Hon. Pemmy Majodina, Chief Whip, South Africa's Parliament
The
aspiration of the Acting President of the Pan
African Parliament (PAP), Hon. Chief
Fortune Charumbira to be elected as the next President of the continental
parliament received a boost over the weekend following his endorsement by the Southern African Regional Caucus.
The
Regional Caucus met on Friday and Saturday in Johannesburg, South Africa where
they discussed the issues such as the threat of terrorism in the region and the
security situation in Mozambique; the COVID 19 pandemic and the need for a
regional approach to mitigate the current pandemic and future pandemics; the
African continental Free Trade Agreement and how ordinary citizens can benefit;
and the Revised Pan African Parliament Protocol and the issues affecting
ratification.
Those
in attendance included all the parliaments of member states except those who
are not allowing travel out of and into their countries due to COVID protocols.
Some regional PAP MPs from outside the region and Speakers of national
Parliaments attended as observers.
In
an exclusive interview with the African
Parliamentary News, a senior member of the delegation who is also the Chief
Whip of the South African Parliament, Hon.
Pemmy Majodina disclosed that the Caucus
discussed “COVID-19
and its impact on the continent. How are women, children and persons with
disability affected; how are countries in general affected by the lockdown
where people were unable to go out of their homes.”
She
said that COVID-19 exposed the inequalities, under-development in the
continent.
“Africa
must find its way of manufacturing its own vaccines and not depend on foreign
countries to supply its vaccines. That will also contribute to job creation as
most people lost their jobs during this time of COVID-19”
Hon. Majodina stated that the Caucus condemned terrorism and described the attack on Mozambique
as an attack on the other countries in the region.
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Hon. Chief Charumbira, Acting PAP President addressing the MPs. Picture by Inala Media Joburg |
She said that “PAP and the African Union (AU) must come up with a multi-prong approach to deal with terrorism” and described as inhuman, how people are killed and beheaded by these terrorists.
“Terrorism
causes death, it causes misery in the area where it is happening in Mozambique
and it displaces people”.
Hon. Majodina regretted that it is
all about mineral resources in the African continent and cautioned that the
solution does not lie in the police or military but that we must empower our
people to defend themselves.
“The
summit also discussed the issue of the PAP Bureau election and resolved that in
accordance with AU policy, PAP Presidency must rotate among the five regions of
the continent and this time around, we have endorsed Chief Fortune Charumbira. We are going to canvass support from the
other regions”
“We
have allowed other regions to lead and we think that we are equal to the task.
We also endorsed Hon. Anifa Kawooya
from Uganda as candidate for Vice President representing East Africa Region”.
It
is expected that the endorsement of Hon.
Kawooya by the Southern African
Regional Parliamentary Caucus will result in a reciprocal endorsement of Hon. Chief Charumbira by the East Africa Regional Caucus. The North Africa Regional Caucus has
reportedly endorsed Hon. Chief
Charumbira with some other countries such Uganda, Sierra Leone and Saharawi
following suit. There are also indications that Ghana and Nigeria may likely to
endorse Chief Fortune Charumbira
very soon.
“We
are not arrogant but we are going to engage with other regions but we start by
putting out our candidate and then we negotiate with them to see what they
bring to the table”.
“We
want to come with a program that will make PAP to be known, to be able to
legislate and play robust oversight over member countries and ensure that
member countries have programs of sustaining peace, respecting human rights and
ensuring that elections are held at intervals as per member countries’
constitutions”.
The
members of the Parliamentary Caucus are Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho,
Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
It would be recalled that the Thirty-First Ordinary Session of the AU Executive Council held 27 June – 1 July 2017 at Addis Ababa, ETHIOPIA called upon the Pan African Parliament to apply the African Union values, rules and regulations in managing all the activities of the organ including rotation of the Bureau and Presidency.
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