News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

AU self-funding plan cautiously welcomed

Posted: 18 Jul 2016 11:34 AM PDT

The African Union’s decision that all African countries will impose a 0,2 percent levy on their imports has been cautiously welcomed.

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Johannesburg - The African Union’s decision that all African countries will impose a 0,2 percent levy on their imports to enable the organisation to finance its own activities, including peacekeeping operations, has been cautiously welcomed.

The continent’s leaders made the decision at the AU summit in Kigali, Rwanda, which was due to end on Monday.

After struggling for years to agree on a formula for greater self-funding of the AU – which is now 76% financed by foreign donors – the leaders eventually agreed on the 0,2% levy on “eligible imports”.

Eligible imports would exclude essential products such as medicines, fertilisers and baby food.

AU officials estimated this levy would boost the body’s income to $1.2bn (R17.16bn) from its current $447m (R6.4bn) budget.

Rwanda’s finance minister Claver Gatete told journalists at the summit that the new funding model would be predictable and easy. “It will be collected by the revenue authorities in our countries, and it will be in an account opened in a central bank, and the money will be disbursed from that.”

He said the previous model of fees linked to each country’s GDP presented problems because some countries defaulted on or delayed payment. Under the new model, states would be sanctioned for not paying their contributions.

Earlier proposals for an oil levy, or a $2 per stay hotel levy and a $10 per flight air ticket levy, as well as SMS levies, were all rejected by specific countries which felt their own economic interests would be unfairly harmed by one or other of the levies.

Eventually the AU decided just to raise membership tariffs, according to a formula where the biggest economies paid the most. Member states could then decide for themselves how to raise the necessary finances to pay these increased dues.

The aim was for the AU states to fund 100% of the AU Commission’s own operations, 75% of its programmes and 25% of its peacekeeping operations.

But some countries also complained the new membership fees were too high and so officials were tasked with researching the import levy which the leaders agreed to implement next year.

However, analysts have raised several questions about the import levy.

“Will the revenue authorities and central banks in all the countries have the necessary systems in place to implement this quickly?” one asked.

“Who will ensure that the levies are paid over to the AU? Gatete said finance ministers would do it, but can they? Some also speak about the African Development Bank (AfDB) being tasked to do the job.

“And what about the small countries that have small economies or are in conflict like the Central African Republic (CAR)? On the AU side, what guarantees are there that the money will be well spent?”

It is also not clear why the sanctions which have now been proposed for defaulters – which have not been spelt out – would work any better than the present sanctions.

Liesl Louw-Vaudran, a researcher at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), said: “African leaders seem to be optimistic that this is a ‘historic’ decision that will end the AU’s dependency on outside funding in one fell swoop, but it seems very ambitious to have this implemented in just six months.”

The AU has been trying for many years to reduce its dependency on foreign funders, but South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma gave the project new impetus when she took over as AU Commission chairperson in 2012.

She professed herself shocked to discover just how much of the AU’s work was funded by foreign donors. The AU’s concern is that this gives foreigners too much influence over AU policies and actions.

If the new import levy works, it could come to be regarded as an important part of Dlamini Zuma’s legacy. She was due to stop down from the chair soon after this summit, but on Monday the AU leaders could not agree on a successor so she will remain in office until the next summit in January.

African News Agency

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Mswati III as SADC chair will ‘institutionalise dictatorship’

Posted: 18 Jul 2016 08:10 AM PDT

A civil society group says that appointing Swaziland’s King Mswati III as chairperson of the South African Development Community would institutionalise dictatorship.

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Johannesburg - The prospect of Swaziland’s King Mswati III becoming chairperson of the South African Development Community (SADC) was worrisome as such an appointment would institutionalise dictatorship across the region, the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN)said in a statement on Monday.

The SSN, in conjunction with the People’s United Democratic Movement (Pudemo), held a seminar last week to discuss the concerns around such an appointment which it said had the potential to cast a shadow over the region’s future and wellbeing.

It said Mswati had become a “shame” for insisting on hold onto power whilst looting State coffers, this as the majority of Swazi people lived in “abject poverty”.

Lukhele said the last thing the SADC needed was a chairperson who made the region “look like a stronghold of dictators”.

“Judging by the attendance of the seminar which was responded to way beyond our expectations, communicates that both South Africans and Swazis are anxious to deal with the Swazi issue and finally do away with a dictatorship that has been nothing but dead weight to the region,” SSN said in a statement.

“Our strategy of not focusing much on the international community in regard to the seminar on SADC was so that as Swazis and South Africans we shoulder first ponder on this issue as we are literally brothers and sisters, and thereafter call upon the international community when we have shown that as members of the region we are very much willing to confront our issues before we call up the international community for further assistance.”

It said it would engage in campaigns to address the issue of what needs to be done on the issue of “institutionalising dictatorship in the region”.

African News Agency

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Morocco wants to rejoin AU

Posted: 18 Jul 2016 06:30 AM PDT

Morocco wants to rejoin the African Union, 32 years after quitting the bloc in protest at its decision to accept Western Sahara as a member.

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Morocco - Morocco wants to rejoin the African Union, 32 years after quitting the bloc in protest at its decision to accept Western Sahara as a member, King Mohammed VI said Sunday.

Morocco maintains that Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, is an integral part of the kingdom even though local Sahrawi people led by the Polisario Front have long campaigned for the right to self-determination.

“For a long time our friends have been asking us to return to them, so that Morocco can take up its natural place within its institutional family. The moment has now come,” the monarch said in a message sent to an AU summit taking place in Kigali, the MAP Moroccan news agency reported.

Morocco has occupied the sparsely populated Western Sahara area since 1975 in a move that was not recognised by the international community.

Morocco quit the AU in protest in 1984 when the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) was admitted as a member.

But although Morocco left the club, “it never quit Africa”, King Mohammed said in his message to AU leaders as they began a two-day meeting in the Rwandan capital.

“Through this historic act and return, Morocco wants to work within the AU to transcend divisions,” he added.

In 1991, the United Nations brokered a ceasefire between Moroccan troops and Sahrawi rebels of the Algerian-backed independence movement the Polisario Front but a promised referendum to settle the status of the desert territory has yet to materialise.

Earlier this year Morocco expelled several UN staff members who were part of the MINURSO mission in Western Sahara in angry retaliation over UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's use of the term “occupation” to describe the status of the territory.

In his address to the African Union, King Mohammed urged the bloc to rethink its position on the “phantom state” of Western Sahara, saying that a political solution was being worked on under the auspices of the UN.

“The recognition of a pseudo state is hard for the Moroccan people to accept,” he said.

The SADR is not a member of the UN or the Arab League, the king went on to note, adding that “at least 34 countries” do not recognise it.

“On the Sahara issue, institutional Africa can no longer bear the burden of a historical error and a cumbersome legacy,” the monarch said.

AFP

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AU leaders fail to elect successor for Dlamini-Zuma

Posted: 18 Jul 2016 05:57 AM PDT

AU leaders meeting in Rwanda have failed to choose a new African Union Commission chairperson to replace SA’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

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Johannesburg – African Union (AU) leaders meeting in a summit in Kigali, Rwanda have failed to choose a new African Union Commission chairperson to replace South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

She was due to end her term and to return to South Africa within weeks. But at the AU summit on Monday, none of the three candidates who had been nominated to take her place could muster the necessary votes from the continent’s leaders.

This meant the election had to be postponed until the next summit, in Addis Ababa, in January next year, while new candidates are found.

Meanwhile Dlamini Zuma will stay at her post, sources at the summit said.

The three candidates were Botswana’s foreign affairs minister Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi, representing southern Africa, Equatorial Guinean foreign minister Agapito Mba Mokuy, representing central Africa, and former Ugandan vice president Specioza Naigaga Wandira Kazibwe, representing east Africa.

According to an official who witnessed the elections, none of the three nominated candidates could muster the necessary two-thirds majority.

“First the Ugandan candidate was eliminated, then Botswana did not get enough votes and lastly Equatorial Guinea faced a massive 30 abstentions necessitating a suspension of the vote,” she said.

“Now everything is thrown open to new candidatures.”

Well before the summit, South African officials were saying that none of the three official candidates were considered good enough and so a search had already begun for new ones to run in an election next January.

Former Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete was to be approached to run, but it is not clear if he was in the end approached and whether he agreed.

Abdoulaye Bathily, a former Senegalese minister and diplomat, has also thrown his hat into the ring, according to News24.

SA officials also mentioned Algerian foreign minister Ramtane Lamamra as a possible candidate. He had been expected to run against Dlamini-Zuma at the Kigali summit if she decided to go for a second term, which she eventually did not.

It is not quite clear why Lamamra did not put his name forward, although his candidature did face potential technical problems.

One was that he has already served two terms as AU peace and security commissioner and the AU’s two-term limits might have barred him from standing for a third term as chairperson.

The other reason speculated on for him standing back was that no country may have more than one commissioner at one time and Lamamra’s compatriot Smail Chergui had been nominated for a second term as peace and security commissioner.

But SA officials had said that if the elections for the AU chair were postponed until next January, Lamamra might be persuaded to contest.

It is not clear how staying on until January will impact on Dlamini-Zuma’s political plans at home. It was widely speculated that she declined to run for a second term at the AU as she wanted to contest the ANC presidency next year.

This would still be theoretically possible if she only returned to South Africa in January though it might reduce her campaigning time.

Botswana is reported to be unhappy that South Africa did not put enough effort into campaigning for Venson-Moitoi, the official candidate of the

Southern African Development Community (Sadc) of which SA is a member.

But SA officials said her chances were always poor because her president Ian Khama is disdainful of the AU and rarely attends its summits, and because he takes foreign policy positions contrary to the AU’s, including open support for the International Criminal Court.

African News Agency

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