Strategic Reorientation Workshop for PAP members is aimed at self-introspection - Charumbira

The Capacity Building Workshop for the members of the Pan-African Parliament which kicked-off today Monday August 22 presents an opportunity for self-introspection by the parliamentarians.

President of the continental Parliament H. E. Chief Fortune Charumbira disclosed this while presenting his keynote address at the beginning of a three-day workshop with the theme “Reviving, Renewing, Repositioning and Reinvigorating the Pan-African Parliament” at the seat of the parliament in Midrand, South Africa.

“Do we comprehend the intentions of the founding fathers in establishing the Pan African Parliament? If so, are we living up to those intentions and expectations? That is the sobering question that confronts us today as we meet for our first official engagement since the historic June 29 elections”.

Chief Charumbira noted the African continent is riddled with developmental challenges.

“There are still far too many people living in abject poverty, the lack of decent jobs is pervasive, especially for the youth, and the continent lags behind other regions of the world with respect to social development indicators. The progress made is also threatened by rising inequalities of incomes and opportunity, particularly for the youth and women as well as the ravages of the global COVID-19 pandemic”.

“While conflicts have abated, there are still many examples of intractable conflicts and new eruptions of violence. Furthermore, Africa remains marginalized in the global governance system, and lacks full control over her resources and destiny. In spite of the recent positive growth, African economies have not been sufficiently transformed and continue to be commodity-based, with weak value addition, poor manufacturing and industrialization – in short, limited transformation of the structure of our economies”.

“Given these challenges and our people’s aspirations for a better Africa, we must self-introspect and earnestly ask ourselves whether the African citizenry can repose their hope in us to deliver the Africa that we want. As the Pan African Parliament, the continent’s supreme representative institution, we are even more obliged to ask ourselves how the people of Africa, whose sacred mandate we carry, perceive us and whether or not they are convinced that we can effectively contribute to the fulfilment of their hopes and aspirations”.

Chief Charumbira noted that public perception of the Pan African Parliament and, indeed, other AU Organs “is quite unflattering” positing that the public has a very low opinion of PAP which is supposed to represent the peoples of Africa, is “plagued by internal conflicts and accusations of mismanagement”.

“Doubtless, there is some element of truth in this stinging criticism which is a serious indictment of our institution and the entire AU machinery that we cannot afford to ignore.  That is precisely why this workshop seeks to embark on the difficult process of brutally honest self-introspection to interrogate how the public perceives us and what we can do to rebrand the Pan African Parliament, renew its image in the eyes of the African citizenry and reposition ourselves in the continental governance matrix”.

He made it clear that the Bureau of the Parliament which he leads, wants to leave a legacy of a continental representative institution that the people of Africa believes in “a Parliament that stands for the ideals, hopes and aspirations of the African citizenry without shirking its responsibility, and a generation of Parliamentarians that are guided by the operative mantra, “Ask not what Africa can do for you but what you can do for Africa.” We invite you, through this workshop, to help us carry and deliver on this onerous responsibility to serve the people of Africa” said Chief Charumbira.

“The chequered history of divisions and power struggles still follows us like a dog on a leash and, sadly, that is what stays in the citizens’ memories. Today, as your President whom you called to serve, I pledge to work unrelentingly together with the entire Bureau to unite the Pan African Parliament. Indeed, very few of us have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events and, in the totality of all those acts the history of this generation of PAP Parliamentarians will be written anew. Change begins with you, change begins with me, change begins with all of us” he concluded.