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Call for the reform of the Pan African Parliament, implementation of free trade area protocol and the security situation in Africa dominated discussions in the just-ended session of permanent committee sittings of the continental legislative assembly in Midrand that ended last Friday.

The session was attended by PAP members constituted by legislators drawn from across Africa, African Union Commission experts from different fields and watchdog groups.

Issues that came for discussion mainly focused on how to make the continent more united, how it could integrate for it to be more effective for the benefit of its citizens as envisaged with its founding principles and consistent with other blocs such as the European Union Parliament.

The issue that dominated debate were the need to reform PAP in line with modern trends, and capture what could have been overlooked at its inception in 2004 so as to make it more effective, relevant and respond to the aspirations of the African people.

Addressing legislators, PAP president Chief Fortune Charumbira called for more funding and independence for the organisation to effectively discharge its oversight role in line with its mandate as provided for in the Constitutive Act. In justifying the need to reform PAP, Chief Charumbira said there was need to include changes that had occurred over the years both in national Parliaments in the continent.

Some of the issues, he said, that ought to be included in the reformed PAP is inviting African Union Commissioners to come and respond to questions in plenary from legislators. Chronicling the history of PAP, Chief Charumbira said while the Organisation of African Union which later became AU was founded in 1963, PAP came into being in 2004 as a result of the need to give citizens a voice.

“It was argued then that the citizens of the African continent should be part of the union in terms of the way it does business. It was meant to bring or afford citizens a voice. It was as a result of a realisation of a mistake. This thing came from the founders themselves so you cannot wish it away,” said Chief Charumbira. He said there was need to realise that the role of Parliaments globally is to play an oversight role and this means PAP should provide checks and balances for AU, a role he said was yet to be realised.

He said the African Union Commission formulated policies, implemented as well as monitoring them thus encroaching on the oversight role conferred on PAP.

Chief Charumbira said an ideal AU architecture is the one that resembled three arms of the State, the Executive Council, Legislature and the Judiciary each one playing its role independent from another.

PAP, Chief Charumbira said, as a legislative assembly must play its role of oversight to the Executive Council constituted by the AU Commission and Permanent Representative Council comprising of Ambassadors from member countries accredited to the AU.

“You cannot have a Parliament that has no oversight function. Go to all the parliaments. When you now go for reforms you say, with respect to PAP, what are the oversight issues. Fortunately, they (the roles) are already provided. To oversee the development and implementation of the union. Have we been doing this,” said Chief Charumbira.

He said while national Parliaments had powers to invite Government Ministers and representatives to respond to issues, doing the same with AU Commissioners has been a mammoth task, something that needs to be dealt with in the reform agenda of PAP.

“That is where we have serious problems. At the AU, it is whether they want to come or not. We have no teeth because of the institutional arrangement. But at national Parliaments we have powers to invite a Minister and if he does not come, he will be in trouble,” he said.

Chief Charumbira explained that inviting Permanent Commissioners to PAP to respond to questions will go a long way in making the body visible as citizens will have an opportunity to hear what AU was doing on different thematic continental issues such as Covid-19.

Another discussion that took centre stage was the call to implement African Continental Free Trade Area Protocol which was led by AfCFTA secretary general, Mr Wamkele Mene.

Implementation of the free trade area Protocol formed the theme of the African Union summit attended by Heads of State and Governments from Africa last month in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

During his presentation, Mr Mene spoke with passion so much that he discarded his prepared speech to speak from his heart.

It also emerged from his presentation before legislators that Zimbabwe’s agriculture transformation drive had courted AfCFTA as it wanted to partner Harare by investing in the upgrade of its grain silos to allow it to export its yields across Africa. AfCFTA said Zimbabwe’s agricultural potential was huge and they felt duty bound to collaborate with it as part of efforts to ensure Africa was food secure and would be able to withstand against possible challenges of geo political shocks that might occur globally like the Russia/Ukraine conflict that has seen some countries facing fertiliser and wheat shortages. Mr Mene said the AU summit had directed that AfCFTA give priority to agriculture, transport and logistics, pharmaceutical and manufacturing sector.  “We are as Africa a net food importer and yet we have over 60 percent of raw materials. Zimbabwe has over US$200 million worth of excess grain per year. We are working with the Government of Zimbabwe to make sure that there is investment in the technology that is required to store post-harvest grains so that Zimbabwe can be able to export grain under the AfCFTA to feed the African continent,” said Mr Mene.Zimbabwe has embarked on an agricultural revolution that has seen the Second Republic led by President Mnangagwa supporting farmers with inputs to ensure maximum productivity.

The Government has also embarked on infrastructural development which saw dam construction in almost every province to ensure that the country is not solely rely on rain fed agriculture.

For the first time, Zimbabwe has recorded its highest wheat harvest since production of the cereal started in 1966, thanks to the Government’s Agricultural Recovery Plan that is aimed at boosting food security and nutrition in line with Vision 2030.

Turning to the free trade area, Mr Mene said there was need for countries to ratify the Protocol to allow continental integration for accelerated industrial development.

He said it was critical that member countries integrate for the continent to fully benefit from its resources as envisaged by Heads of State and Governments who gave life to the Protocol.

“We must have a continental free trade area which should take us one day to a single currency monetary Union on the African Continent. We all know that the character of our continent, smallness of national economies, smallness of industrial capacity, shallowness of our manufacturing capacity, several currencies, trade patterns that take our economy in another continent of the world, this is the fundamental character of our economies for the past 65 years,” said Mr Mene.

“In the wisdom of our Heads of State, they said we must tackle this issue of fragmentation of Africa’ s market and we must tackle this issue decisively politically, legally and economically,” said Mr Mene.

He noted that Africa was importing pharmaceuticals to the tune of more than US$250 million per year, yet the raw materials were coming from the African continent.

The AfCFTA seeks to eliminate barriers in trade in Africa and in so doing reducing poverty through improved Inter Africa trade.

To achieve this, the continent has embarked on a gradual elimination of taron 90 percent of goods and the reducing of barriers to trade in services aimed at increasing Africa’s income by US$450 billion by 2035.

Regarding the security situation in the continent, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs Ambassador Bankole Adeoye narrated a grim political situation particularly in West Africa haunted by unconstitutional change of Governments.

He commended Southern Africa, particularly SADC for remaining a predominantly peaceful country save for insurgency in Cabo Delgado in Mozambique.

The same committee also deliberated on the illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe where it was resolved that a PAP team should head for the United States, European Union and Britain to impress upon them on the need to remove the embargo.

Legislators and experts from the AU noted that all the conflicts and wars haunting the African continent including sanction induced challenges in Zimbabwe are foreign sponsored by powerful Western capitals bent on exploiting natural resources endowed in the continent.

African Union Senior Human Rights expert in the Department of Political Affairs Ambassador Salah Sidig Hammad addressed a Committee on Co-operation and International Relations of the Pan African Parliament discussing about illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe, conflict in Cabo Delgado in Mozambique and political unrest in Eastern side of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“There is no war that is currently taking place in Africa that is an African war. Africa does not produce weapons. Unfortunately, all these wars are imposed on us because of what we have been blessed with. That is the reality,” said Amb Salah.

“All these wars are remotely controlled from oversees from countries that we all know.”

Earlier on, Ugandan MP, Mr Felex Ogong said there was need to get to the bottom part of conflicts dogging Africa particularly that in Cabo Delgado in Mozambique where Government soldiers are repelling Islamic insurgency in that province.

Mr Ogong said the war was foreign sponsored owing to the discovery of gas where Western powers are keen to exploit the resource.

“We need to know what are the drivers of insecurity in Mozambique. Why is the security or conflict not ending? The war is foreign. It is because of its not an African war but foreign,” he said.