.Je vous remercie, pour votre aimable attention.HON. MATAMISA ERIMENZIAH EDITOR [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Mr. President. Mr. President I therefore present the report of the Permanent Committee on Health, Labor and Social Affairs in summary.This report covers the activities undertaken during the period December 2009 to October 2010. The first of our activities was the first African Decent Work Symposium Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso which went on during December 01 and 02 in 2009. The First African Decent Work Symposium was held from December 01 to 02, 2009 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, under the theme, "Recovering from the crisis: The implementation of the Global Jobs Pact in Africa". The PanAfrican Parliament was represented by the President, Honorable Dr. Idriss Ndele Moussa, Honorable Marie-Rose Nguini Effa and Honorable Yamba Malick Sawadogo, the Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson of the Committee, respectively.The objective of the Symposium was to come up with a Pan-African roadmap for policy-making designed to reduce the time lag between economic recovery and recovery in the generation of decent work, and also to promote dialogue on ways to effectively integrate the Global Jobs Pact into national development policies in the continent. The outcome of the Symposium was a roadmap for the implementation of the Global Jobs Pact in Africa, which set strategies that Africa should adopt to stimulate and sustain recovery in employment in the face of the global crisis.The second was a meeting with the International Planned Parenthood Federation-Africa Region in January, 2010. The Bureaus of the Committee on Health, Labour and Social Affairs and Gender, Family, Youth and People with Disabilities held a meeting with representatives of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) - Africa Region in January, 2010 at the precincts of the Pan African Parliament (PAP).The objective of the Meeting was to define a framework of cooperation between the PAP and the IPPF and to strengthen collaboration between the two Institutions. The meeting culminated in a definition of areas between the Institutions which would entail inter alia:(i)Strengthening cooperation between the Institutions; and(ii)Supporting the participation of the PAP at Regional and International fora.The third activity was the Fourth Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia which was held from February 09 to 12, 2010.The Bureaus of the Committee on Health, Labour and Social Affairs and Gender, Family, Youth and People with Disabilities participated in the Fourth Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from February 09 to 12, 2010.The main objective of the Conference was to open up discourse on sexuality and how this might lead to new insights in reducing the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa.Amongst the salient issues that emerged from the Conference and of relevance to the PAP was the need to strengthen regional advocacy efforts particularly in promoting women’s human rights and health and reproductive rights. At the end of the Conference, the delegates adopted the Draft Youth Initiative Declaration and the Call to Action.The Draft Youth Initiative Declaration calls all concerned to take action to uphold the Sexual Rights and Health Rights of the Youth of Africa with their full participation at all levels, without discrimination as enshrined in the Constitutive Act of the African Union and Constitutions of African States.The Call for Action calls on and spells out how organizations working in Africa can effectively address the issues of sexuality, rights and HIV/AIDS in Africa and to push for the implementation of the Maputo Plan of Action (MPoA).To this end, Governments and Parliamentarians are called on to among others:(i)Accelerate implementation of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the Maputo Plan of Action and renewed commitment by African Governments to the Campaign against Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA);(ii)Expand access to sexual and reproductive health information and services for the most vulnerable persons through tailored interventions, training for service providers and embrace a human rights based approach; and(iii)Rescind laws, policies and practices that criminalize same sex activities, sex work, abortion and HIV transmission as these laws undermine fundamental human rights and continue to fuel the HIV/AIDS pandemic.The next activity was The 54th Session of the United Nations Commission on The Status of Women, New York, United States of America, March 01 to 12, 2010. The Chairperson of the Committee represented at the PAP at the 54th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women held in New York from March 01 to 12, 2010. The Session focused on the fifteen year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995) and the outcomes of the Twenty-Third Special Session of the General Assembly (2000), and their impact on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In view of the fact that the African Union Summit had declared the decade beginning 2010 as the African Women’s Decade, it was an opportune time for the PAP, which is making effort to be more visible, to take advantage of this global forum to present its position via-a-vis issues relating to gender and health in line with its vision and objectives.Regional workshop on the implementation of the Ouagadougou action plan on the fight against human trafficking particularly in women and children, Abuja, Nigeria, March 24 to 26, 2010. The African Union organized the Regional Workshop on the Implementation of the Ouagadougou Plan of Action on the Fight against Human Trafficking, in particular Woman and Children. The Workshop was held in Abuja, Nigeria from March 24 to 26, 2010. TheCommittee was represented by Honorable Yamba Malick Sawadogo, the Vice-Chairperson.The objectives of the Workshop were to inter alia:(i)Raise awareness of AU efforts towards combating human trafficking across the Africa;(ii)Galvanize the activities carried out by the African Union Commission at global, regional and national levels in the fight against the practice;(iii)Find effective methods of coordination between Member States, ECOWAS, other Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and partners such as ILO and UNICEF in the fight against human trafficking in Africa; and(iv)Sensitize Member States of RECs on the implementation of the Plan of Action.At the end of the Meeting Recommendations were made at different levels; National, Regional and Continental to:(i)Support the collection and dissemination of data on human trafficking; and(ii)Develop capacity in combating human trafficking.The Statutory Meeting of the 4th March, 2010. The Committee seat on 4th March and carried out the following activities:(i)Adopted the Work Plan for the period June to December 2010 - the Committee was of the view that it was necessary to harmonize its activities with the corresponding AU Commission on Labour and Social Affairs; and(ii)Considered and Adopted the Report of the Joint Meeting of the Committees on Gender, Family, Youth and People with Disabilities and Health, Labour and Social Affairs with IPPF.The other statutory meeting was on the 2nd and 3rd of August 2010. During this meeting, the Committee received presentations from:NEPAD on the Project on the Harmonization of Drug Regulations in Africa;SABINE Vaccine Institute on Sustainable Immunization Financing;Africa Public Health Alliance on the Outcomes and Resolutions of the Fifteenth AU Heads of State Summit held in Kampala, Uganda in July 2010 (Joint with the Committee on Gender, Family, Youth and People with Disabilities).Fair Play for Africa on the outcomes of the AU Heads of State Summit, progress on the Abuja commitments and the campaign for an AU endorsed Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Plan (Joint with the Committee on Gender, Family, Youth and People with Disabilities).Presentation by NEPAD on the Project on the Harmonization of Drug Regulations in Africa. The Committee was informed that the mission of medicines regulation was to ensure that, citizens used medicines of acceptable standards in terms of safety, quality, and efficacy. National Medicines Regulatory Authorities (NMRAs) were legally mandated to perform these functions.The Committee next learned that the key players to support the development of regional proposals to expedite and strengthen medicines registration were:(i)The Pan African Parliament - to provide political advocacy on AMRH through legislative reviews at continental, regional and national levels;(ii)The African Union Commission - to provide policy guidance on AMRH as part of implementation of the AU Pharmaceutical Plan pursuant to the AU Assembly Decision 55 taken at the Abuja Summit in January 2005 and adopted by the AU Summit in 2007, which mandated the AU Commission to develop a Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa (PMPA); and(iii)New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) - to coordinate and implement the AMRH through AUDecision 55 on PharmaceuticalManufacturing Plan which identified medicines regulation as a critical factor in pharmaceutical research and development and hence promotion of local pharmaceutical production in Africa.Resolution: The Committee resolved that, the following activities be undertaken before the end of the year:(i)A Workshop for the Committee on Health, Labour and Social Affairs in September 2010, this is behind; and(ii)Committee Chairpersons should engage the five (5) Regions to sensitise them on the Medicines Regulatory Harmonization Initiative by December, 2010.Next was a Presentation by SABINE Vaccine Institute on Sustainable Immunization Financing. The Committee was informed that, the Sustainable Immunization Financing (SIF) Programme was an initiative of the Sabine Vaccine Institute funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.The Committee also learnt that, immunization was important because immunizing every child with routine and newer vaccines (pneumococcal, rotavirus) could contribute up to 25% of the needed child mortality reduction.As new vaccines were introduced, the cost of immunizing a child exceeded the amounts many governments spent on all public health services. Immunization was a ‘best buy’ for any country because among others, it was one of the least expensive tools for preventing childhood diseases and avoiding the costs of curative care. From a financial perspective, countries were increasing immunization budgets but costs were rising even faster. National budgets needed to increase otherwise donor dependency would continue to grow.Mr. President was, financial sustainability was defined as, "the ability of a country to mobilize and efficiently use domestic and supplementary external resources on a reliable basis to achieve current and future target levels of immunization performance in terms of access, utilization, quality, safety and equity." In other words, a government’s immunization budget must be adequate, predictable and performance based and not achieved at the expense of other key programmes.There are also 15 countries that were chosen to kick start this program on immunization and these countries were chosen by World Health Organization and UNICEF and the World Bank and they included Senegal, Mali, Cameroon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Cambodia, Nepal and Sri Lanka.The objectives of the ongoing work in these countries were to:(i)Increase the proportion and amount of government financing for immunization;(ii)Ensure that countries found new, diversified, long-term financing for Immunization; and(iii)Document innovative and effective financing strategies and mechanisms.It was therefore, important that the following three key national institutions acted together to ensure that the sustainable immunization financing goal was attained:(i)The Ministry of Health: budgeting, implementation, reporting;(ii)The Ministry of Finance: performance monitoring, resource allocation; and(iii)Parliament: oversight, health legislation.The Resolution was after considerable debate the Committee resolved:(i)That, a Parliamentary Colloquium be held to enable the Committee meet with and exchange ideas with delegates from other countries to share best practices of sustainable immunization and health financing;(ii)That, tentatively the Colloquium be scheduled for November 15 and 16, 2010;(iii)That, subject to further consideration and consultation, the conference be held in one of the SIF twelve (12) countries where the projects is under way and not here in Republic of South Africa; and(iv)That, also the agenda for the proposed conference be determined jointly by SIF and PAP.The Presentation on Africa Public Health Parliamentary Network on the Resolutions of the July AU Summit Outcomes on Maternal, New born and Child Health. These we dealt with comprehensively yesterday in plenary, so, I beg to omit that.Mr. President, I go next to presentation by Fair Play for Africa on the Outcomes of the AU Heads of State Summit, Progress on Abuja Commitments and the Campaign Call for an MDG Accelerated Plan. Mr. Wole Olaleye, Campaign Manager for Fair Play for Africa informed the Joint Meeting of the Committees on Health and Gender that, the Fifteenth AU Summit took place against a backdrop of more than half a million women dying during pregnancy or child birth yearly and estimated one woman dying every minute.It was important therefore, to commend the boldness and show of political will by African leaders and Heads of government to promote maternal and child health on the continent and join in solidarity with millions of African women and children to pledge that no woman should die while giving birth.The final Declaration of the Summit included some positive steps that if fully implemented could save the lives of millions of African women and children and move toward achieving all MDGs particularly MDG 4, 5 and 6 by 2015. However, the Declaration would be meaningless if it was not acted upon.The Committee was informed that, the next struggle was to convince and get the Heads of State, Finance Ministers and Health Ministers to work together to mobilize citizens to encourage the governments to invest in health and to work on this has already started.Pan African Parliamentarians had a critical role to play as they represented the voice of the people could work with Heads of State to ensure that, they come up with concrete plans to re-orient their policies and programmes to eradicate maternal and child deaths in Africa. It was also important for Parliamentarians to ensure that national funds were dedicated to maternal, newborn and child health over the next five years and beyond and to ensure that there were comprehensive tracking and monitoring mechanisms in place to ensure that AU Decisions were fully implemented at National Level.The Fourth Session of the AU Conference of Ministers for Drug Control and Crime Prevention was held from September 28 to October 02, 2010, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia under the theme, "Turning the Tide of Drugs and Crime in Africa - from Policy to Action".The main objectives of the Conference were to:(i)Review the progress of implementation of the AU Plan of Action on Drug Control and Crime Prevention by National Drug and Crime Control Authorities, RECs and other regional and international partners;(ii)Discuss new trends and challenges in drug control and crime prevention in Member States and at regional level;(iii)Determine how to strengthen information gathering and dissemination mechanisms on drugs and crime of Member States, RECs and regional and international development partners; and(iv)Identify key action areas for the improvement of criminal justice system collaboration, law enforcement cooperation and drug dependence treatment provisions in and among Member States.The outcomes of the Conference were:(i)Consensus regarding the strengthening of Continental Early Warning Systems through the inclusion of epidemiological networks and threat assessments that would embrace data on illicit trafficking and epidemiological trends; and(ii)Adoption by the Ministers of key areas such as the following for strengthening the Criminal Justice Systems in Member States, law enforcement cooperation, as well as drug dependence treatment in order to turn the tide of drugs and crime in Africa:Actively prohibit the cultivation and abuse of cannabis and its resultant negative environmental impact.Harmonize drug control legislation on the continent and that, by 2012, the AUC should facilitate harmonized legislation and disseminate updated model laws to Member States.Explore the need for a continental training facility for drug dependence treatment and that the AUC consults with Member States in this regard.That in view of the gravity of the drug problem in Africa, Member States should set aside a certain percentage of their annual national budgets for the fight against drugs.That Member States in tandem with the need to increase the provision for treatment services for drug dependents, should not neglect the need for education on drugs to the people who have not yet commenced experimentation with drugs.The last sub-head Mr. President was dealt with jointly and comprehensively two days ago so with that I present the report of the Committee on Health, Labour and Social Affairs. I thank you. (Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, Honorable EDITOR ATAMISA, Rapporteur de la Commission de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales.J’ai quatre (04) inscrits sur ma liste, le premier c’est l’Honorable MOSES SESAY.HON. SESAY MOSES [SIERRA LEONE]:Thank you very much Mr President! I would like to pass on that.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you!Honorable SYLVIA MASSEPO!LE PRÉSIDENT:Elle n’est pas dans la salle.Honorable SIDIA JATTA!HON SIDIA JATTA [GAMBIA]:Thank you Mr President! I pass.LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorable TAMBOURA ASCOFARE OULEMATOU!HON. TAMBOURA ASCOFARE OULÉMATOU [MALI]:Je vous remercie Monsieur le Président.Je voudrais féliciter la Commission de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales pour la qualité du rapport qu’elle vient de nous présenter. Nous avons, au cours des derniers mois, collaboré avec la Commission de la Santé sur des points importants et nous espérons que cette collaboration va continuer.Je voudrais parler un peu de la pandémie du VIH/SIDA qui a compromis dangereusement le développement de nombreux pays africains. On a des pays qui étaient presque sur le point d’atteindre le stade des pays émergents mais qui ont énormément régressé avec cette pandémie. Mais heureusement, des progrès sont réalisés dans le traitement de cette maladie, particulièrement avec le Fonds mondial qui s’occupe gratuitement des maladies dans de nombreux pays.Ce que je voudrais dire c’est que ces fonds sont souvent menacés parce qu’il y a beaucoup de malversations qu’on a encourues dans la gestion de ces fonds et c’est l’occasion d’attirer l’attention des honorables députés pour qu’ils puissent aussi s’impliquer dans le contrôle de ces fonds afin que nous puissions atteindre les résultats que nous escomptons dans ce secteur. Il en est de même pour la tuberculose, le paludisme, et c’est extrêmement important parce que le contrôle parlementaire n’est pas très effectif dans ce secteur.Je vous remercie pour votre attention.AN HON. MEMBER:Thank you, Mr Chairman. For consistency purposes, I think we made an amendment on the report of the Gender Committee on page 6.LE PRÉSIDENT:Est-ce une motion d’ordre ou est-ce un amendement?AN HON. MEMBER:Point of order for consistency.LE PRÉSIDENT:Vous êtes membre de la Commission? Allez-y.You have the floor.AN HON. MEMBER:We made an amendment on the report on gender, and it was a joint meeting with the committee on health. So, I thought, for consistency purposes, we should also make the amendment on this report at page 6 of the English version, where it is said ‘Rescind laws, policies and practices that criminalise same sex activities, sex work, abortion and HIV transmission, as these laws undermine fundamental human rights and continue to fuel the HIV/AIDS pandemic’.An amendment was made by you.Thank you!LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup pour ce rappel, et je suis sûr que la Commission va prendre bonne note de ce rappel.HON. NGUINI-EFFA MARIE ROSE [CAMEROUN]:Je vous remercie beaucoup, Monsieur le Président.J’avoue que la Commission avait déjà pris note de cet amendement. Donc rassurez-vous, Honorable, l’amendement est pris en compte.Je remercie les collègues, parce que je pense que, depuis deux ou trois jours, on a beaucoup parlé de la santé. On n’en parlera jamais suffisamment. Je vous remercie d’avoir bien suivi et compris notre rapport.En ce qui concerne la pandémie du VIH/SIDA, je voudrais remercier Madame la présidente de la Commission Genre pour l’appel à l’implication des parlementaires dans le contrôle du Fonds Global.Je voulais rappeler aux uns et aux autres que pour les instructions sous forme de recommandation du Fonds Global, les parlementaires doivent faire partie des CCM de leurs pays. Et, ce n’est que de cette manière qu’ils peuvent contrôler les fonds qui sont gérés pour le VIH/SIDA, la tuberculose et le paludisme. Moi-même, je suis membre du CCM de mon pays et on doit avoir au moins deux parlementaires par CCM. C’est une recommandation, une exigence de "Global Found".Je crois que je ne vais pas monopoliser la parole, la Commission Santé vous a fait l’état de ses activités et je rappelle encore, Monsieur le Président que nous espérons pouvoir achever ou commencer notre plan d’action dans un futur très proche. Je vous remercie beaucoup.AN HONORABLE MEMBER:Mr. President, on a point of procedure; I excused myself and went out but I heard that my name has been called. I want to know if I could be allowed to ask a question.THE PRESIDENT:We have closed already. Hon. Editor Matamisa, do you have anything to add?HON. MATAMISA ERIMENZIAH EDITOR [ZIMBABWE]:Thank you Mr. President. I do not think I have anything to add, except to say that action should be taken to ensure that as a Committee, we carry on with the activities that are remaining for the end of the year. It is vital that all that we put down in our action plans be dealt with and be funded and funded to the full, so that Committees do not keep on crying about inactivity due to lack of funding. I thank you.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, Honorables membres, je soumets à votre appréciation, pour adoption, le rapport amendé de la Commission de la Santé, du Travail et des Affaires sociales.(Applaudissements)Je vous remercie beaucoup.Honorables membres,Plusieurs Commissions ont parlé des plans d’actions. Je croyais qu’on c’était bien compris sur ce sujet.Vous avez élu un Bureau transitoire pour trois ans avec pour mission de vous conduire, en 2011, à un Parlement législatif. Nous avons un seul objectif: celui de la transformation. On a convenu que toutes nos actions et notre plan d’action soient axés sur la transformation.Vous n’avez pas, honorable présidente, un plan d’action à vous, Commission de la Santé et des Affaires sociales. Votre plan d’action doit être axé sur la transformation, sur la visibilité que le Parlement peut avoir et qui peut l’aider à la transformation, au renforcement des capacités en vue de la transformation.On a fait deux ateliers d’où on a tiré des conclusions, tout en ayant un plan d’action de 3 ans en gestation. Aujourd’hui, nous sommes en droite ligne. On se concentre sur la transformation. Tout ce qui aide à la transformation est la bienvenue.Capacity building, visibilité, c’est cela notre droit chemin et vous allez nous juger en 2011. Si ce n’est pas en janvier, ce sera en juillet. Si en janvier ou en juillet, on ne voit pas la transformation, c’est qu’on aura échoué. Mais, pour qu’on n’échoue pas, venons à l’essentiel et rendons positives toutes les actions qui se font maintenant! Nous avons de très bons rapports avec les autres organes, aidez-nous à aller d’une manière douce et à aboutir à ces résultats!Sur ce, conformément aux dispositions de l’article 32 de notre Règlement intérieur, nous allons observer la pause-déjeuner et reprendre cet aprèsmidi à 14h30 très précises.La séance est suspendue.La séance, suspendue à douze heures trente-cinq, est reprise à quatorze heures trente-cinq.LE PRÉSIDENT:Honorables membres, la séance est reprise.J’invite l’Honorable Augustin IYAMUREMYE, président de la Commission permanente de l’Economie rurale, de l’Agriculture, des Ressources naturelles et de l’Environnement, à présenter le rapport de sa Commission.
1.5 – Rapport de la Commission permanente de l’Economie rurale, de l’Agriculture, des Ressources naturelles et de l’Environnement.
HON. IYAMUREMYE AUGUSTIN [RWANDA]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Honorable Président,Honorables membres du Parlement panafricain,Le présent rapport d’activités de la Commission permanente de l’Economie rurale, de l’Agriculture, des Ressources naturelles et de l’Environnement couvre la période d’avril 2010 à octobre 2010.Les activités de la Commission ont été paralysées faute de financement. Ainsi, durant cette période, la Commission n’a pu effectuer que deux rencontres statutaires et une rencontre non statutaire.La première réunion s’est tenue le 15 avril 2010 au siège du Parlement panafricain; la deuxième du 5 au 6 août 2010; et la dernière durant cette Session, le 7 octobre.Monsieur le Président,La première réunion statutaire du 15 avril s’est penchée surtout sur la question de mobilisation de fonds dont la déficience handicape les activités de la Commission.Néanmoins, soucieux d’améliorer leur travail et de dégager les problématiques pertinentes pour la Commission, les parlementaires membres de la Commission ont décidé de créer deux souscommissions dont l’une aura la charge des questions relatives à l’économie rurale et à l’agriculture et la seconde traitera des questions relatives aux ressources naturelles et à l’environnement. Ceci, pour faciliter le travail de la Commission et pallier au manque de moyens.Le cadre sectoriel reflétant le travail de la Commission et les domaines d’intervention de chaque sous-commission sont attachés en annexe du présent rapport.Au cours de la réunion statutaire du 5 au 6 août 2010, la Commission a bénéficié de deux présentations portant l’une sur les thèmes des Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement (OMD) et l’autre sur les problèmes de l’eau en Afrique.La Commission a, en outre, soulevé et traité des problèmes relatifs à l’efficacité et à l’efficience de son travail.Brièvement, nous allons aborder les présentations que la Commission a eues:La première présentation portait sur le rapport relatif aux progrès effectués dans la réalisation des Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement en Afrique.Nous avons bénéficié de l’expérience de Monsieur Yeo DOSSINA, Chef de l’Unité des statistiques au Département des Affaires économiques de l’Union africaine qui a présenté le rapport 2010 sur les progrès accomplis dans la réalisation des Objectifs du Millénaire pour le Développement (OMD) en Afrique.Ce rapport est le produit de la décision prise par les chefs d’Etats et de gouvernements en 2005 à Syrte, demandant à la Commission de l’Union africaine, à la Commission économique des Nations unies pour l’Afrique et à la Banque africaine de Développement d’élaborer, conjointement, chaque année, un rapport sur l’état d’avancement vers la réalisation des OMD.L’expert a attiré l’attention des parlementaires sur la difficulté de la récolte et la disponibilité des données. C’est pourquoi il a plaidé pour un système africain de la statistique qui faciliterait une approche globale. Il a souligné également l’importance de voir ratifier la Charte africaine de la Statistique.Le deuxième exposé dont a bénéficié la Commission porte sur les affaires hydriques en Afrique, et la présentation a été faite par la Directrice régionale pour l’Afrique de l’Est, Madame Lydia Zigomo, qui est venue exposer sur les problématiques et les enjeux hydriques en Afrique.Lors de sa présentation, l’experte a expliqué le rôle joué par son organisation "Water Aid", quant à la planification et au suivi de la gestion de l’eau. Le changement climatique, la croissance démographique et la dégradation des sols sont autant d’enjeux pour la sécurité hydrique en Afrique.L’eau et l’assainissement sont, non seulement essentiels pour réduire la pauvreté dans le monde, mais représentent la pierre angulaire de tout développement durable. Les réformes entreprises par de nombreux gouvernements témoignent de la volonté d’affronter les problèmes liés à l’eau. Cependant, la planification et le suivi de la gestion de l’eau sont encore entachés par la problématique de la corruption, l’absence de personnels qualifiés, le manque de ressources et l’inaccessibilité à la technologie.Le troisième exposé portait sur le changement climatique, particulièrement sur le rapport de la 13e session de la Conférence ministérielle africaine pour l’environnement qui s’est tenue à Bamako, au Mali, du 22 au 23 juin 2010.Le vice-président de la Commission y avait participé et Honorable Président, vous-même, vous nous avez dit que vous aviez été à cette Conférence dans votre rapport. La Commission a reçu le rapport du vice-président de la Commission qui avait participé et qui a fait part aux membres de la Commission des résolutions et des recommandations issues de cette conférence.La conférence avait pour but de partager les expertises régionales et mondiales sur le changement climatique. Cette Conférence a culminé avec la Déclaration de Bamako qui appelle, entre autre, à la nécessité pour le continent de consolider sa position en matière de changement climatique.Les réflexions menées par le Conseil des ministres font également suite aux résultats mitigés du Sommet de Copenhague de décembre 2009. Le souhait de notre Commission est de voir se réaliser une meilleure préparation pour le COP16 qui se tiendra au Mexique cette année.Monsieur le Président,Comme je le disais tout à l’heure, la Commission a également débattu des problèmes administratifs portant sur la traduction, la documentation, l’information et le financement des activités. Mais, la Commission a cru bon de ne pas croiser les bras. Pour y remédier, les membres de la Commission ont proposé certaines solutions dont celles que je vais vous citer ici.La première solution serait d’introduire dans notre Parlement l’utilisation de la téléconférence: les membres ont débattu de cette technologie et ont trouvé qu’il y avait moyen d’améliorer le système de communication et de travail de la Commission en répondant au défi de la distance et du coût. Ainsi, la solution de créer l’échange direct et d’articuler la marche de l’information entre plusieurs personnes et des machines distantes les unes des autres mais, reliées par un système de télécommunication a été validée par les membres de la Commission. L’installation de la téléconférence serait basée au siège du Parlement panafricain. Il appartiendrait donc à ce dernier de centraliser les interprètes et les traducteurs et de supporter les frais liés à l’installation. Le projet mérite d’être étudié.La Commission souhaite que le Parlement panafricain concrétise ce service car elle considère que cet outil offre des opportunités certaines et aurait le mérite de rendre les communications faciles et de rendre aussi le travail des Commissions plus actif, en dehors des réunions et des sessions.La Commission a également envisagé de soumettre à l’attention du Bureau du Parlement l’utilisation de forum de discussion.Le forum de discussion offre un espace de dialogue plus large qui permettrait l’échange et la discussion sur un thème déterminé. Organisé autour d’un initiateur et accompagné par un modérateur, le forum de discussion invite chaque participant, parlementaires, experts, citoyens, à apporter sa contribution.La Commission désire débattre des questions qui ont une acuité pour les citoyens africains en proposant un tel espace de dialogue. Par exemple, vu la préoccupation que nous avons tous de la problématique de l’accaparement des terres en Afrique par les multinationales et l’inquiétude que manifestent nos populations quand elles voient que les terres africaines font l’objet de l’accaparement par les multinationales, la Commission souhaiterait entreprendre un forum international portant sur ce thème.La dernière réunion, Monsieur le Président, que la Commission a tenu portait sur les problématiques de l’accaparement des terres, justement.Conformément aux conclusions de la rencontre des 5 et 6 août 2010 d’envisager une discussion sur l’accaparement des terres en Afrique par les multinationales, la Commission a invité Madame Carin Smaller, Conseillère à l’Institut international sur le Développement durable (IIDD) à informer la Commission.Madame Carin Smaller a porté à l’attention des parlementaires membres de la Commission le phénomène des investissements portant sur les terres qu’elle juge préoccupant.Elle a remarqué que les transactions sur la terre ne sont pas un phénomène nouveau. Elle a souligné que celles-ci constituent un élément positif pour les populations et l’Etat, dès lors qu’elles peuvent créer des opportunités pour l’emploi, les infrastructures et la hausse de la productivité agricole.Néanmoins, en se basant sur le rapport de la Banque mondiale, elle a montré que le phénomène qui prédomine depuis les dernières crises alimentaires et financières est alarmant. En effet, les investissements ont été exponentiels en Afrique. Le rapport indique que 45 millions d’hectares ont fait l’objet de transaction foncière en 2009 alors que ce chiffre était de 4 millions d’hectares, par an, en 2005.Le rapport de la Banque mondiale confirme l’augmentation substantielle ces cinq dernières années des investissements liés à la terre et constate que les investisseurs traditionnels, à savoir les multinationales de l’agroalimentaire ont été, maintenant, rejoints par les fonds de spéculation, les fonds souverains de gouvernement et les gouvernements qui cherchent à augmenter leurs approvisionnements en nourriture.Si les questions de sécurité alimentaire sont les principales raisons des gouvernements étrangers qui investissent dans les terres africaines, beaucoup d’opérations portent sur l’agriculture non alimentaire telle que le biocarburant dont les multinationales espèrent un très haut niveau de rentabilité.Madame Carin Smaller a précisé que l’achat ou la location des terres permettent également à ces entreprises d’avoir un accès aux autres ressources naturelles qu’ils exploitent et plus particulièrement l’eau.Pour les pays hôtes, les bénéfices des financements devraient prendre principalement la forme d’une augmentation des investissements étrangers, de création d’emplois, de développement des infrastructures et de transferts de technologie et de savoir-faire.Cependant, pointe le rapport de la Banque Mondiale, ces nouveaux investisseurs se focalisent sur les pays les moins stables ou les pays qui n’ont pas une législation foncière adéquate. De ce fait, des risques sociaux importants comme la perte de l’accès à la terre pour les paysans locaux, la vulnérabilité de la femme et le déplacement des populations surviennent. De plus, il est à craindre que des conflits naissent à propos des terres comme conséquence de cette situation.Monsieur le Président,Après ces réunions, ces rencontres, et les délibérations, la Commission a fait les recommandations suivantes:Recommandations générales:La Commission recommandeque les réunions ordinaires de la Commission, et des Commissions en général, soient concomitantes aux sessions ordinaires du Parlement panafricain;que le Parlement panafricain fasse circuler la liste des conventions de l’Union africaine qui doivent être ratifiées et fasse le suivi des ratifications dans tous les domaines;que le Parlement panafricain veille à ce que le Charte africaine sur la statistique soit ratifiée par les parlements nationaux;que les membres du PAP veillent à ce que les instituts nationaux de la statistique puissent jouir d’une autonomie et qu’ils soient renforcés en capacité afin d’exécuter leurs tâches et fonctionner efficacement.Recommandations relatives aux OMDLa Commission recommandeque le critère portant sur la répartition des sièges occupés par des femmes au niveau des Parlements nationaux soit étendue au niveau des gouvernements locaux et du secteur privé;que les membres du PAP s’assurent que les groupes et les réseaux parlementaires existent dans leur parlement national et qu’ils instruisent et évaluent la réalisation des Objectifs du Millénaire dans chaque pays, s’assurent que les représentants publics sont adéquatement informés des enjeux des OMD, s’assurent que les pratiques exemplaires sont partagées entre les Etats membres de l’UA.Recommandations relatives aux enjeux hydriquesEn matière de gestion des ressources en eau, la Commission suggère que le PAP recommande aux parlements nationaux de s’assurer:que les institutions d’apprentissage et de formation sont adéquatement équipées afin de procurer des compétences nécessaires et de donner la formation appropriée sur la gestion des ressources en eau;que l’investissement dans les technologies appropriées, y compris l’investissement sur la recherche et le développement portant sur la gestion des ressources en eau puisse exister. Et, à cet égard, les Communautés économiques régionales devraient explorer les possibilités de conjuguer leurs efforts afin d’atténuer les contraintes financières;que le PAP mène une campagne pour un programme d’intensification du développement économique rural en Afrique qui intégrera tous les programmes existants et qui veillera à ce qu’un pourcentage minimal du budget national soit alloué au développement économique rural; qu’une harmonisation optimale des politiques, des lois et des programmes se fasse au moins au niveau régional; que la problématique de l’eau comme indicateur de suivi d’évaluation soit incluse par le Mécanisme Africain d’Evaluation par les Pairs (MAEP); qu’un partage des meilleures pratiques au niveau du continent soit accentué; qu’un partenariat avec des organisations de la société civile sur la gestion des ressources en eau soit consolidé.Recommandations relatives à l’environnementEn matière d’environnement, la Commission recommande au PAP de:faire des recherches sur l’état des législations nationales portant sur l’environnement en Afrique;développer et établir des programmes de travail et de coopération avec les parlements nationaux portant sur les questions de l’environnement.veiller à ce que ses membres considèrent la Déclaration de Bamako dans leurs parlements nationaux;encourager ses membres à s’assurer que les réseaux parlementaires sur l’environnement sont implantés dans leurs parlements nationaux.Recommandations concernant l’accaparement des terresConscients des enjeux de la terre et de ses implications pour la sécurité alimentaire et la paix, les parlementaires de la Commission recommandent:qu’une sensibilisation relative à l’accaparement des terres soit réalisée par le biais d’ateliers et des fora au niveau régional et continental afin d’informer les parlementaires et les citoyens sur cet enjeu;que l’équivalent de la Conférence ministérielle africaine sur l’environnement, du Conseil des ministres africains de l’eau puisse être créé au niveau des ministres africains chargés des terres;que des directives portant sur la bonne gouvernance foncière soient élaborées;que des règles relatives à ces investissements particuliers soient élaborées afin de garantir aux pays et aux citoyens africains les bénéfices de ces investissements.Tels sont, Monsieur le Président, les éléments du rapport de la Commission permanente de l’Economie rurale, de l’Agriculture, des Ressources naturelles et de l’Environnement que j’avais l’honneur de vous présenter. Je vous remercie.(Applaudissements)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie, honorable président IYAMUREMYE Augustin, président de la Commission permanente de l’Economie rurale, de l’Agriculture, des Ressources naturelles et de l’Environnement, pour la présentation du rapport de votre Commission.J’ai devant moi une liste de onze (11) orateurs, le premier de ma liste, c’est l’Honorable Moses SESAY. Il n’est pas là.Honorable Henri GBONE.HON. GBONE YAWOVI HONAM HENRI [TOGO]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Monsieur le Président,De plus en plus, l’agriculture apparaît comme la cible privilégiée des forces du mal, alors que pour l’Afrique, c’est un élément essentiel de notre existence. Nous avons beaucoup parlé des changements climatiques et de leurs impacts, et avons pu constater que c’est dans le domaine de l’agriculture qu’ils produisent le plus de catastrophes.Les fortes catastrophes qui surviennent sont si spectaculaires qu’ils ont tendance à masquer, de façon grave, un autre phénomène destructeur de l’agriculture africaine, qui est la ruée du grand capital des pays occidentaux dans les terres agricoles africaines dont elles s’accaparent à vil prix et exploitent pour des objectifs souvent contraires aux besoins d’autosuffisance alimentaire des populations africaines.Comme l’a dit tantôt le président de la Commission, des études de la Banque mondiale relèvent que les superficies accaparées par le grand capital dans nos pays de 2008 à 2009 sont dix fois supérieures à la moyenne annuelle.Monsieur le Président,Le président de la Commission de l’Economie rurale a indiqué, tantôt, le processus de ce phénomène. Donc, je ne vais pas y revenir.Je voudrais seulement m’attarder sur quelques impacts. Quels sont-ils, donc?La Banque mondiale a constaté que 25% seulement des terres accaparées sont exploitées pour la production alimentaire. Alors qu’il est de notoriété publique, que l’un des plus grands maux, dont souffre l’Afrique, est le déficit alimentaire.Deuxième constat, la plupart d’autres terres accaparées sont exploitées pour la production de nouvelles spéculations, qui font sensation, aujourd’hui, dans les pays développés: le biocarburant. Par ailleurs, les propriétaires terriens sont chassés de leurs terres et toutes les opportunités naturelles dont ils jouissaient par le passé leur sont interdites. Ils n’ont plus droit aux voies d’accès à leurs habitations, mêmes à celles d’accès aux points d’eau, ainsi que celles qui mènent aux pâturages de leurs animaux.D’autre part, la Banque mondiale relève que, bien souvent, les investissements réalisés sont à très faible capacité d’emploi. Ils n’apportent pas de profits notables aux populations. Elle constate, par ailleurs, que, d’une façon générale, ces investissements ont très peu d’impact sur le développement du pays.Monsieur le Président,Le plus grave impact dommageable de ces investissements, est que bien souvent, les contrats conclus avec les populations analphabètes ou non préparées à ce genre de business sont tenus secrets. Parfois même, le Gouvernement n’y a pas accès, et n’a pas l’opportunité d’intervenir à temps pour redresser les abus. Alors, que faut-il faire pour se soustraire de cette nouvelle forme de colonisation?De mon point de vue, un certain nombre d’actions essentielles doivent être entreprises.Les parlements doivent initier des législations pertinentes et vigoureuses tendant à réglementer la propriété des terres rurales, et les investissements y relatifs, afin de mettre fin à ces abus. Celles-là doivent être dissociées nettement des règles générales d’investissement, car l’agriculture a ses propres spécificités.D’autre part, des dispositions doivent être prises par les gouvernements, afin que:pour tous les contrats de la population terrienne soient soumis à des visas préalables des pays d’accueil, afin de s’assurer que les terres seront acquises dans des conditions transactionnelles acceptables;les objectifs de production envisagés par les investisseurs cadrent parfaitement avec la politique agricole de nos pays, notamment le souci d’œuvrer pour assurer l’autosuffisance alimentaire de nos populations.Enfin, Monsieur le Président, nous devons veiller à ce que les projets de contrat soient assortis d’un relevé exhaustif d’un seul pacte négatif, susceptible de lire aux intérêts de nos populations et de nos pays. L’identification des impacts loisibles doit être exigée, et des solutions proposées pour y remédier.Monsieur le Président,Telle sont nos analyses de ce fléau et nos propositions pour remédier aux problèmes de l’accaparement sauvage des terres africaines agricoles. Je vous remercie.HON. MAKGALEMELE DIKGANG PHILLIP [BOTSWANA]:I thank you Mr. President. Mr. President, first I wish to thank the Committee for a well-researched and documented report. As a Member of Parliament who represents a rural constituency, I am always following the reports of this Committee with great interest. I wish to associate myself, Mr. President, with most of the observations in the report and the recommendations, although I will address myself to a few of the recommendations.Mr. President, I wish to indicate that I do agree with the Committee’s recommendation on land, but I also wish to propose that the land that is still in the hands of our African people should be valued and provided with title deeds. Mr. President, we do have a situation whereby most of the land that is still within the hands of the African people is not valued and it does not have title deeds. Therefore, the lack of that - of having such land valued and provided with title deeds - actually kills the innovativeness of our African people. Even when they go into business or they negotiate partnerships, they really negotiate from a very weak position.Mr. President, the land obviously is very crucial to agricultural development and many a time, because of the limited resources within our communities, the soil within this land is not tested. Therefore I want to advocate that the PanAfrican Parliament must lobby our respective governments to avail adequate resources for soil testing in a more proactive manner. I strongly believe that if we can go on an aggressive exercise of soil testing that will enhance our communities’ ability to determine well in advance the crops that can perform well within their various lands.Mr. President, I also wish to associate myself with the recommendation on the African Statistics Charter, and to indicate that statistics are key to development. I also want to support the suggestion that as the charter is being domesticated, independent statistics organizations be actually set up.In the context of Botswana, our Parliament did pass a law that allows for the establishment of the Botswana Statistics Organization, which is an independent organization that is responsible for all the statistical data within our economy. I would also want to urge that such organizations should be in a position to empower our nationals on the value of statistics and what they can derive from the statistics that would have been put together.Mr. President, part of the recommendation from the Committee’s report is on teleconferencing. I think we should adopt this recommendation and identify resources because teleconferencing can actually enhance the work of PAP, and obviously the work of our various Committees because effectively, this would allow us, when we are in our respective countries, to be able to have a formal meeting so to say. Therefore, Mr. President, I think that everything should be done to support this Committee’s recommendation, so that ultimately resources are raised for us to have in place a teleconferencing facility.Mr. President I have indicated that I fully support the observations of the committee and the recommendations. Indeed I feel that their report is well researched and documented. I thank you, Mr. President.HON. DLAMINI PHUMELELE PRINCESS [SWAZILAND]:I thank you, Mr. President. Hon. President, first and foremost I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to you for giving me this opportunity to address this august House.Mr. President, regarding the matter on water and food related issues; I would like to start by looking at the issues of agriculture in Africa as a whole. It is a common thought that we all have staple food, which of course differs from one region to another. It is discouraging though to note that when the effects of drought hit hard, combined with the constant conflicts in certain countries, we find ourselves in a position where we have to import food from the First World countries. At times such food is not even in the best condition for human consumption.Furthermore Mr. President, we are now exposed to the ever increasing effect of climate change and, as a result we have to urgently secure financial resources that will enable us to irrigate our fields. That way, we will be assured that we will have food on our tables.Again, Mr. President, in Africa, at least in most parts of it, we are very fortunate because we have God-given lakes and rivers that flow from one country to the other. As Pan-African Parliament we have the surmountable challenge to devise medium to long term mechanisms and strategies that will ensure proper water harvesting and effective and efficient utilization of water resources. If we can do that, we would be a very valuable asset to our continent.Mr. President, we need financial resources and effective strategies to enable us to divert water to places of need. Two, we need proper machinery and training so as to stop weeding our fields manually, which is labour intensive and time consuming. The livestock we use in our fields are a valuable resource, which we need to take good care of so that we can make profit out of it.Mr. President, another problem that we are facing is that of arbitrary allocation of land, which often results in land being allocated to people who do not make effective use of it either because they are lazy or because they do not have the necessary financial resources to subject that land to maximum use through farming. In Siswati we have a proverb which says, "Lijaha sisu," meaning that a human being is who he or she is because of what goes into the stomach.Last, but not least, Mr. President, I think it is high time that we equipped our people with food processing equipment in order to process food and make sure it is available all year round. This would go a long way in ensuring food security. In so doing, we can be able to sell in our local shops and export the rest. I thank you, Mr. President.HON. JATTA SIDIA S. [GAMBIA]:Thank you Honourable President. First, I want to congratulate the Committee through its Chairperson on the quality of the report that they laid before the Parliament. This is excellent. But Mr. President, I am frightened. I am frightened because certain things are happening, they are like swords of Damocles hanging over the continent and when they fall, it is going to be a tragedy for this continent. One is this issue of land being bought by outsiders. I remember I once raised this question in our National Parliament, and I think I raised it here also. This is very serious and it is on-going. It is going to be negative in two ways:1.Those who are buying the land have huge sums of money and they are going to engage in large scale agriculture. The negative impact is going to be that; what they produce is what they are going to use to transform into value added goods. Already we have problems marketing some of the cash crops, groundnuts for some of us who are producing ground nuts.2.In the long run we will have no land to cultivate.Honourable President this is a paradox. Africa has vast land to cultivate, to secure food for its populations, but we are always complaining of scarcity of food on this continent, almost in every country. What is the problem? I think there is a need for agricultural scientists in the continent to form a think-tank and address the issue of agriculture in a comprehensive way. How can we solve this issue of food scarcity in a continent, which is fertile for agriculture? How can we address the issue of food security in a continent where we have vast water resources? The Congo River alone can address the water needs of this continent if they are properly harnessed, yet we are always faced with this perennial problem of food scarcity and water scarcity. In my country we had a huge cattle population, but in the dry season, we have serious problems because some animals have nowhere to drink. They keep on tracking from one end of the country to the other in search of water. This issue of water has also been raised in this report here. What surprises me more is that, almost half of what we eat on this continent is imported from outside, when this continent should be exporting food to other parts of the world. Rice is another food substance that we are producing in this continent. These are all paradoxes which need to be addressed by our agricultural scientists; we have a lot of them. In every country you go to we have agricultural scientists. Why can’t the AU create a think-tank of agricultural scientists to address this problem of agriculture? And even the issue of transforming our raw materials into value added products. So for us who produce groundnuts and we sell them raw, we sell cheaply. When they are transformed into value added goods, they are sent back to us expensively. When we sell them as raw materials, we lose. When they come back to us as transformed goods, with value added aspect we lose, and that is why there is always going to be a circle of poverty. Somebody was asking the question, I think it was Professor Badawi; what is the cause of this scarcity of food, this poverty that is raiding this continent?Thank you. (Applause)HON. MASEBO TEMBO SYLVIA [ZAMBIA]:Thank you very much Sir, for the opportunity once again. Firstly I want to thank the Committee for a well articulated report. It is sad however, that such an important Committee had difficulties in implementing its activities as planned due to lack of resources. Mr. President, I am saying this because I am sure most of us Members of Parliament here come from a rural set-up or most of our populations are in an area, which is based on agriculture. Therefore, it is important that such a Committee has enough resources so that we can learn good policy strategies that we can take back to our homes and our constituencies.Having said this, I also want to support the Committee on their recommendation to split the sub-sectors within the Committee into two for efficiency, taking into account the difficulties they faced.I also want to support the proposals for the working method of their Committee, in particular teleconferencing. I would like to urge the Bureau to study this proposal because it indeed can help PAP to work better.Mr. President, I have two issues that I want to discuss in the House, in particular the issue on land. I want to say that the issue of land grabbing in Africa must really be taken seriously. I like the recommendations made by the Committee, especially the one where they are talking about sensitization and urging the Ministers of land to have a similar body like the one on water so that the issues can be brought out.In Zambia, about 90 percent of land is still in the hands of the traditional leaders and less than 10 percent is still State landand I wish chief was here; I hope he is here, so that he can help. Since much of our land is in the hands of traditional leaders, what is happening in my country is that people come in the name of investments and part of that land is taken over by the investors. We do appreciate that yes, and some of the investments create employment, but I feel that we really have to be very careful as Africans because the end result is that most of the good land is being taken over by foreigners. We will end up with our people becoming workers on the farms.I think that the issue of sensitization is important because I notice that in Zambia - and maybe it is the same in other countries - Africans do not seem to appreciate the value of land. So they take it for granted that, "This is traditional land; it is our land," and they go to sleep. With time they find that this land has been taken away and they become workers on "their" land. So, the issue of sensitization is important so that our people can also apply for land and own title deeds. Even when investors come, investors can work with our people who own the land, and since land has value, that can be their contribution to whatever investment.This investment where it is just the foreign investors that are coming to take the land and our people are not part of that land is a very dangerous thing. I think that Africa is not doing enough in this area to sensitize its people, and even for our people to appreciate the value of land so that they themselves can begin to own the land by having titles to the land.I would like to say that maybe there is need to engage the traditional leadership in Africa, especially in countries where land is vested in the hands of the traditional leaders. They need to understand the importance of them passing on this land to their children and their citizens within their villages so that their people can also have title deeds. Presently, it seems difficult for an individual within an area to go to a chief to ask for land for investment. That is difficult. However, when it is an investor, somehow the process seems very easy and the traditional leaders are quick to believe that this land is needed for a good cause. But, when it is their own people, they are very difficult.The other issue, Mr. President, relates to water. I do not know and I would like to find out from the Committee. I know that in August of 2008, there was a meeting of Heads of State and I think that the theme there was on water supply and sanitation. I think it was upon the realization that there was really a problem in Africa when it comes to the sub-sector of water supply and sanitation - not just water resource management, but the water supply and sanitation issue. I would like to find out whether the Committee has resolutions or can give us more information on the outcomes of that meeting of Heads of State in August 2008. Thank you. (Applause)DEPUTADO MANUEL SERIFO NHAMAJO [GUINÉ-BISSAU]:Obrigado, Presidente. Eu queria, antes de tudo, felicitar o Presidente da nossa Comissao pelo brilhante relatório que acabou de ler, que enaltece os problemas mais candentes com que a nossa Comissao se está a deparar.Quero, antes de tudo, reafirmar que nós, os deputados eleitos pelo povo, estamos muito mais perto do povo, conhecemos muito bem as dificuldades que eles tem e enfrentam, dificuldades causadas pelas mudanzas climáticas por um lado e, por outro, nós, os deputados, nao temos nenhuma condigao financeira e material possível para poder ajudar as populaçoes na resoluçâo desses problemas. É nesse sentido, que solicito à nossa Comissâo, no sentido de produzir resoluçoes dirigidas aos Governos e aos Parlamentos locais, nacionais, no sentido de trabalharem em conjunto, para poderem diminuir essas dificuldades que as populaçoes estâo a enfrentar todos os dias, ligadas às mudanças climáticas. Também foi nessa base que quando tivemos a visita de uma instituiçâo, a WaterAID, que veio à nossa Comissâo dar explicaçoes sobre as actividades que desenvolvem em todo o país e em toda a África.Nós fomos o primeiro país a convidar esta instituiçâo para visitar o nosso país, a Guiné-Bissau, mas até agora nâo temos nenhum feedback nesse sentido. Isso porque a Guiné-Bissau, como muitos países africanos, temos duas épocas: a época chuvosa e a seca. Durante o tempo da chuva, temos muita água, muita água que cai sobre a terra e nâo é aproveitada. E, durante o tempo seco, nâo temos nenhuma gota de água. Juntando essas duas condiçoes, acho que com a experiência que essa instituiçâo tem ou outras, poderiam ser elaborados programas no sentido de se aproveitar essa água para a irrigaçâo e o gado.Portanto, solicitamos, mais uma vez, ao Parlamento Pan-Africano, para nos pôr em contacto com instituiçoes do género para podermos ver a possibilidade de resolver esse problema pontual que os nossos países têm.Obrigado, Senhor Presidente.HON. TAMBOURA ASCOFARE OULÉMATOU [MALI]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président. Je voudrais féliciter la Commission pour la qualité de son rapport. Mon intervention va porter sur la protection de l’environnement, en rapport avec l’utilisation des énergies nouvelles et renouvelables, particulièrement le solaire. Je pense que c’est la chose la mieux partagée en Afrique, et qui ne coûte rien.Je voudrais suggérer à la Commission d’ajouter à ses recommandations la subvention des équipements d’énergies nouvelles et renouvelables, particulièrement l’énergie solaire, qui présente un double avantage sur le plan environnemental et sur le plan économique. C’est seulement le coût très élevé des équipements qui empêche ou limite leur accès aux populations. Chacun sait également que les continents moins ensoleillés que l’Afrique ont recours de plus en plus à l’énergie solaire.Je pense que c’est en octroyant certains types de subventions à ce secteur, que ces pays développés sont parvenus à vulgariser l’utilisation des équipements d’énergies nouvelles et renouvelables, particulièrement l’énergie solaire.Je pense, qu’en Afrique, c’est par ce chemin que nous devons également passer pour la vulgarisation, l’utilisation des équipements solaires. Je voudrais, donc, exhorter vivement la Commission à faire cette recommandation.Je vous remercie.HON. NJIKELANA SISA JAMES [SOUTH AFRICA]:Apologies Mr. President, there was no translation.As the Deputy Chair of the Committee, let me echo my support for the chairperson on the presentation of our report. It is also an expression and an articulation of the hard work we did as a team. I must thank the various members here for their inputs, which strengthened and encouraged us to do our work, particularly with daunting challenges in food security, climate change and the latest discovery we have made. It is not a discovery as such; that of foreign investment in Africa.I will just highlight and strengthen a few areas. The first is the cardinal importance of MDGs. We shall trust and hope as we drive the whole campaign on the realization of the MDGs; we should also be viewed as a global minimum programme. I stress the phrase minimum programme because we can do more, we can go beyond the MDGs, but what is highly significant is that as current leaders, whether Parliamentarians, governments or Heads of State, at least for now, globally we should ensure that the minimum, which is expressed through the MDGs must be realized; whether it is achieved by 2014, 2015 or later.Another area Mr. President is that of linking some of the issues that we are raising with the African Peer Review Mechanism, which I hope as legislators will ensure that those countries which have not yet associated themselves with APRM, it is high time they do so.Mr. President I hope that compared to last year, although we did a lot of good under the leadership of Hon. Mugyenyi Mary Rutamwebwa, we will have better preparations for COP 16. This is because what is clear is that we have a significant role to play in advancing things that relate to climate change.Investment is needed in Africa. However, my humble, strong and passionate proposal is that any foreign investment into Africa must be compatible and conform to NEPAD. It must be the bottom line. Whatever investment that comes in, if it disturbs or undermines NEPAD and all its aspects, we have to frown at it and ensure that it is restructured appropriately. That means we should strengthen NEPAD as well in order to be able to respond to these various investments. The one of land grab is a good example.Mr. President, whilst we are raising, concluding and taking resolutions on outstanding issues highly significant for the betterment and better life of the African peoples, practically one of the things we need to steadfastly strengthen is the interaction with the national and regional Parliaments. In some of the issues that were raised particularly in our report, it will be helpful that down the line, in our future ordinary sessions, we get feedback from the various honourable members as to what takes place in their own countries. That way, we will be able to ascertain the extent to which they would have addressed the issue of land grab; the extent to which they would have been able to address the issues around water; the extent to which they would have been able to ensure that climate change and campaigns against that become a reality. I really appeal for that. I know it is daunting task because we have 52 countries to handle, but I am sure that with this committed and creative leadership, we can come up with a formula to be able to have what one can call a global picture of the decisions and resolutions we can take at this level, the extent which they are implemented in our various countries, and the extent to which they strengthen our road map towards a better Africa.Once again, Mr. President, I thank everybody for the support they have given thus far to our report. It only serves to inspire us to work harder.HON. IYAMUREMYE AUGUSTIN [RWANDA]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président de me donner la parole encore une fois. Je commencerai par dire mes remerciements à toute l’assemblée pour - j’allais dire l’indulgence, mais je pense que tout le monde est sincère - avoir trouvé notre rapport acceptable.Monsieur le Président,Comme vient de le dire le vice-président de la Commission qui a joué un très grand rôle dans les activités de cette Commission, je tiens à remercier particulièrement le Bureau pour son appui à notre Commission.Monsieur le Président,Vous particulièrement, je dois dire que, durant cette session, vous avez pu vous rendre disponible par deux fois, pour entendre des questions d’ordre technique débattues par notre Commission, nous conseiller et nous guider, particulièrement en ce qui concerne l’investissement sur les terres. Vous avez, vous-même, reçu patiemment la consultante, et vous nous avez donné des conseils pour le chemin à suivre. La même chose pour les débats sur la sécurité alimentaire, la façon dont nous pouvons organiser des ateliers, même en dehors du siège. Je vous remercie particulièrement, pour cela.Je remercie aussi en mon nom, ainsi qu’au nom de la Commission, tout le personnel, les membres du staff à tous les niveaux, pour l’appui qu’ils nous apportent régulièrement, surtout que nous ne manquons pas de les solliciter quotidiennement.Monsieur le Président,Il n’y a pas eu beaucoup de questions en tant que tel. Nous avons noté avec satisfaction des propositions des membres du Parlement qui sont intervenus et nous ont donné des conseils, et qui ont développé des thèmes que nous avions peut- être à peine effleurés. Je dois faire remarquer aussi que c’est un rapport de synthèse. Nous avons des rapports des réunions de la Commission qui sont plus élaborés, où il y a plus de détails.Monsieur le Président,Il y a deux problèmes majeurs qui nous interpellent, et je suis content que tous les membres qui sont intervenus aient aussi souligné la problématique de l’eau.En Afrique, nous avons beaucoup de ressources en eau; nous avons beaucoup de rivières, de fleuves, mais nous avons aussi la sècheresse. Nous avons des conflits sur les points d’eau. Si vous regardez la carte de l’Afrique, elle regorge de ressources en eau. Mais, combien de fois, entendons-nous décrier des calamités causées par la sècheresse, la désertification du continent qui s’accentue! Tout cela, donc, exige que les pays africains se mettent tous ensemble pour gérer, d’une façon harmonieuse et commune, dans la bonne entente, ces ressources en eau, et que ce ne soit pas seulement des sources de conflits.Je pense, par exemple, au bassin du Nil qui prend sa source dans les grands lacs africains. Je pense au bassin du Niger et au bassin du Congo qui pourraient nourrir l’Afrique du Nord, etc.Monsieur le Président,Nous voulons, avec votre appui, organiser un atelier public en matière d’eau, et nous comptons sur l’appui du Bureau du PAP et sur la participation des membres des autres Commissions.C’est la même chose pour les terres. Les terres sont non seulement recherchées pour ce qu’elles représentent, en tant que support pour l’agriculture, la production agricole, mais aussi pour l’eau qu’on trouve. Des pays du Golfe persique, par exemple, veulent cultiver le blé en Afrique. Ce n’est pas parce qu’ils n’ont pas de terres, mais parce qu’ils n’ont pas l’eau. Et, ils viennent acheter des terres en Afrique pour l’eau.Monsieur le Président,Donc, là aussi, nous devrions organiser un atelier public sur l’eau. Nous sommes en train de formuler les termes de référence, et nous espérons trouver des fonds.Monsieur le Président,Je voudrais terminer en disant que nous avons pris note de toutes les suggestions. Concernant la décision des chefs d’Etat en Egypte, nous avons intégré cette décision justement dans les termes de référence de l’atelier sur l’eau que nous voulons organiser. Nous en avons pris connaissance, et nous voulons que, au niveau de notre Commission ainsi qu’au niveau du PAP, nous puissions y réfléchir.Monsieur le Président,Nous n’aurons pas terminé notre rôle en tant que parlementaires, si nous n’arrivons pas à sensibiliser nos propres parlements au niveau national, régional, sur ces questions assez aiguës et assez préoccupantes pour nos populations africaines.Comme l’a dit, donc, le vice-président de la Commission, je pense que lorsque nous reviendrons ici, nous aurons une idée de ce qui se fait chez nous, pour que, enfin, nous puissions partager l’expérience et faire avancer le continent.Je vous remercie.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup, Honorable Président.Honorables membres, je vous soumets, pour adoption, le rapport de la Commission de l’Economie rurale, de l’Agriculture, des Ressources naturelles et de l’Environnement.(Applaudissements)Je vous remercie beaucoup.A présent, j’invite l’Honorable MOHAMED EL- HOUDERI, Président de la Commission permanente de l’Education, de la Culture, du Tourisme et des Ressources humaines à présenter le rapport de sa Commission.HON. EL-HOUDERI MOHAMED ELMADANI [LYBIA]:Je vous remercie beaucoup, Monsieur le Président. Avec votre permission, s’il vous plaît, j’invite l’Honorable JATTA SIDIA, le Rapporteur de la Commission à présenter notre rapport.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup. Honorable JATTA, Rapporteur de la Commission, vous avez la parole.
1.6 – Rapport de la Commission permanente de l’Education, de la Culture, du Tourisme et des Ressources humaines
HON. JATTA SIDIA S. [GAMBIA]:Thank you Mr. President. For those who have the French version of the report some corrections have been made, which are not in your copies but you will the corrected version later.Mr. President, thank you for giving me this opportunity to present our report to Parliament.Pursuant to Article 26(7) of the Rules of Procedure of the Pan-African Parliament, the Permanent Committee on Education, Culture, Tourism and Human Resources held three (3) statutory sittings on 19th April, 2010 and 2 and 3 August 2010. All these sittings were held at the seat of the Pan-African Parliament in Gallagher Estate in Midrand, South Africa.Within the framework of the festivities marking the 50th Anniversary of the Independence of seventeen African countries, the Committee, in collaboration with members of the Bureau and the Secretariat, devoted 5th October 2010 to the commemoration of the independence and the fight for the liberation of the Continent from the yoke of colonialism.At the invitation of the Committee, Professor Sozhino, Executive Secretary of the African Academy of Languages made a presentation on the major problems of cross-border languages as factors of integration and African unity in Committee Room 4 at the seat of the Pan-African Parliament.This activity report that we have the honour of submitting to your August Assembly centres on the following main issues:1.Synopsis of statutory sittings;2.Recap of activities adopted by the Committee;3.Difficulties encountered; and4.Recommendations adopted.Synopsis of statutory sittings, in total, since the last ordinary session held in October 2009, the Permanent Committee on Education, Culture, Tourism and Human Resources sat five times. The main discussions during these sittings were related to:The establishment of Sub-committees. In accordance with Article 22(6) of the Rules of Procedure of the Pan-African Parliament on the establishment of Permanent Committees, the Permanent Committee drew up a work Action Plan. In order to become more efficient and taking into account the different themes of the Committee, members established Subcommittees from within their ranks. These are the Sub-committee for Education and Human Resources, and the Sub-committee for Tourism and Culture. This approach enabled each of the members to register him/herself in one or the other Subcommittee according to his/her qualifications interest. This also enabled the Committee to diversify its activities which were leaned too much towards the education sector, to the detriment of the other thematic domains which are also important.During these different sittings, the Committee also registered new members. They are Honourables Hyacinta P. Chikaonda from Malawi and Steven Obeegado from Mauritius. These new members demonstrated their determination to work for the Committee in their domains of competence.Members adopted the different minutes submitted for their consideration. The ensuing discussions showed their enthusiasm for the various issues raised during these sittings. Furthermore, they considered a certain number of achievable activities for the Committee. They pointed out that these activities should conform to Article 25(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Pan-African Parliament which stipulates that "Permanent Committees should handle business that is ordinarily handled by the corresponding Specialized Technical Committee. In this regard, the Committee focused its activities on those that are in line with the Action Plan of the African Union. Members also mentioned that the activities should take into consideration the new guidelines issued by the new Bureau of the PAP in view of the transformation of the Pan-African Parliament into a legislative organ with legislative powers by 2011.At the end of these sittings, members formulated recommendations despite a few problems raised by members.Recapitulation of the activities of the Committee. Since the last session that was held in April 2010, and following the recommendations contained in the different minutes, the Committee organized two activities. These activities were held at the seat of the Pan-African Parliament.This is the commemoration that I have talked about; and the presentation by the Executive Secretary of the African Academy of Languages, Professor Sozhino.Rule 26(7) defines the specific functions of the Committee as follows: "it shall assist Parliament to promote policy development and implementation of programmes of the Union relating to access to education, promotion and preservation of culture and tourism and human resource development."The Committee heard a presentation by Professor Matsinhe, Executive Secretary of the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN) in Committee Room 4 of the Pan-African Parliament.The Professor spoke on the problems related to the use of cross-border languages. He centered his presentation on three main points:Survey of the status of promotion of African languages;ACALAN’s activities in the implementation of national policies regarding African languages; andProspects of collaboration between the PAP and ACALAN.Introducing the first point, the speaker outlined the status of national policy on the promotion of national languages. He noted that none of the African countries had developed on the basis of local languages. An appraisal of the promotion of local languages in African countries showed that things could be better. According to the Professor, this trend must be reversed. Development should be founded on local languages in our respective countries. He supported the idea that Africans should balance education with their own cultures; otherwise there was the risk of an entire generation of Africans becoming acculturated.All in all, according to studies commissioned by ACALAN, there are 41 cross-border languages in Africa. Cross-border languages technically means that the first languages which are spoken in more than one country. There are several languages in African which are spoken in several countries. If I take the language I speak, it is spoken virtually in one form or the other in every country in West Africa and Fulfulde is one of them too.The second point of his presentation dealt with ACALAN’s objectives and framework for action. The African Academy of Languages stemmed from a decision taken by the Khartoum Summit in 2006. It was, therefore, an organ of the African Union whose main objective is to bring African culture into the different education systems. He emphasized that his mission was to give African culture an entry into school textbooks and improve the African linguistic landscape in the teaching of African languages. The Professor also emphasized that ACALAN is trying to strengthen the process of linguistic equity between the official languages inherited from the colonizer and the local languages spoken by the vast majority of our people. He highlighted the importance of cross-border languages, 41 of which have been identified in Africa, and which are a unifying factor in the continent. Studies undertaken by ACALAN show that in each geographical sub-region of Africa, three or even four cross-border lingua franca or languages of wider communication can be identified and that their promotion and incorporation into national policies could validly facilitate both sub-regional and continental integration.The development of collaboration frameworks between the African Academy of Languages and the PAP in general and the Permanent Committee on Education, Culture, Tourism and Human Resources seems natural. Both stemmed from a decision of the African Union Heads of State. Under this framework, the missions of both organizations remained identical and, consequently, the frameworks of collaboration should be multi-faceted and varied. He recommended:Advocacy by the PAP to popularize the activities of ACALAN;Helping ACALAN to establish focal points in the concerned government Ministries;Increase the number of partners at regional, continental and international level to execute the plan of action for national languages; andOrganize symposia, jointly with the Committee on themes related to the promotion of national languages.Problems encountered. It emerged from the discussions that the Committee on Education, Culture, Tourism and Human Resources is encountering some difficulties not only its internal operation but also the execution of its activity programme. These problems include the following:The allocated budget was not enough to carry out all the planned activities;Lack of communication between the Members and the Secretariat;Lack of follow-up of the activities of the Committee and the decisions taken;Lack of data that would enable the Members to be better prepared;Disorganization in the planning of the activities of the Committees on the part of the PAP Secretariat;No activities being undertaken by the Committee;Unexplained absence on the part of some members of the Committee; andDeparture of some Members due to stagnation in Committee activities.Recommendations relevant to the Committee. The Committee made the following recommendations to find solutions to these weaknesses:Recruitment of a Permanent Committee Clerk to follow up and direct the activities of the Committee between sessions and this is true for all the Committees of the Parliament;Increase the budget of the Committee to carry out the planned activities;Give the members real-time access to all the documentation and data in the domain of education, culture, tourism and human resources in Africa; andEstablish regular interaction between the Committee and all African Union organs in charge of issues related to education, culture, tourism and human resources.Thank you very much for your attention.(Applause)HON. MAKGALEMELE DIKGANG PHILLIP [BOTSWANA]:Mr. President, I wish to first thank the chairperson, together with his Committee on Education, Culture, Tourism and Human Resources for the report that he has laid before us. Mr. President, I note on page 2 of the report, the chairperson and the Committee are reporting the establishment of sub-committees; a move which I support because, I believe that the establishment of such Committees would further enhance our ability to perform within our respective Committees.I also take note of the presentation that was made by the African Academy of Languages, and the subsequent recommendations, especially the observations that there are 41 cross-boarder languages in Africa. During the course of the presentation, my Colleague from Botswana, Honourable Goya whispered to me, saying that a language like Setswana is spoken in Botswana and various places in South African and other countries. I do speak a bit of Swahili, which I learnt when I was studying in Tanzania, and I also believe that it is a very simple language that can be made the language of Africa. I think that this recommendation needs to be followed up.Having said that Mr. President; I want to address myself to two aspects of this Committee, which is on education and tourism. I went through the report, but I did not pick much on education. I just want to appeal to the Committee to look at how distance learning can be promoted more aggressively as part of enhancing development within Africa. There are quite a number of people who lost the opportunity to access education, but we do have a provision within the education system where distance learning is offered. I want to appeal to the Committee to do further research on how distance learning can be promoted at a much higher level so that many Africans who did not have the opportunity to access education or who want to enhance their level of education can do so through distance learning.In relation to that, I also want to advocate for Adult Education, which is also a component of distance education.Still on the issue of education, I want to make an appeal to all of us here that; our governments be lobbied to promote the concept of shared use of resources, so that non-governmental organizations, the private sector that is involved in education such as distance learning education may be able to access some of the facilities within our government schools as a way of broadening and enhancing access to education. This may include classrooms, computers, sports facilities, etc.I also wish to contribute on tourism. I note that tourism is one of the growing business opportunities within our respective countries. In Botswana for example, tourism is the second contributor to the economy after minerals, and there are clear signs that it is growing. I want to appeal to the Committee to look at how tourism can be broadened and how linkages and partnerships can be made; especially at the village levels within our member countries.Within the broader topic of tourism, there is what we call eco-tourism. Eco-tourism presents an opportunity for various countries to share successful case studies on eco-tourism, which can be replicated to other countries. I want to appeal to the Committee that; given that Africa has a lot of natural resources, there is need for partnerships with academic institutions to undertake some research, on the various natural resources that can be utilized or that are within the broader strategy or business problems of tourism, and come up with ideas on how strategies can be put in place for purposes of enhancement in that area.With these few comments, I want to thank you.HON. NGUINI EFFA MARIE-ROSE [CAMEROUN]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Mes sincères félicitations à la Commission!J’ai quelques petites préoccupations. Le tourisme, c’est l’ouverture vers le monde - je dirais, vers l’extérieur - et à l’heure de la mondialisation, nous devons pouvoir «vendre nos pays ». C’est une source de ressources énorme pour les pays. Donc, cet aspect tourisme est quelque chose qu’il ne faut pas du tout négliger.J’ai aussi un autre point, qu’est la libre circulation, qui existait déjà certes dans nos pays, pour les membres de la CEDEAO, mais qui n’est pas encore de mise, par exemple, pour la CEMAC. C’est aussi un sujet important et je suggèrerais à la Commission de s’y atteler. Tout cela permet aussi de faciliter le tourisme.Nous assistons aussi, en ce moment, à une perte de nos us et coutumes. Nous devons sauvegarder nos cultures tant qu’elles n’ont pas d’incidence en ce qui concerne la santé. Je pense, en ce moment, aux mutilations. C’est pour cela que je fais cette allusion à "pas d’incidence" pour la santé, car nous risquons de perdre notre histoire qui, dans la plupart des cas, est orale. Je pense aux combats de lutte traditionnelle, aux damiers, et autres.Pour ce qui est des ressources humaines, j’aurais bien voulu aussi voir une attention particulière portée à la fuite des cerveaux, car je vois que la Commission s’occupe aussi des ressources humaines.Aujourd’hui, on trouve plus de médecins africains en Amérique et en Europe que dans notre continent.C’était les quelques préoccupations que j’avais concernant cette Commission.Monsieur le Président,Je vous remercie de m’avoir donné la parole.HON. COULIBALY KADIDIATOU SAMAKE [MALI]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Monsieur le Président,Après avoir écouté le Rapporteur de la Commission permanente de l’Education, de la Culture et du Tourisme, je voudrais faire quelques observations.Je suis d’accord avec la Commission, lorsqu’elle dit, dans le rapport, que les langues locales doivent être le socle du développement dans nos pays. C’est vrai, et cependant, il y a très peu de pays qui utilisent leur langue locale comme langue d’apprentissage. Il est vrai aujourd’hui, que nous tentons, tant bien que mal, à insérer des programmes d’apprentissage des langues nationales dans l’enseignement, et je pense que cela doit être encouragé par l’Union africaine. Il est vrai aussi que, lorsqu’on apprend dans sa langue maternelle, on comprend beaucoup plus facilement.Monsieur le Président,Je pense également que nous devons tous travailler à valoriser notre culture qui est notre première richesse. Dans beaucoup de domaines, l’Afrique avait de bonnes habitudes qu’elle a laissées pour suivre la voie de l’Occident.Par exemple, lorsqu’on parle de démocratie; à mon avis, la démocratie n’est autre chose que la participation du peuple à la gestion publique. Dans les sociétés traditionnelles, chacun avait un rôle à jouer au sein de la société. Il y avait, par exemple, l’arbre à palabre, et la case ronde dans certains endroits, pour discuter des problèmes concernant la communauté. On trouvait des consensus pour éviter des conflits. Aujourd’hui, tout se règle avec des armes.Monsieur le Président,Il y a quelques jours, des experts internationaux et nationaux étaient à Bamako, au Mali, pour débattre de la Charte du Mandé. Cette Charte parle des principes qui ont été instaurés, dans le Mandé, au Mali, depuis le 13e siècle. Ils tournent autour d’une vingtaine d’articles qui définissent la gestion de la cité, la gestion du pouvoir et des ressources (terres, eau, chasse, etc.) de cette époque.A propos de cette Charte, le Président de la République du Mali a annoncé, dans sa présentation du Mali au Parlement européen, que c’est l’une des plus grandes découvertes culturelles de l’Afrique du 21e siècle.Monsieur le Président,Je voudrais, pour terminer, encourager cette Commission - parce qu’elle a à travailler sur un sujet qui est très important, notre culture - à continuer, et surtout à trouver des thèmes qui peuvent rendre attractive la Commission.Pour terminer, j’ai une proposition à faire. Dans le rapport, il a fait une proposition par rapport au cinquantenaire qui doit être fêté annuellement. Je propose par exemple que, au cours de nos sessions, si on maintient évidemment que le cinquantenaire sera commémoré annuellement, chaque région puisse faire une présentation, pas ensemble, mais, au cours de cette année, on décide que le caucus de l’Afrique de l’Ouest est à l’honneur, et elle présente sa culture, ainsi de suite pour l’Afrique Centrale et pour les autres, afin qu’on puisse mieux se connaître et connaître nos pays.Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup Honorable COULIBALY. Je vais demander maintenant à l’Honorable EL-HOUDERI d’apporter quelques éléments de réponses et d’apprécier les contributions des honorables membres.HON. EL-HOUDERI MOHAMED ELMADANI [LIBYE]:شكرا سيدي الرئيس،لقد سررت بالمداخالت التي قدمها البرلمانيون الموقرون. وهي، في معظمها، مداخالت مشجعة ومتفهمة لدور لجنة التعليم والثقافة والسياحة والموارد البشرية. وأشكرهم كلهم على مداخالتهم التي أثرت تقريرنا وتبعث، في لجنتنا، مزيدا من الحماس لخدمة قضايا التعليم والثقافة والسياحة في إفريقيا.وأتفق مع الزميل الذي الحظ بأن التقرير لم يتعمق، في القضايا التعليمية المباشرة، وهو محق في ذلك. أوال تعلمون أن وقد قدمنا في تقريرنا أن اللجنة تحتاج إلى مزيد من توثيق العالقات بينها وبين األقسام واإلدارات، المناظرة لها، في اإلتحاد اإلفريقي. وأعضاء اللجنة يحتاجون إلى مزيد من المعلومات حول قضايا التعليم والثقافة والسياحة. ونظرا لنقص هذه المعلومات، فإن اللجنة قررت وكان في نيتها أن يستدعى مدير إدارة التعليم، في مفوضية اإلتحاد اإلفريقي، لتتم دراسة ثالث مواضيع تخص التعليم.الموضوع األول: هو متابعة تطورات والخطوات التي تمت في العقد الثاني للتعليم في القارة اإلفريقية.والموضوع الثاني الذي كنا نتوقع أن نتحدث بشأنه مع المسؤولين، في مفوضية اإلتحاد، هو متابعة قضية الهدف الرئيسي لأللفية المتعلق بالتعليم للجميع. أين وصلنا فيه؟والموضوع الثالث، الذي كان مخططا لهذا اللقاء، هو متابعة تطورات جامعة عموم إفريقيا المنبثقة، في األصل، من هذا البرلمان في دورته الرابعة، منذ عام 2006 ،والتي صدر بشأنها قرار من القمة اإلفريقية عام 2010 فقط، وكلفت المفوضية باتخاذ الخطوات الالزمة لتنفيذها. وعندما لم نتمكن من اللقاء بالمسؤول عن التعليم، بالمفوضية، قررت اللجنة تشكيل وفد منها لإلتصال باإلدارات المعنية بالتعليم، في اإلتحاد اإلفريقي، لجمع المعلومات عن السياسات التعليمية في إفريقيا وإلى أي مدى وصلت المفوضية في التنسيق بين هذه السياسات، ليكون التعليم في إفريقيا تعليما يخدم القضايا الرئيسية، التي تهم كل مواطني القارة: التخلص من الفقر و الجهل و األمراض. والقضية الرئيسية قضية التكامل والتوحد، في القارة اإلفريقية، وستتم إن شاء هللا تنفيذ هذه البعثة في شهر نوفمبر القادم.شكرا للزميل الذي عقب على أهمية السياحة وخاصة ________________________(Problèmes techniques pour la suite de l’intervention).
1.7 – Rapport de la Commission permanente de la Coopération, des Relations internationales et de Règlement des Conflits
HON. WOLOKOLIE DUSTY [LIBERIA]:Mr. President, I thank your Excellency and the honourable members for this opportunity given to me to present this report on behalf of the Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolution.I present the report on behalf of the chairperson who is on another official mission.This activity report of the Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolution covers the period from the end of the Second Ordinary Session of the second Parliament to 6 October, 2010. This period was characterized by several important activities, namely:From 5 to 6 August 2010, the Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolution, in accordance with its functions as set out in Article 26(4) of the Rules of procedure, held its statutory sitting at the seat of the Pan-African Parliament, Gallagher Estate, Midrand.From 30 September to 1st October 2010, some Members of the Committee participated in the Regional meeting of Parliamentarians of States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) which was organized at the seat of the Pan-African Parliament in Midrand.This activity report of the Committee will revolve around the following points:Committee sittingsParticipation in the Regional Meeting of Parliamentarians of States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC);Recommendations and resolutions by the Committee.Sittings held by the CommitteeSitting held on 5 and 6 August, 2010The Committee held its statutory sitting at the seat of the Pan-African Parliament, Midrand, South Africa, on 5 and 6 August, 2010.Proceedings were presided over by Hon. Lassane Savadogo, Acting Chairperson of the Committee.Several rounds of meetings were held during which Committee members considered the following items:Communication from the chairpersonThe Deputy Clerk called the sitting to order at 10h00 and proposed that the Committee elects an interim Bureau in order to commence its proceedings.Members of the Committee then designated the following interim Bureau:Hon. Savadogo Lassane from Burkina Faso, ChairpersonHon. Chitika-Molobeka Elizabeth from Zambia, Vice-chairpersonHon. Khumalo M.T. from Swaziland, Rapporteur.The interim Chairperson informed his colleagues that the Hon. Member from Mauritius who held the office of Rapporteur is no longer a Member of Parliament. The Honourable Member, after losing elections in his country was appointed Adviser to the Minister of Finance of Mauritius.Members wished to know if PAP would take part in the Inter-Parliamentary Union meetings. It was agreed that this issue be brought to the attention of the Clerk of the Pan-African Parliament.Workshop on Conflict ResolutionOn August 6, 2010, the Secretariat of the PanAfrican Parliament, in collaboration with the "African Institute of South Africa", organized a workshop for members of the Committee under the theme "Conflict Resolution".The theme of this workshop was presented by two experts from the Africa Institute of South Africa.Sitting held on 6 October 2010During this sitting, Committee members considered and adopted a number of items which can be summarized as follows:Communication from the Vice-Chairperson of the CommitteeThe Vice-Chairperson of the Committee welcomed the Members of the Committee and thanked those members who constituted the Acting Bureau of the Committee during the statutory sitting of the Committee held on 5 and 6 August 2010.He stated that the participation by Parliamentarians in the PAP statutory sittings was becoming a heavy burden for the national Parliaments. This explained his absence at the statutory sitting of 5 and 6 August, 2010, which was very poorly attended.He added that for family reasons, Ms Marina Da- Trinidade, Committee Clerk was not present at the statutory sitting that took place on 5 and 6 August 2010. A member of the support staff was immediately designated to assist the Committee at this sitting. Given that this staff did not take down the minutes of the sitting of 6 August 2010, only those of the 5 August 2010 were available.The Vice-Chairperson of the Committee informed his colleagues that Hon. Hassen Ahmed ABDUSELAM, Chairperson of the Committee had not been re-elected by his national Parliament. The office of the Chairperson of the Committee was thus declared vacant. The Committee then elected a new Chairperson at the sitting.Given that the Committee Rapporteur was on a PAP official visit to Libya, Hon. Rim Driouich Chaouachi of Tunisia was appointed interim Rapporteur.Committee members did not appreciate the new presentation of the agenda of the Committee. They pointed out that the changes made to the minutes were not appropriate. The Committee therefore decided not to retain the following items on the agenda of the sitting:Members absent with apologiesMatters arising from the minutes of previous Committee sittingsFour new members were appointed to the Committee. They were:1.Hon. Abdiaziz Abdullahi Mohamed (Somalia)2.Hon. Hassabo Mohamed (the Sudan)3.Hon. Reza A.G.M. Issack (Maritius)4.Hon. Kingsley Namakhwa (Malawi)Election of the Chairperson of the CommitteeThe session relating to the election of the new Chairperson of the Committee was held under the supervision of Ms Josiane WAWA DAHAB, Principal Clerk, designated by the Deputy Clerk in charge of Legislative Business of the PAP.In accordance with the provisions of the Rules of Procedure, the Chairperson of the session verified the quorum. In this regard, of the 30 members of the Committee, 21 were present at the meeting.She then read out the list of candidatures for the office of the Chairperson as adopted by regional Caucuses. Hence, the two candidatures endorsed were:(i)Hon. KHUMALO Marwick from Swaziland (Southern Africa Regional Caucus)(ii)Hon. ABDULKHADER MohamedMohamed from Djibouti (East Africa Regional Caucus).The floor was then given to the two candidates to introduce themselves to members of the Committee.At the end of the presentations, members of the Committee voted by secret ballot to elect the Chairperson of the Committee.The voting gave the following results:Number of voters: 21Number of votes for Honourable Khumalo Marwick: 11Number of votes for Honourable ABDULKHADER Mohamed Mohamed: 10Honourable Khumalo Marwick was thus elected Chairperson of the Permanent Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolution.
Consideration and adoption of the minutes of previous sittings
Committee members considered and adopted the minutes of the sittings of 15 April and 5 August 2010.The minutes of 15 April were adopted pending the taking into consideration of a correction on the form in the English and Portuguese versions of the document.The minutes of 5th August 2010 were adopted with amendments.
Matters arising from the minutes
The only issue discussed by members of the Committee was related to the participation of the PAP in the meetings of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.Committee members called on the bureau of the Committee to contact the Clerk of the PAP for him to shed light on the next sitting of the Committee.
Report on Peace and Security in Africa
An item relating to the presentation on the situation of peace and security in Africa was included on the agenda of the Third Ordinary Session of the second parliament of PAP.To this end, a report was prepared by the Africa Institute of South Africa on the situation of peace and security in Africa. This report was to be presented to members of the Committee by an expert from the Institute.The Committee rejected considering this report for the following reasons:The report was not translated into all the working languages of the PAP,The report was seen to be very theoretical and does not highlight the salient points related to the empirical situation of peace and security on the Continent.The Committee then decided to set up a Subcommittee composed of one member per region in order to draw up a synoptic report on the situation of peace and security. This report will be presented during the Plenary.The Vice-Chairperson of the Committee was designated to chair the proceedings of the subcommittee.Members of the Committee decided to meet on Monday 11 October 2010 at 8h30 to adopt the report of the sub-committee before its presentation to the Plenary.
Participation at the Regional meeting of Parliamentarians of States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)
Some members of the Committee participated at the Regional Meeting of Parliamentarians of States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) that was held on 30 September and 1 October 2010, at the seat of the Pan-African Parliament in Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.The meeting was organized by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in collaboration with the Pan-African Parliament.The conference brought together Pan-African Parliamentarians whose States are parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, representatives of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union, representatives of regional and national Parliaments of the African continent, focal points of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and representatives of national Authorities.The objective of the meeting was to present an overview of the convention relating to the prohibition of chemical weapons to enable each organ, be it at the continental, regional or national level to effectively play its role in the total elimination of chemical weapons on the African continent.
Recommendations and Resolutions of the Committee
The Pan-African ParliamentDeeply Concerned by the persistence of violent conflicts in Africa;Aware that conflicts in Africa are caused by factors such as unconstitutional changes of Government, border disputes, colonization, bad governance, socio-economic exclusion and the violation of Human rights;Noting the need to establish peace and security for the development of Africa;Taking into Consideration its role to promote peace and security on the African Continent; andExpressing Concerns over the progress made in the functioning of the Continental Early Warning System, which enables timely intervention in order to prevent and avoid the escalation of conflicts;Therefore Recommends That:1)The AU should operationalize the African Standby Preventive Force to carry out peacekeeping activities;2)The AU should ensure that an effective and efficient African Conflict Resolution Facility is put in place;3)All AU Member States sign, ratify and implement the African Charter on democracy, elections and Governance4)The urgent operationalization of the Continental Early Warning System should remain a priority;5)The AU should work towards the full completion of the decolonization process of Africa.
Recommendations on the situation in Somalia
The Pan-African Parliament,Deeply concerned by the suffering of the populations and the collapse of the rule of law in Somalia,Further Concerned by the unfavourable security conditions and the precarious humanitarian situation in Somalia,Considering the recent developments characterized by thousands of deadly attacks carried out in the Horn of Africa;Paying Tribute to the efforts made by Uganda and Burundi to deploy their troops to Somalia;Therefore Recommends that:1)All AU Member States confirm their commitment to the deployment of troops in Somalia;2)All parties to the Somali conflict work towards the re-establishment of a lasting peace in Somalia.
Resolution on the decolonization of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic
The Pan-African Parliament,Recalling the different resolutions and recommendations of the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly etc. as well as those of the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament on the situation in the Western Sahara;Deeply Concerned by the prevailing situation in the Western Sahara caused by the violation of Human Rights in the occupied territories of the SADR, in addition to the Morocco’s intransigence in refusing to respect the organization of a free, fair and transparent referendum that would enable the Saharawi people to live in peace with all the countries of the region.Considering the urgent need to prevent the spread of violence and the deterioration of the situation in the Western Sahara;Expressing its gratitude to the African Union,Taking Note of the willingness of the Polisario Front to begin direct negotiations with Morocco in order to find a just and lasting solution to this conflict;Therefore Resolves:1)To encourage the parties to work towards a solution that guarantees the rights of Saharawi people to self determination.2)To urgently appeal to all the organs of the African Union to work towards putting an end to any collaboration with Morocco in order to end its illegal occupation of the Western Sahara;3)To demand the release of all political prisoners held in Moroccan jails and to beseech the African Union to guarantee the safety and freedom of the Saharawi people and to do everything to put an end to the blatant violations of human rights committed by Morocco against the defenceless civilians in the Western Sahara.
Resolution on the situation in the Sudan
The Pan-African Parliament,Paying Tribute to positive developments of the political situation in Darfur and the new peace strategy;Further Paying Tribute to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in the Sudan;Acknowledging the important role played by the high level panel of the African Union towards the establishment of peace in the Sudan;Considering that Southern Sudan will organize a referendum in 2011; andHoping that the referendum process will be credible and free from any violence;Resolves:1)To do everything in order to field a referendum observer mission to South Sudan;2)To appeal to the African Union, the United Nations and other international and regional actors to continue to play an active role towards establishing a lasting peace in Darfur.
Resolution on the situation in Somalia
The Pan-African Parliament,Deeply Concerned by the suffering of the populations and the collapse of the rule of law in Somalia,Further Concerned by the unfavourable security conditions and the precarious humanitarian situation in Somalia,Considering the recent developments characterized by thousands of deadly attacks carried out in the Horn of Africa;Paying Tribute to the efforts made by Uganda and Burundi to deploy their troops in Somalia;Therefore Resolves:That a fact finding mission should be sent to Somalia, taking into consideration the security concerns.Mr. President, before I conclude I would like to apologize on behalf of the Clerk of the Committee for inadvertently leaving out the name of our Rapporteur, which should have been alongside the name of our Chairman, Honourable Gonda. I hope it will be corrected.Thank you.AN HONORABLE MEMBER:شكرا سيدي الرئيس،ال سيدي الرئيس لدي نقطة نظام ... في هذا... يعني كان من الالزم على أنه المترجمين يأخذون معهم النصوص، في التوصيات، حتى نكاد يعني نتابع النص الحقيقي، حتى يمكن للمشاركين أن يتدخلوا بموجب ذلك. وفي الموجب أنا أرى أنه يعني هناك فقرة قد استبدلت، في قضية الصحراء، لم يشر إليها في التقرير.شكرا سيدي الرئيس،إذا كان بإمكاني أن أتكلم عن الفقرة، التي استبدلت ولم تقرأ، حتى يمكن للجميع أن يعلقوا على هذا إذا أمكن. ألنه تغيرت الفقرة من: تشجيع جبهة البوليزاريو على احترام إلتزامها بالحوار والنهوض بالسلم في المنطقة، إلى تشجيع الطرفين على العمل من أجل إيجاد حل يضمن حق الشعب الصحراوي في تقرير المصير. يعني هذا بعد أن يقرر.شكرا سيدي الرئيس.الرئيس: شكرا Ouaddadhi Honourable حتى النسخة الفرنسية هناك أيضا نفس الغلطة وسنقف عليها أيضا إن شاء هللا. العضو: شكرا السيد الرئيس.HON. NGUINI EFFA MARIE-ROSE [CAMEROUN]:Je vous remercie, encore une fois, Monsieur le Président.Je tiens aussi à remercier le membre de la Commission qui a présenté ce rapport.Mais, permettez-moi, Monsieur le Président, de m’appesantir un peu sur le sort des réfugiés, parce que je pense que le sort des réfugiés, le sort de ces femmes et de ces enfants qui fourmillent dans les camps, avec le lot de malheurs, de problèmes et de tous les maux que ces mœurs comportent, les viols de la part de ceux qui sont supposés les garder, les protéger, la promiscuité, découle un peu de cette Commission.Saviez-vous, chers collègues, que parfois des chefs de famille et souvent des enfants et des femmes sont dans ces camps de réfugiés? Et ces femmes, dans la plupart des cas, n’ont pas d’identité. Elles n’ont pas d’identité à titre personnel. Donc elles ne peuvent même pas se déplacer parce qu’elles ne sont pas identifiées. On les identifie par rapport à l’homme qui est là.La deuxième chose aussi, c’est qu’il y a des textes qui existent, et il faudrait que nous y travaillions tous, pour que les femmes fassent de plus en plus partie des missions de paix et du personnel onusien, car il est très difficile pour une femme de raconter à un homme les sévices, les viols qu’elle a subis dans ces camps, lors des rencontres, surtout quand il s’agit des femmes de religion musulmane.Les droits humains - j’en ai entendu parler dans le rapport - sont parfois très bafoués dans ces camps-là. Je voudrais que cela nous interpelle, nous tous ici.Je vous remercie beaucoup, Monsieur le Président.HON. HAJAIG FATIMA [SOUTH AFRICA]:Thank you Mr. President. 2010 is the year of peace and security. The slogan was adopted by the African Union and the slogan is "Make Peace Happen".One of the key moments in the year of peace and security was 21st September, 2010. This year of peace proclaimed by the United Nations Resolution, offers our Continent a unique rallying point to demonstrate that peace is achievable. A united peaceful Africa can promote the development and prosperity of our Continent (Applause) but alas that some conflicts continue to persist, what is also of concern is the possible flashpoints of conflict in Nigeria. We cannot afford another major destabilization of that populace country.I would like to emphasize a few issues that were discussed and is in the report but I would like to emphasize. One is the continental early warning system. This early warning system is a very important tool in the prevention and management of conflicts on our Continent. Despite the importance of the early warning system, we still find the early warning systems of the Regional Economic Communities and the AU situation room is not fully operationalized. The Peace and Security Council must check this as an urgent matter.Secondly, progress has continued to be made in the development of the various components of the African Standby Forces. However, the deployment of a multidimensional African Standby Force, well equipped, well trained is imperative.I would like to comment on the Penal of the Wise. The Penal of the Wise whose mandate is to support the efforts of the Peace and Security Council, particularly in the area of conflict prevention. The Penal has pursued issues relevant to conflict preventions specifically on impunity, justice and national reconciliation and also has done enormous amount of work on women and children in armed conflict. As the mandate to the Members of this Panel is coming to an end in December, 2010, we need to ensure the appointment of new members and the enhancement of the capacity of the Panel timelessly.The last issue I would like to mention is the procurement of small weapons and light arms in Africa. This is causing havoc and I think Member States must take responsibility and must assist in the collection and the demolition of these weapons.Lastly, I would like to say to my sister that the conflicts in Africa does not belong to anyone grouping or anyone religion. So, I think that it is a problem of all Africa and we need to see it as such. (Applause)I would like to support the recommendations on the Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolution.I thank you. (Applause)HON. VIEYRA SOGLO ROSINE [BENIN]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Monsieur le Président,Quand elle a parlé des conflits armés qui ravagent l’Afrique en ce moment, j’ai trouvé cela comme un crève-cœur. Mais, Monsieur le Président, mes chers collègues, l’histoire nous a appris que le monde entier est passé par là. Que ce soit l’Asie, l’Europe ou l’Amérique, et malheureusement, eux, ils ne nous avaient pas sur le dos, parce que nous, nous les avons sur le dos, ce qui n’arrange rien du tout. Cependant, j’ai la certitude, Monsieur le Président que, malgré tout cela, dans les larmes, dans la souffrance, dans le chagrin et dans le sang, nous arriverons comme eux aussi à nous en sortir. C’est mon souhait et je suis sûre que je reverrai la paix sur le continent africain.Monsieur le Président,Je vais vous demander de me laisser parler un peu plus parce que, je vais faire mes adieux. Je pars d’ici et j’aimerais d’abord, Monsieur le Président, vous remercier tout particulièrement pour avoir décrispé un peu l’atmosphère de notre Parlement. Et, je vous remercie surtout profondément pour nous avoir donné deux conférences des femmes, l’une sur les mutilations génitales, l’autre sur les problèmes des mères et des enfants. J’aimerais ou je souhaiterais, Monsieur le Président, que la prochaine soit peut-être sur les femmes battues, car il y en a beaucoup, et il parait que, en France, toutes les 72 heures, il y a une femme qui meurt sous les coups de son compagnon. Ensuite, ce sera sur les handicapés dont je fais partie, et qui sont peut-être les oubliés; et enfin, sur quelque chose qui vient en rampant lentement mais sûrement, c’est-à-dire les vieilles personnes. L’Europe connaît cela, et pour le moment nous commençons aussi à le connaître.Cela étant dit, Monsieur le Président, je voudrais vous remercier, ainsi que tous mes collègues pour l’aide que vous m’avez apportée tous les jours, pour le secours qui m’a été octroyé même si quelquefois, vous savez, ma fierté l’admettait mal. Je veux surtout remercier les hôtesses qui étaient d’une gentillesse, d’une courtoisie, d’un respect à mon égard. Très souvent, j’entendais « maman ». Je vous remercie mes enfants. Que Dieu vous protège!Monsieur le Président,Je vais terminer simplement en disant ceci: il faut savoir garder raison et s’en aller en beauté. Il ne faut pas attendre que les bonnes choses vous quittent avant de partir. Alors, moi, j’aimerais partir en beauté et peut-être, quelque part, Monsieur le Président, avec un peu trop d’orgueil, un peu trop de fierté. C’est comme cela que je suis. Chacun est ce qu’il est. Je suis orgueilleuse, peut-être même beaucoup et je pense que c’est pour moi une humiliation de me voir dans cet état avec ma canne. Mon Dieu! Quelle image je donne de moi-même!Alors, Monsieur le Président et chers collègues, un peu d’humilité aurait été bien, mais malheureusement, je ne connais pas ce mot que j’aborde: l’humilité! Si l’humilité signifie qu’il faut être dans le marais, et comme disaient les révolutionnaires, couper toutes les têtes au même niveau, je ne suis pas pour l’humilité car, on peut couper toutes les têtes, mais toutes les têtes ne seront pas au même niveau parce que nous n’avons pas la même taille.Cela étant Monsieur le Président, je vous fais mes adieux et je suis heureuse de partir. Oui! Mais, je vous suivrais de loin, Monsieur le Président, et chaque fois que vous serez en session, je dirai: " Tiens! De quoi parlent-ils?" Mon souhait le plus cher, c’est que vous arriviez à réaliser les Etats- Unis d’Afrique. Je pense que je verrai cela avant de mourir, car nous avons entendu OBAMA dire "YES WE CAN! YES I CAN! YES YOU CAN!" Nous pouvons arriver, Monsieur le Président, à faire l’unité africaine, à avoir les vrais Etats-Unis d’Afrique.Monsieur le Président, j’en ai terminé, et je vous dis merci. Merci à mes chers collègues, et que Dieu vous garde.Je vous remercie infiniment.(Applaudissements)LE PRÉSIDENT:Hon. Rosine VIEYRA SOGLO, je vous remercie pour cette intervention. Vous avez dit adieu, mais moi, je dirai au revoir et je vais vous dire pourquoi. La deuxième chose que j’approuve et que vous venez de nous répéter c’est "de partir la tête haute encore qu’il est temps". Cela est valable pour vous, mais pour nous également. Si je dis que ce n’est qu’un au revoir, je suis sûr que demain, lors d’un colloque, d’une conférence des femmes, vous serez invitée au Parlement panafricain. Moi aussi, j’espère demain qu’il y ait une conférence des hommes, pour qu’on pense à l’ancien Président ou qu’on m’invite également au Parlement panafricain. C’est pourquoi, Honorable Rosine VIEYRA SOGLO, ce n’est qu’un au revoir.Nous luttons au quotidien pour l’intégration du continent. Nous le ferons avec nos moyens à distance et ici, et nous allons continuer d’accompagner les jeunes générations qui commencent à nous remplacer déjà.Je vous remercie beaucoup, encore une fois, pour toutes vos contributions et je sais que vous ne manquerez pas de continuer de contribuer pour le développement du Parlement panafricain et l’intégration du continent. Encore une fois, je vous remercie.Honorables membres, je vous demande d’applaudir, une dernière fois, l’Honorable Rosine VIEYRA SOGLO.(Applaudissements)Je vous remercie, beaucoup.HON. JATTA SIDIA S. [GAMBIA]:Thank you, Mr. President.Mr. President, I am so moved by the words of our mother that I can hardly find words to speak. I want to keep them as food for thought. She said some very important things here. For me they are so important that I leave her to speak and to continue to speak in my mind for the rest of the day. She said, "We can and we can unite the continent of Africa." Thank you very much. (Applause)HON. SUAD EL FATEH AL-BADAWI [SUDAN]:Bismillah Rahman Rahim. I thank you very much, Mr. President for giving me this opportunity. I need to be brief and to the point.First of all, I want to highlight the responsibilities of PAP in the process of bringing peace to Africa. And here I want to focus in relations to the areas of conflict. It is important to get first hand information and respond rightly to them because there are a lot of lies. And most of these false allegations based on biased ground. It is very important to go there and see for yourself conditions and then respond to them and try to take part in healing these wounds.My second point is that, I want to point out that conflict in my country Sudan and Darfur and in the South, the South is not in conflict but there is development of CPA Agreement, this is coming to an end. As far as the South is concerned, there will be a Referendum in which our people in the South will either choose to be an independent fate or to continue uniting with the rest of Sudan. And this is the will of the people of the South whatever they say it will be accepted by everybody. (Applause)As far as Darfur is concerned, the Council of Ministers and Experts holding the Darfur file and the Parliament have taken up a war strategy. I want to focus on the most important points in these five items strategies and that is to bring peace via reconciliation. Before the conflicts in Darfur and in the East and in the South, in the Sudan generally is been done through reconciliations of wise men and wise women. In Darfur there are wise women called Haganat and these women play a vital part in reconciliations and in the political life of Darfur. So, this strategy instead of looking out to people outside our Darfur, our Regions, this strategy is looking inside Darfur by holding these reconciliations which in the past played a vital part in bringing peace between people and tribes.The second thing is that compensations is being discussed and we hear that the people of Darfur which I call the manufactured war or manufactured conflict, they suffered from the intervention of the foreign powers into our conflict and now they really need compensation to build their real lives, to build their homes, to go back to their villages and this needs a lot care and handling and this is one of the most important items of the Peace Strategy of Darfur.I think all the players who are trying to bring peace to Darfur now are determined that by the end of December, peace to Darfur is given, Insha’Allah (God willing). Thank you very much. (Applause)DEPUTADO MANUEL SERIFO NHAMAJO [GUINÉ-BISSAU]:Obrigado, Presidente. Nós queríamos felicitar a presidência da Comissâo de Cooperaçâo Internacional e Resoluçâo de Conflitos pelo brilhante relatório.A Guiné-Bissau é um país da costa Ocidental da África que fez uma luta brilhante contra o colonialismo internacional, conquistou a sua independência em 1974. Em 1998 fomos mergulhados numa guerra civil sem precedentes, muito violenta, que nâo deu nenhum resultado para ninguém. Em Março de 2009 foi assassinado sob um falso alarme de narcotráfico, o Presidente da República, Joâo Bernardo Vieira "Nino" e o Chefe de Estado Maior das Forças Armadas, Tagme Na Waie. Em Maio do mesmo ano, foram assassinados dois deputados, Hélder Proença, antigo Ministro da Defesa e Baciro Dabó, antigo Ministro do Interior.Neste momento, estâo a ser esclarecidas as condiçoes em que foram mortas essas pessoas, está-se a ler o relatório sobre essas actividades. Nós queríamos que a Comissâo reservasse uma resoluçâo que pudesse chamar a atençâo, ou pedir ao Parlamento Pan-Africano para criar uma comissâo de sui vie, para seguir os acontecimentos na Guiné-Bissau, de modo a evitar-se que nós, de novo, mergulhemos numa guerra civil.Portanto, nós, nesse momento, temos situaçoes muito difíceis ligadas ao narcotráfico e a retaliaçoes pela luta de independência que fizemos. Quero que nao nos abandonem, nao nos deixem sós porque precisámos da ajuda de todos os parlamentares e do Parlamento Pan-Africano.Obrigado, Presidente.HON. ZROUG BRAHIM SALEH [SAHARAWI REPUBLIC]:بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم.شكرا سيدي الرئيس،أوال أريد أن تصحح الفقرة في النص العربي والنص الفرنسي واإلسباني، حتى تالئم ما ورد في النص االنجليزي، فيما يتعلق بالصحراء الغربية.ثانيا أهنيء رئيس اللجنة" كومالو" والسيد" دستي" هذا الذي يجلس بجانبي وأعضاء لجنة العالقات الدولية، لهذا المجلس المؤقر، على هذا التقرير الجيد والشامل، لكل قضايا إفريقيا، مما يؤكد حرص الجميع على أن يسود األمن والسالم ربوع قارتنا المعطاة على أساس من الجوار القائم على اإلحترام المتبادل والتعامل المثمر والبناء.ثالثا آن األوان لنرفع جميع القرارات، المتعلقة بالنزاعات اإلقليمية، في إفريقيا، خالل قمة الروساء، وأن يتخذ الرؤساء إجراءات صارمة بكل هذه المشاكل العديدة للقارة.وبخصوص بلدي، الصحراء الغربية، فإن المشكل تفاقم بشكل لم يعد يحتمل، فهو قائم منذ 36 عاما، كما يعرف الجميع، والمطلوب إذن هو عقوبات صارمة تتقدم بها إفريقيا إلى مجلس األمن الدولي، إلرغام المغرب المحتل الغازي على اإلنصياع إلى اإلرادة الدولية. وإذا لم يتم ذلك، فإن حربا ضروسا ستعود إلى شمال إفريقيا. وحينها لن تتوقف إال بنصر نهائي واسترجاع كافة أراضينا المغتصبة، فنحن في وقف إلطالق النار منذ 20 سنة، ولم نصل إلى نتيجة إلى حد الساعة ولن يلومنا أحد بعد ذلك.إذن أشكر، مرة أخرى، الجميع وأشكر اللجنة والسيد الرئيس على إتاحة هذه الفرصة ونتمنى لكم التوفيق والنجاح.HON. JUSTIN JOSEPH MARONA [SUDAN]:Thank you Mr. President, for giving me this opportunity. I would like also to congratulate you on this wonderful Session under your leadership that we are ending today. Mr. President, I would like to also add my voice to this impressive report of this Committee on International Cooperation and Conflict Resolution. I would like also to thank the Chairperson and especially one who presented to us this report. Mr. President Conflict Resolution is a base of the progress in Africa Continent. If we, the Africans do not accept that let Africa be in peace, it will be hard for us Mr. President to achieve all the commitments, either regional commitments or international commitments to meet the aspiration and expectation of the people of Africa.Mr. President, I wish that all the conflicting areas in Africa will see the light of peace and stability so that as Africans, we can go forward, never backward. In my country Sudan Mr. President, the conflict that has devastated the nation especially between the North and the South, though it has taken a lot of time, has come to an end by the signing the comprehensive peace agreement. I am so impressed by the recommendation of this good Committee; that of encouraging all the partners of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) to complete its versions. Also Mr. President, I would like to add my voice in order for the recommendation to be in favour of the peace process. As the Voice of Africa, I would suggest that in this paragraph - hoping that the referendum process will be credible and free from any violence - I wish Mr. President that it should be added in this report that; the parties in Sudan shall abide by its result, that is the result of Referendum.Mr. President as of now, all the indicators are showing that we as Sudanese can solve our problems, especially the meeting of yesterday between the First Vice President and Vice President of Sudan in Juba that normalized the situation in Sudan; and that the referendum process be in time and without any conflict. Therefore I would also like to add on the resolutions 3 bullet 3; that this august House should encourage CPA partners to finalise the remaining conflicting issues within the humble limited time. We should echo our voice as a voice of the people of Africa to the parties in Sudan to speed up all the remaining issues that are not agreed upon, SKETCHES, the Border Commission and the ABA issue, and the post referendum arrangement.Mr. President, I support the recommendation for the Saharawi Republic that; put our people in Saharawi Republic in a very comfortable position, because that situation could not encourage any development or any progress in that nation.Lastly, the recommendation shows the commitment of African states in order to encourage peace and security in Somalia.Therefore, I add my voice to salute all the forces in Somalia, especially Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda who are leading the role of peacekeeping in Somalia. Thank you Mr. President.HON. MABILETSA ISAAC STEPHEN [BOTSWANA]:Thank you Mr. President. I am a member of this Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolution and I would like to associate myself fully with this report that has just been eloquently tabled by the Vice Chairman of the Committee.Having said that Mr. President, I will speak on a slightly different note from what my colleagues have already spoken on.During the time of Apartheid in South Africa, the whole world went up and arms against the then Republic of South Africa. Even at the United Nations, they applied sanctions to ensure that majority rule in South Africa do occur. In this House, we are now talking about the United States of Africa. I am wondering whether we are going to have a United States of Africa with an oppressor in Morocco. I am wondering why we appear to be treating Morocco with kid gloves for being an oppressor. I am wondering why no sanctions are applied against Morocco because nobody and I mean nobody wish to live under the yoke of oppression, but we are seeing it happening against the people of the Democratic Republic of Saharawi and this must not be condoned. I realize, though I associate myself with the Committee that the Resolution right now is very mild. I think in the next occasion Mr. President, take the situation in Morocco, Republic of Saharawi has not changed, we should move for more stinger measures to make sure that Morocco really feels penalized because oppression is not acceptable in this era of peace and security. I thought I would say that point.But finally, because this is my last intervention during this session I would like to commend you Mr. President and your Vice Presidents for ably steering the proceedings of this session with a high degree of professionalism and impartiality. You enabled each and every speaker the opportunity that they deserve to get it. Even whatever was not even possible but you still tried your best all of you that said and presided over the session of this meeting. May God bless you and may God bless Africa. I thank you. (Applause)HON. NJIKELANA SISA JAMES [SOUTH AFRICA]:Mr. President, I wish to commend the Committee for their well articulated report. We heard our strong propositions in their resolutions. The world is littered with stories of people dying because of people who are hell-bent in resolving conflicts through military means. But, it is also littered with examples of political conflicts resolved through peaceful means, politicallyMr. President, I must repeat what I said a few days ago. Let this Parliament examine issues through a special session. That special session can be organized on what its role is going to be. I have listened carefully with great admiration though on how we expect the Executives, Heads of State, Foreign Ministers, etc. to behave, but my question is, what about us? If somebody puts an ‘x’ in your box and made you a legislator or a public representative, the question is, what are we doing in contributing towards resolutions of these conflicts, some of which have been alarmingly protracted sometimes? Can you take a few steps back and look at the cost of resolving conflicts militarily versus politically? At that point, PanAfrican Parliament should encourage efforts of resolving political conflicts through political means. I would like to highlight that very strongly. At the same time, as a reminder, when conflicts are resolved through military means, in whose interests are those if not for the military industrial complexes; the very countries that are producing the weapons; compared with the pledges they have made to finance Africa on climate change, MDGs, advancing NEPAD and a whole list of development initiatives up to global trade. These are pittance, very little funds, and empty promises in relation to military conflicts via military industrial complexes that are so eager to provide those weapons. That should be one of the greatest propellant for us to ensure that we take a bold step to stop buying the bullets and say at some stage, as public representatives, that whatever resolutions we take in this House, we should ensure that those resolutions are implemented in our own countries.I am very happy that Hon Hajaichez raised the issue of the panel of the wise. I also hope that we should do our best in our countries to ensure that that panel, in whatever form it is refined and advanced, receives all the support it deserves as well as all the resources that are needed to make it effective.Mr. President, as my last input in this session, let us also remember that in the national solidarity, it is not in our interest to have military resolutions. It is an exercise that needs to be realized by our own individual efforts so that we can have a better Africa tomorrow.Thank you very much.HON. HASSABO MOHAMMED ABDUL RAHMAN [SUDAN]بسم هللا الرحمن الرحيم.شكرا السيد الرئيس،األخ رئيس اللجنة،السادة األعضاء،إسمحوا لي أن نشيد وندعم تقرير اللجنة، بالرغم من أنني عضو في هذه اللجنة الهامة، إال أنني طلبت الحديث للتركيز حول اآلتي: نود أن نؤكد بأن إفريقيا، بتاريخها التليد، لديها القدرة والحكمة والقيادة والريادة في حل النزاعات وجعل السالم واإلستقرار والتنمية، ذلك يحقق التضامن والوحدة للواليات اإلفريقية، ألنه ال يمكن أن توجد واليات إفريقية في حروب ونزاعات.يحتاج اإلتحاد اإلفريقي إلى تطوير وتعزيز آلياته في فض النزاعات، خاصة في مجال اإلنذار المبكر والتنبؤات والتوقعات {Early learning system and forecasting {mechanisms} ويجب إختيار وحدات بحثية مقتدرة، للبحث في األسباب الجذرية للنزاعات، في إفريقيا، وتقديم التحليالت والدراسات، من واقع ميداني حسب بيئة كل إقليم وكل دولة، مثل المعهد الذي رفضناه في اللجنة. هذا معهد يجب أال تختاره إدارة البرلمان. أكرر إدارة البرلمان عليها أن تبحث وتمحص لنا المعاهد التي تساعدنا في إيجاد الحلول.سيدي الرئيس،إن إفريقيا غنية ولها تعدد إجتماعي وثقافي، وهو عامل قوة وليس عامل ضعف، ولديها آليات محلية ووطنية في السالم اإلجتماعي وحل المشاكل. وال بد من تطوير هذه اآلليات، ألنها مؤثرة خاصة أن الجامعات الغربية اآلن، مثل جامعة هارفارد، تدرس اآلليات التقليدية لحل النزاعات. يمكن ذلك بتبادل التجارب بين الدول اإلفريقية وبين األقاليم اإلفريقية. يجب أن تتوفر الشروط والمعاييير في المؤسسات والمعاهد التي يتم إختيارها.سيدي الرئيس،إن الحروب مدمرة. أكرر إن الحروب مدمرة للموارد الطبيعية والبشرية، في كل العالم، والبشرية كلها تعاني من أثار الحروب. وعليه نناشد كل الشعوب اإلفريقية والدول والعالم بوقف دعم الحروب. أسال: من أين تأتي األسلحة والدعم اللوجستي للحروب؟ أكيد لن يأتي من إفريقيا. وعليه فإن الحقوق يمكن أن تؤخذ باألساليب السلمية والوسائل الديمقراطية مهما طالت المطالبات. ال بد من التفكير في إعالن ضد الحرب. أكرر هذا البرلمان يمثل الشعب اإلفريقي ال بد من إعالن {Declaration} ضد الحرب.سيدي الرئيس،إن بلدي السودان يمر بمرحلة هامة، خالل تاريخه، كأكبر دولة في إفريقيا. وتمر اآلن اتفاقية السالم التاريخي بآخر حلقاتها، وهي قيام اإلستفتاء، في مواعيده، في يناير. ونطالب أن يكون اإلستفتاء بحرية وديمقراطية وشفافية وأن تكون نتيجته لصالح الشعب السوداني ولصالح األمن واإلستقرار وليس أن يجلب حربا، بل يحقق تطلعات الشعب السوداني في السالم واإلستقرار والتنمية والوحدة ونتائجه دعما للسالم. ونطالب، من كل اإلخوة في إفريقيا، دعوة هللا سبحانه وتعالى أن يوفق السودان، لما فيه الخير للبالد والعباد، وأن ترسلوا لنا رسائل إيجابية {signals Positive} وليست رسائل سالبة.السيد الرئيس،نؤكد لإلخوة، في البرلمان، بأن دارفور باإلستراتيجية الجديدة تسير في خطوات إيجابية. الحوار اآلن، في الدوحة، مستمر بين الحكومة والحركات المسلحة وبقية محاور اإلستراتيجية تعمل داخليا للسالم اإلجتماعي والتنمية والخدمات. وفي هذا الموقف ال بد أن أشيد إشادة خاصة بالدولة الشقيقة تشاد وتطور العالقات اإليجابي بين السودان وتشاد، الذي كان له األثر الكبير في اإلستقرار في دارفور ووقف التفلتات األمنية.وأخيرا أشيد بالفريق، العالي المستوى، التابع لإلتحاد اإلفريقي برئاسة رئيس جنوب إفريقيا السابق "تاموامبيكي" وبقية األعضاء الرؤساء الحكماء. وأنا أوافق اإلخوة، في دعم هذا الفريق، ألنه من حكماء إفريقيا ويعلم بخفاياها.أخي الرئيس،كرر أن العدالة مطلوبة. ولكن العدالة تأتي بعد السالم واألمن واإلستقرار. أخيرا أو آخر نقطة: جمع األسلحة الخفيفة ودعم برنامج الـ {DDR} نزح السالح وإدماج المسرحين في الحياة المدنية.شكرا جزيال السيد الرئيس.الرئيس: شكرا.DEPUTADO CERTORIO BIOTE [Guiné-Bissau]:Obrigado, Senhor Presidente, por me ter concedido a palavra como último inscrito desta sessao. Permita-me felicitá-lo pela forma brilhante como tem dirigido esta Plenária e, me permita a melhor compreensao no seio para o bem da África.Senhor Presidente, permita-me felicitar o Presidente da Comissao de que fa$o parte - embora estivesse ausente aquando da sua eleigào - a Comissao de Cooperalo Internacional e Resoluto de Conflitos, o Senhor Marwick Khumalo.Permita-me, Senhor Presidente, realzar um assunto aqui: durante o dia o debate foi brilhante. Alguém disse que a Comissao mais importante era, talvez, a Comissao da qual ele faz parte. Senhor Presidente, parece-me que a Comissao mais importante perante a realidade africana, é a Comissao que é motivo de discussao, no último ponto, a Comissao de Cooperalo Internacional e Resoluto de Conflitos. Porque digo isso? Senao vejamos: nao se pode implementar nenhum trabalho com exito, relacionado a qualquer comissao permanente que temos sem que haja paz, seguranza e estabilidade em qualquer parte que queiramos faze-lo. Por isso mesmo, esta Comissao tem uma missao importante em África, aqui dentro.A Senhora Presidente deve criar condi?8es materiais e or?amentais para que de facto a Comissao trabalhe com exito, para permitir, de facto, que outras comissoes possam funcionar aqui, na África do Sul ou em qualquer parte do nosso continente.O meu entendimento, é que a Comissao de Cooperalo Internacional e Resoluto de Conflitos deve ser uma comissao que tem muito a fazer em África, porque em vários países, há problemas de vária ordem, por isso deve desdobrar a sua capacidade a todo o momento. Por isso, o Presidente eleito desta Comissao deve ser somente amável e tem que ser comunicável. Portanto, tem que haver uma comunicalo entre os membros da Comissao.Pe$o aos Senhores, Segundo Vice-Presidente aqui presente, tendo em conta a ausencia do Presidente, que transmita ao nosso Presidente, uma pessoa que vejo muito programado, muito dinàmico, que dinamize a Comissao, para que de facto, África acelere a pacificado e que isso, consequentemente, poderá permitir o avanzo de África à todos os níveis.Senhor Presidente, se me permite, queria falar de (... ) mas alguém já falou da prolifera?ao de armas. Por isso, em síntese, pe$o que haja uma Resoluto sobre essas questoes. Em África quase que se encontram em toda a parte e as pessoas vivem numa situa?ao miserável, assim como a prolifera?ao de armas ligeiras, que podem constituir um perigo para o nosso continente.Senhor Presidente, falou-se muito da questao do Darfur, do Sudao - como se programou um referendo nesse país - Deus queira que tudo corra em paz e com entendimento de ambas as partes para que o resultado obtido seja aceite pelas partes.Senhor Presidente, outra questao que queria lanzar aqui - nao sei se o meio é correcto - quero que a Comissao de Cooperado Internacional e Resoludo de Conflitos seja subdividida em duas comissoes, tendo em conta a sua dimensao e o tamanho das tarefas que lhe sao atribuídas.Senhor Presidente, permita-me, nao queria falar desse assunto, mas o meu Colega que me antecedeu, Serifo Balde, falou tanto de questoes relacionadas com o meu país. O meu país, muita gente pode nao saber, é um país que tem estado a enfrentar instabilidade constante, que nao tem paz; como nao há paz, nao há desenvolvimento.No meio das comissoes, o que queríamos aqui, de acordo com o novo Regimento Interno, nao poderá fazer um trabalho de peso, solicito que o Parlamento Pan-Africano use a sua influencia, nao só a Comissao de Cooperado Internacional e Resoludo de Conflitos e, noutro sentido, á nivel da ONU, que ajudem a Guiné-Bissau devido a essas trincheiras tao perigosas que nao ajudam nenhum povo a desenvolver-se.Senhor Presidente, penso que a questao do nosso país e da África em geral é uma questao de interpretado de democracia, que é uma cultura nova, talvez. Muitos de nós fazem elei?oes, fazem-se campanhas, em guerras, portanto, o objectivo da democracia nao é esse! O que acontece em África, em particular, no meu país, quando o vencedor ganha, o que quer dizer, contrariamente, todos os derrotados fazem deles reféns, o que para mim é preciso que o Parlamento Pan-Africano utilize as suas influencias para ajudar os países africanos, sobretudo ajudar o meu país para compreender e interpretar melhor o objectivo da democracia em África.Muito obrigado, Senhor Presidente.DEPUTADO FLORENTINO MENDES PEREIRA [GUINÉ-BISSAU]:Muito obrigado, Senhor Presidente, por me ter dado a palavra.Em primeiro lugar, gostaria de felicitar o Primeiro Vice-Presidente da Comissao de Cooperado Internacional e Resoluto de Conflitos do Parlamento Pan-Africano, pela brilhante apresentagao do Relatório.Estive a analisar o Relatório e queria prestar algumas contribuigoes relativamente a recomendagao. Olhando para o ponto III da versao portuguesa do Relatório, faz-se a recomendagao a alguns conflitos regionais, mas, na minha opiniao, omitiu-se a situagao na África Ocidental. Na África Ocidental também existem conflitos, é preciso uma recomendagao neste sentido. Sabemos, todos, por exemplo, que a situagao na Guiné Conacry, nao é das melhores. Realizaram-se as eleigoes depois da morte do Presidente Lansana Conté, e até hoje nao se realizou a segunda volta das mesmas. A data prevista é 24 de Outubro, mas até agora a situagao continua ainda frágil, é preciso o acompanhamento contínuo da Uniao Africana neste processo.Entretanto, falou-se da situagao da Nigéria, todos assistimos áquilo que aconteceu no dia do aniversário dos 50 anos da Independencia daquele país, e mais outros factores que acompanhamos sobre a situagao na Nigéria, deve merecer a atengao especial da maior organizagao do continente. Nao podemos permitir que a Nigéria seja dividida e as situagoes de terrorismo devem merecer uma atengao especial.Para terminar, Senhora Presidente, a situagao do meu país, os meus Colegas já referiram. Acho que, como o Relatório do Comissário diz, a situagao é frágil. Por que é que a Uniao Africana até agora...HON. COULIBALY KADIDIATOU SAMAKE [MALI]:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président.Monsieur le Président,Lors de la présentation du rapport de la Commission sur la Paix et la Sécurité, j’avais fait mention de la situation d’insécurité en Afrique subsaharienne, et le président de la Commission, l’Honorable KHUMALO avait dit que la Commission allait en tenir compte. Dans les documents qui ont été présentés, nulle part, je n’ai vu qu’il était fait mention de la situation sécuritaire en Afrique subsaharienne.Monsieur le Président,Aujourd’hui même a débuté, à Bamako, une réunion sur le terrorisme en Afrique subsaharienne organisée par le Groupe d’actions contre le terrorisme, composé des Etats du G8 plus l’Australie, l’Espagne, la Suisse et l’Union européenne en collaboration avec les pays comme le Tchad, le Mali, le Niger, la Mauritanie et le Burkina Faso. C’est vous dire combien la situation est préoccupante et très sérieuse. Donc, c’est juste pour faire un rappel. Je souhaiterais vraiment que la Commission puisse prendre cela en charge, que ce soit aujourd’hui ou une autre fois. Je vous remercie!HON. KANTENGWA JULIANA [RWANDA]:Thank you Mr. President. I wish to thank Comrade Dusty; you have done us proud as a Committee, I am a Member of this Committee.Mr. President I want quickly rush to one of the recommendations to do with Republic of Saharawi where we are calling on, "...organs of the African Union to work towards putting an end to any collaboration with Morocco." and it continues.Mr. President, although I am a Member of this Committee and I was present at the time we adopted this report, I do recognize just now that it is a mistake. There is no way we can be calling upon the organs of the AU to stop any collaboration when we know that Morocco is not a Member of the AU. So, we should be calling upon the Member State of the AU and not the organs of the AU to stop any collaboration. Thank you.Another thing that draws my attention is the recommendation to do with doing everythingpossible to send an Observer Mission to observe the Referendum in the forthcoming Referendum of South Sudan. Mr. President, doing everything possible, I just want to reiterate that it is very possible for us to observe this mission. The Referendum will be a historic moment in the lives of one of the Member States of the African Union and we cannot afford to miss this. I know we are having problems of funding but I want to remind this House that the very moment we started the activity of the Election Observer Missions; we started with the Kenyan Mission. We organized it in a hurried way but it was not difficult because we were determined to do it and it became possible. I remember I was among the people who pushed that we go to Kenya because we thought it was necessary. Mr. President, I want to impress it upon you and upon this House that it is very necessary that members of the Pan-African Parliament are not found wanting at the time South Sudan is going through the historic Referendum.Lastly, Mr. President I want to hail the AU for the establishment of the high level panel and the panel of the wise as a mechanism within the African Peace and Security Architecture of the African Union to mediate conflicts on the African Continent. Our conflicts do get complicated because conflicts do evolve. So, this is why I think that an African eye is needed in the analysis of African situations.I thank you Mr. President. Je vous remerçie monsieur le president.(Applause)LE PRÉSIDENT:Je vous remercie beaucoup Honorable Juliana KANTENGWA.Honorables membres,Avant de passer la parole au viceprésident de la Commission pour répondre, je voudrais, conformément à l’article 38 du Règlement intérieur, et avec plaisir, inviter l’Honorable CHIKAONDA membre du Parlement panafricain, aujourd’hui Ministre de l’Information du Malawi. Je l’invite dans la Chambre.(Applaudissements nourris)La plénière, par ces applaudissements, vous souhaite la bienvenue parmi nous, et nous vous souhaitons aussi beaucoup de succès dans votre nouvelle et haute fonction. Nous allons vous regretter en tant que parlementaire et membre du PAP, mais nous nous félicitons de cette promotion. Encore une fois, bienvenue dans notre plénière!(Applaudissements)A présent, je vais inviter l’honorable DUSTY WOLOKOLIE, vice-président de la Commission. Il y a eu très peu de questions, vous avez 5 minutes seulement pour essayer d’apporter quelques éléments de réponses.HON. WOLOKOLIE DUSTY [LIBERIA]:Thank you very much, Mr. President. First, I would like to, since this is my last statement here, join others in congratulating and commending you on the able manner in which you and the Vice Presidents have ably managed the affairs of these proceedings in the Third Ordinary Session. I would like to commend the colleagues for the interventions made. In particular, I would like to pay tribute to hon. Madam Sego for her profound fountain of wisdom she has had us benefit from at this session.The question of refugees and internally displaced persons, and the question of human rights in this situation may be in a way crosscutting issues, but I believe it is based more with the Committee on Justice and Human Rights of the PAP than with the Cooperation Committee. So, we take note of that and I hope the Committee will take note of that in terms of the issue with respect to women and children in that regard.The issue of the early warning system, yes we say we recognize that it exists at the AU. It needs to be strengthened and it needs to be proactively functional.We would like to say that indeed the question of West Africa was not ignored in the report. You recall that when the Committee made the presentation on peace and security in Africa, on the whole question of West Africa, there were certain countries or flashpoints that were taken into consideration and it was there. So, it will be made part of the report in the recommendations.We take note that the question of Guinea Bissau was not touched sufficiently, but we note the developments in Guinea Bissau and we would like to assure the hon. Members of the concern that indeed, it is not abandoned, but we are watching the situation very closely and we will remain seized with the developments as far as the drugs, arms and instability that have been caused in Guinea Bissau are concerned. We hope that in the next report, we will be able to take cognizance of, and report on that.The last issue I would like to comment on is the question of a very important issue of the resolution on fielding an observer mission to South Sudan. You will recall that during the discussions on peace and security in Africa on Thursday this week, the issue was raised and the South Sudan Parliamentarians invited us as PAP to field a mission. I think it needs to be reemphasized or reinforced, and the Presidency asked the Sudanese delegation particularly to have an in invitation sent by the authorities in Sudan. I hope they can follow up on that and do it.I would like to urge this Parliament to do everything, as our honourable colleague has said, to do everything, not to miss this historic opportunity to field a PAP observer mission to the South Sudanese referendum. I am sure with the will and resolve, funding should not be a problem. We can find it. I am sure, Mr. President with all that we have been doing, networking, we can find that money to be able to field a mission to the referendum in South Sudan. (Applause)Again, I would like to say we will incorporate the concerns raised and I would like to thank hon. Members for the contributions made on this report and ask upon you hon. Members to adopt this report of the Committee. Thank you- (Interjections) - with the concerns addressed.THE PRESIDENT:Thank you very much!Vous avez été concis.Honorables membres,Avant de passer à l’adoption, permettez que je fasse un petit commentaire. Il y a un problème de formulation dans ce texte. On va l’adopter, mais on va demander à notre Commission de revenir sur ses formulations.D’après mes conclusions, il y a une confusion entre les recommandations et les résolutions. Il faudra que la Commission s’asseye à tête reposée, et distingue les recommandations des résolutions.Au chapitre intitulé "paix et sécurité", pour ce qui est des recommandations, au deuxième point, vous dites que vous ignorez qu’il y a un Conseil de paix et de sécurité; ce qui n’est pas bon. On ignore qu’on a, au sein de notre organisation, un Conseil de paix et de sécurité. Si on insinue qu’il n’est pas efficace, c’est encore plus mauvais. Donc, il faudra reformuler, pour que l’organe que nous avons au niveau de l’Union africaine soit plus renforcé et plus dynamique. Mais cela nécessite une reformulation. On ne peut pas ignorer qu’on a un organe, et on ne peut pas dire qu’il n’est pas efficace.Au point trois, vous demandez que les membres de l’Union africaine signent et ratifient. Là, vous être en deçà de la campagne qu’on est en train de mener. Reprenez les formulations de la campagne "11 before 2011". Donc, on a des formulations qui peuvent mieux rentrer ici.Quand vous dites qu’il faut un système d’alerte rapide, là vous êtes en retard. Il y a un système d’alerte précoce au sein de l’Union africaine, et le président de votre Commission reçoit deux alertes par jour. Donc, là aussi, en tant qu’organe de l’Union africaine, si on est ignorant qu’il y a un système embryonnaire, ce n’est pas une bonne chose. Votre président sortant - certainement le nouveau ne l’est pas - recevait deux alertes par jour, y compris les vendredis et les dimanches. Donc, il faudrait également reformuler.Quand vous dites, par rapport aux recommandations sur la Somalie, "toutes les parties au conflit somalien", ce n’est pas une formulation de l’Union africaine. L’Union africaine ne met pas tout dans le même sac. Il y a un gouvernement reconnu et soutenu par l’Union africaine. De l’autre côté, il y a des opposants, des rebelles, des intégristes. On ne peut pas les mettre dans le même sac. Cela nécessite une reformulation.Par rapport au Front Polisario, cela a été corrigé. Les textes en anglais, en français et en arabe différent. Je crois que vous avez déjà corrigé cela.Par rapport au Soudan, considérant que le Sud Soudan organisera un référendum en 2011, le Sud Soudan n’organise pas un référendum en 2011. Le Soudan organise au Sud Soudan un référendum. C’est une petite nuance, mais une nuance de taille. J’espère que cela a été bien traduit. Donc, le Soudan organise au Sud Soudan et dans la province d’Abyei un référendum. Il y a un complément intéressant qui a été proposé, notamment que toutes les parties acceptent, quelle que soit l’issue du résultat.Vous faites une résolution, "saluant, en outre, reconnaissant, considérant, espérant, décide, une mission d’observation". Les gens vont se moquer de nous. Pour la Somalie vous dites: « profondément préoccupée; en outre, saluant, considérant, décide d’envoyer une mission d’information. » Autant, ce qui est écrit est pertinent, tel que formulé, cela veut dire que nous, on ne cherche que des missions d’observation. Donc, il faudra reformuler pour différencier d’une part les recommandations et, d’autre part, les résolutions. Tout le contenu est bon, mais il y a un problème de formulation qui se pose.Monsieur l’Honorable vice-président, vous avez suivi mes propositions de reformulation, avec quelques amendements venus en salle. Si vous êtes d’accord, on va proposer l’adoption de votre rapport.(Applaudissements)Le président a, lui-même, applaudi. Donc, c’est adopté, avec les quelques amendements. Nous comptons sur la sagacité de cette Commission pour faire une meilleure présentation. Je vous remercie.Je vais maintenant passer la parole au Secrétaire général.Yes, for announcements!
2.0 – ANNONCE
THE CLERK:Thank you, Honourable President.Honourable Members, I would like to make the following announcements.As a matter of information, our guests for the PRC have arrived, including the Commissioner of Political Affairs. About five of them are expected to come in the evening. Therefore, Honourable Members who are being accommodated at the lodges where the PRC is meeting are requested to be ready to leave the PAP in an hour’s time, which is about 7.00 p.m. The transport will leave from the PAP.For those who are in other hotels and going to the PRC retreat but are not being accommodated at the lodges where the PRC is being put up, their transport will leave from the PAP tomorrow morning at half past seven, because of registration and the meeting will start early. They will be picked up here at the PAP. As I have indicated to you, you will be brought back after dinner.Lastly, the document that was presented by the committee on the validation process on the review of the Protocol will be transmitted to all Honourable Members by e-mail to their national parliaments and to their personal e-mails, that is, for the Honourable Members who have e-mails, so that they can follow the developments on the review and debate, and continue sending information as this validation process unfolds.The documents I am referring to on the validation process will initially be in two languages, which is English and French, because that is what we are capable of producing at the moment. Later, other languages will also be ready, and will be transmitted accordingly.Thank you very much, Honourable President.LE PRÉSIDENT:Qu’y a-t-il encore?UN HON. MEMBRE:Je vous remercie, Monsieur le Président. Je ne sais pas si j’ai bien entendu Monsieur le Secrétaire général. Il a dit que les autres membres qui ne sont pas logés avec le COREP vont être transportés à partir du PAP. Est-ce que nous viendrons de nos hôtels à pied pour atteindre le PAP? Je voudrais une précision, s’il vous plaît. Je vous remercie beaucoup.UN HON. MEMBRE:Mr President, please!Monsieur le Président, c’est la même chose. Nous avons la chance que vous soyez personnellement là. Les membres du Parlement ont posé le problème au Secrétaire général, quand il a tenu avec nous une réunion d’orientation. On lui a fait comprendre que ceux qui doivent se déplacer sur le lieu de la réunion doivent avoir du temps pour libérer leur hôtel. Maintenant, il dit que, dans une heure, tout le monde doit venir au PAP pour partir. Il y a manifestement quelques petits problèmes.Demain, à sept heures trente, si nous devons être ici au Parlement, cela veut dire que nous devons quitter notre hôtel au plus tard à sept heures. Estce que les véhicules vont passer nous prendre pour nous amener ici, ou bien les véhicules nous prendront pour aller directement sur le lieu de la réunion? Il y a autant de problèmes techniques qu’il faut régler. C’est avec votre permission que je soulève ce problème, Monsieur le Président.LE PRÉSIDENT:C’est la même question?AN HON MEMBER:Thank you, honourable President. I have similar questions. The difference between going back to the hotel and come back to PAP is so small, and it may take a little bit longer than that.THE PRESIDENT:You are expected for 7.00 p.m. So, you can go at 7.00, 8.00, 9.00 p.m. You are expected as from 7.00 p.m. This concerns those who are going to sleep there. For those who are going to be picked up, buses will pick them up at your hotel and bring them to the PAP, and they will move from PAP at 7.30. That’s easy.Je vous remercie beaucoup.Oui!AN HON MEMBER:Honourable President, my point is that they don’t know in which hotel we are staying. They should have a list of where those who are going are staying, so that they can pick them up.THE PRESIDENT:They know.THE CLERK:Honourable President, honourable Members, what I was saying is that, for Honourable Members who are remaining in their places of accommodation, they will come to the PAP tomorrow in order to go to the retreat. They will do so also on Saturday. That transport that will take you in the morning will bring you to the PAP. That arrangement remains. The only change now is that, probably, you will be required to move earlier. It is more or less the same, because we also start at 8.00 here. It is the normal procedure to come to the PAP, but this time you will be then taken from here to the retreat. This is the process. About this evening, if Honourable Members feel that the difference between the time we eventually adjourn and the time we shall leave is too short, that can be extended. It does not mean to say that if you are not here in an hour, you will be left. But, we have to agree about one and a half hour or two hours.THE PRESIDENT:Yes, honourable vice President?THE HON. VICE-PRESIDENT:I have a particular problem. Yesterday I was told that I would be at my hotel. Today, we are going to the lodge. I have already finalised everything with my hotel and booked to leave the hotel by Saturday. So, I cannot go out there.THE PRESIDENT:Honourable Member, we cannot solve this particular problem at the Chamber.Honourable Vieyra Rosine Soglo!HON. VIEYRA SOGLO:Monsieur le Président, j’espère que cela ne concerne pas tous les députés. Comme je n’ai pas lu les papiers, j’ignore totalement de quoi vous parlez. Cela ne me concerne pas?LE PRÉSIDENT:Cela ne vous concerne pas.HON. VIEYRA SOGLO:Quelle joie! Je vous remercie beaucoup, Monsieur le Président.
3.0 – DISCOURS DE CLOTURE DE SESSION
LE PRÉSIDENT:Une soixantaine de parlementaires sont retenus pour la retraite, dont une vingtaine sur le site, et d’autres viendront le matin et repartiront le soir.Honorables membres du Parlement panafricain,Honorables nouveau membre du gouvernement du Malawi,Au moment où nous arrivons au terme de la troisième session ordinaire de la deuxième législature du Parlement panafricain, permettezmoi de vous faire l’économie des temps forts qui ont caractérisé nos semaines d’intenses et exaltantes délibérations.En effet, la présente session aura été pour nous l’occasion privilégiée d’accueillir et d’écouter d’éminentes personnalités, des invités spéciaux et des experts lors de la cérémonie d’ouverture et de nos différents travaux.En plus des déclarations et des messages de solidarité, nous avons eu l’insigne honneur de recevoir Son Excellence, Maite Nkoana- Mashabane, Ministre des relations internationales et de la coopération de l’Afrique du Sud, qui nous a gratifiés d’un discours édifiant sur le rôle du Parlement panafricain dans le continent. Elle a réitéré le soutien de Son Excellence, le Président Jacob Zuma, au processus de transformation du Parlement panafricain en un organe législatif. Elle nous a également rassuré que la ratification de la Charte de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance suit un processus avancé en République d’Afrique du Sud.Un des temps forts de cette session aura été la commémoration de l’indépendance de 17 pays africains, une occasion qui nous a permis de célébrer l’indépendance de l’ensemble du continent africain.Nous avons eu l’honneur d’avoir Son Excellence, Ali Hassan Mwinyi, ancien Président de la République de Tanzanie, comme invité d’honneur.Honorables membres,Cette session nous a permis, en outre, d’examiner les rapports des réunions régionales consultatives tenues à Kampala, au N’Djamena et à Victoria Falls, afin de mener un plaidoyer en faveur de la ratification de la Charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance.Il convient de relever, qu’avec l’adoption de cette Charte, l’heure de la démocratisation des sociétés africaines semble avoir sonné. Toutefois, force est de constater que le processus ne peut s’inscrire dans la durée et être un gage de développement qu’avec la ratification, son entrée en vigueur, et son incorporation dans la législation nationale. C’est ce que nous appelons de tous nos vœux et qui nécessite la contribution et l’engagement de tous, particulièrement les représentants du peuple que nous sommes, les gouvernements - et nous avons l’honneur d’avoir un membre du gouvernement avec nous - et les organisations de la société civile qui sont appelées à jouer un rôle fondamental dans sa vulgarisation et sa mise en œuvre. Ce faisant, nous ferons prévaloir la volonté collective des Etats africains d’œuvrer pour l’enracinement et la consolidation de la démocratie.Honorables membres,La plénière a adopté, à l’unanimité, une résolution portant sur la révision de la décision 534 (XVI), relative aux missions conjointes d’observation des élections. Nous engagerons des discussions avec les organes pertinents de l’Union africaine, pour que la décision soit revue et que le Parlement puisse effectuer ses missions indépendantes d’observation des élections, conformément à ses objectifs et son mandat prescrits dans les articles 3 et 11 du Protocole.Honorables membres,Je tiens à vous remercier pour votre soutien lors de la présentation du rapport d’activités du Parlement panafricain, et pour toutes vos riches contributions. Ce rapport a suscité bon nombre d’observations et de suggestions, dont nous prenons note, notamment la question de la mobilisation des ressources additionnelles, d’une part, et, d’autre part, la faible participation à nos plénières et à nos travaux de Commissions. Un plaidoyer est nécessaire auprès de nos parlements nationaux.A l’issue d’échanges riches et passionnants, les participants à cette conférence ont fait des recommandations pertinentes sur tous les sujets éminents et importants pour notre illustre institution continentale, en particulier, et le continent africain en général.Honorables membres,Tout en appréciant à sa juste valeur la haute qualité de nos débats, il y a lieu de relever pour le déplorer la faible participation des collègues parlementaires à nos sessions et réunions de Commissions, qui privent le Parlement d’un apport qualitatif et quantitatif nécessaires à la légitimation de ces résolutions. Il en est pour preuve l’amendement du Règlement intérieur du Parlement panafricain, qui n’a pas pu être adopté par manque de quorum des deux tiers des membres.Aussi, la Conférence des Présidents des Assemblées nationales et des Sénats d’Afrique, qui tiendra sa deuxième édition la semaine prochaine, sera pour nous l’instance indiquée pour sensibiliser les Présidents de nos parlements nationaux sur la nécessité de prendre en charge les parlementaires du Parlement panafricain dans leurs pays respectifs pendant nos réunions statutaires.Honorables membres du PAP,Honorable membre du gouvernement,L’adoption de l’organigramme du Parlement panafricain est une question importante, car seul le déploiement d’un effectif conséquent pourra permettre au Parlement de jouer pleinement son rôle au sein des organes de l’Union. Sur ce point, nous continuerons la consultation avec la Commission de l’Union africaine, et espérons que celui-ci sera adopté lors de la Conférence des Chefs d’Etats de janvier 2011.Par ailleurs, la deuxième conférence des femmes, organisée du 08 au 09 octobre 2010 sur le thème "Les femmes et la transformation du continent africain", a été l’occasion pour les participants d’intégrer la dimension genre dans la transformation du Parlement panafricain, la dimension genre dans la ratification de la charte africaine de la démocratie, des élections et de la gouvernance, et de s’interroger sur le rôle du Parlement panafricain dans la ratification du Protocole à la Charte africaine des droits de l’homme et des peuples, relatif aux droits des femmes et la mortalité maternelle, néonatale et infantile en Afrique.Je nourris l’espoir de voir ces recommandations se concrétiser plus tôt que tard, car aucun effort ne doit être ménagé pour apporter des solutions idoines aux problèmes des femmes, de l’humanité tout entière.Honorables membres du Parlement panafricain,Honorables membres du gouvernement,Au-delà de tous les sujets importants qui ont fait l’objet de nos travaux, un, et pas des moindres, demeure la transformation du Parlement panafricain en un organe législatif. Nul doute que nous saurons compter sur la sagesse de la Commission de l’Union africaine, nos amis du COREP qui sont déjà dans nos murs, et la diligence de nos Chefs d’Etat et de gouvernement pour un aboutissement heureux de la transformation du Parlement panafricain en un organe législatif.Enfin, au nom du Bureau du Parlement panafricain, je saisis cette occasion pour vous remercier, vous tous qui avez participé à cette troisième session ordinaire de la deuxième législature, et pour avoir contribué à son succès.En votre nom, je félicite l’ensemble des fonctionnaires du Parlement panafricain pour tout le travail accompli pendant les préparatifs et au cours de la présente session. Je citerai le Secrétariat du Parlement panafricain, le personnel d’appui, la presse, les interprètes, les traducteurs, les agents de reprographie, les documentalistes, le protocole, les hôtesses, les chauffeurs, les agents de maintenance, les agents de sécurité, et tous ceux qui, dans l’ombre ou derrière les rideaux, ont contribué au succès de notre session.En souhaitant, en votre nom, bon vent à l’honorable Chikaonda, qui est devenu ministre, je déclare, maintenant, la fin des travaux de la troisième session ordinaire de la deuxième législature, et vous souhaite à tous un bon retour dans vos pays respectifs.La troisième session ordinaire de la deuxième législature est close à dix-huit heures vingt minutes sine die.
