FEATURE: Who Really Controls the Pan-African Parliament and Its Budget?

Who controls the Pan-African Parliament and its budget? Although established by Member States, PAP remains heavily influenced by the Commission and PRC.

By Olu IBEKWE

The Pan-African Parliament was established to give Africa’s peoples a stronger voice in the governance and integration processes of the African Union. Yet more than two decades after its inauguration, the Parliament remains caught in an institutional contradiction: although it is a fully recognized organ of the Union established directly by Member States, it operates within an architecture in which national executives, acting through ministers, ambassadors and the African Union Commission, exercise considerable influence over its budget, administration, rules and institutional development.

This is more than a disagreement over administrative procedure. It raises a fundamental democratic question about the character of the African Union itself. Can the AU credibly describe itself as a people-centred organization when the continental Parliament remains structurally subordinate to an intergovernmental system dominated by national executives?

The deeper reality is that the African Union remains predominantly executive-driven. Its most influential institutions are composed of, controlled by, or directly accountable to the governments of Member States. The Assembly, comprising Heads of State and Government, is the Union’s supreme decision-making organ. The Executive Council consists principally of foreign ministers or other ministers designated by Member States, while the Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) comprises ambassadors and other representatives accredited to the Union by their respective governments. The African Union Commission, meanwhile, serves as the Secretariat of the Union.

Consequently, the Assembly, Executive Council and PRC collectively reflect the authority and interests of the executive branches of Member States. Although ministers and ambassadors may be appointed or confirmed in accordance with their respective national constitutions including, in some countries, through parliamentary approval, they primarily represent their governments and act on their instructions within the AU system.

The Pan-African Parliament, however, occupies a fundamentally different institutional position. It was established to ensure the full participation of the African peoples in the development and economic integration of the continent. Its composition, functions, powers and organization are governed by the Protocol establishing it, rather than by the administrative authority of another AU organ.

One of the Parliament’s most important distinguishing features is found in Article 4(3) of the Protocol, which requires each Member State’s delegation to reflect the diversity of political opinions represented in its national parliament or other deliberative organ. PAP is therefore not intended to function merely as an extension of national executives. Its membership should include different political perspectives, including those of opposition parties, and provide an institutional platform through which the political diversity of Africa’s peoples can be represented within the AU architecture.

This pluralistic composition distinguishes PAP from the Assembly, Executive Council and PRC. While those organs principally express the positions of governments, the Pan-African Parliament was designed to introduce a broader representative and parliamentary voice into continental governance. Any arrangement that places PAP under the political or administrative supervision of executive-controlled institutions therefore risks weakening the institutional distinction deliberately created by the Constitutive Act and the PAP Protocol.

The Constitutive Act assigns the PRC responsibility for preparing the work of the Executive Council and acting on its instructions. The Commission performs the central administrative, coordinating and secretarial functions of the Union.

These institutions perform necessary roles in coordinating the work of the AU and ensuring accountability for Member States’ contributions. The difficulty arises when their coordinating, supervisory and administrative functions are applied in a manner that treats PAP as though it were subordinate to the Commission or subject to the continuing direction of the PRC.

PAP was established by Member States, not by the Commission or PRC

The starting point for understanding PAP’s institutional status is Article 17 of the Constitutive Actof the African Union. It provides for the establishment of the Pan-African Parliament and states that its composition, powers, functions and organization shall be defined in a protocol relating to it.

Article 2(1) of the PAPProtocol gives effect to that provision by declaring that:

“Member States hereby establish a Pan-African Parliament, the composition, functions, powers and organization of which shall be governed by the present Protocol.”

The legal significance of these provisions is considerable. PAP was not created by an administrative decision of the Commission. It was not established as a subsidiary committee of the PRC or as a department answerable to the Executive Council. It was established by the collective will of Member States expressed through the Constitutive Act and a separate international legal instrument: the PAP Protocol, which those same Member States signed and ratified.

The Parliament therefore derives its mandate directly from the constitutive and treaty framework of the African Union. Its powers, internal organization and institutional relationships must be determined primarily by that legal framework, not by administrative practice or subsequently developed arrangements that are inconsistent with the Protocol.

This does not place PAP outside the AU system. The Parliament remains bound by applicable Assembly decisions, AU financial regulations and other valid rules of the Union. But there is an important distinction between being accountable within the Union and being placed under the institutional control of organs whose mandates do not include supervising the Parliament.

The Commission and PRC cannot acquire supervisory authority over PAP merely because the Commission administers common AU systems or because the PRC prepares the work of the Executive Council. Their roles must be exercised consistently with the Protocol through which Member States established and organized PAP.

Inclusion Among AU Organs Does Not Confer Institutional Equality

PAP, the African Union Commission and the PRC are all listed among the organs of the African Union. However, their inclusion on the same list does not confer equality in institutional power, operational autonomy or access to resources.

In practice, the Commission and the PRC occupy influential positions within the processes through which budgets, staffing structures, administrative proposals and policy recommendations pass before reaching the Executive Council and, ultimately, the Assembly. Their positions within this decision-making chain give them considerable practical influence over the capacity of other AU organs to discharge their respective mandates.

For PAP, the exercise of that influence can determine whether it receives sufficient resources to convene its statutory sessions, hold committee meetings, undertake oversight and fact-finding missions, consult national and regional parliaments, develop model laws, recruit essential staff and communicate its work effectively to African citizens.

The result is a structural imbalance: PAP possesses a treaty-based mandate, but the financial resources, staffing arrangements and administrative processes necessary to exercise that mandate remain heavily influenced by institutions that primarily reflect the authority and interests of national executives.

The scale of PAP’s budgetary decline illustrates this imbalance. Between 2016 and 2025, its approved budget fell from approximately US$32.46 million to US$10.35 million, a reduction of nearly 68 per cent. The disparity is also evident when PAP’s allocation is compared with the overall AU budget. Between 2019 and 2025, the total AU budget declined by approximately 11 per cent, from US$681,485,337 to US$608,248,546. Over the same period, however, PAP’s budget fell by more than 40 per cent, from approximately US$18.5 million to US$10.35 million. The scale and duration of this disproportionate financial contraction demonstrate how budgetary decisions can materially restrict the Parliament’s capacity to discharge the responsibilities entrusted to it under its founding Protocol and fulfil its treaty-based mandate.

When accountability becomes institutional control

There is nothing inherently improper about requiring PAP to comply with the African Union’s Financial Rules and Regulations, Staff Rules, procurement standards and audit requirements. A continental Parliament financed by Member States must account for public resources. Its administration cannot be exempt from financial discipline or common institutional standards.

The problem arises when legitimate financial and administrative accountability develops into operational direction of the Parliament by executive bodies.

Article 12(5) of the PAP Protocol provides that the President and Vice-Presidents are the Officers of Parliament. Under the control and direction of the President and subject to directives issued by the Parliament, the Officers are responsible for the management and administration of the affairs and facilities of PAP and its organs.

The AU’s own institutional description similarly recognizes that the PAP Bureau is responsible for the management and administration of Parliament and its organs.

That allocation of responsibility must have practical consequences. The Commission may facilitate compliance with common AU rules and provide services required for the effective operation of the Parliament. The PRC may examine budgetary and administrative matters and make recommendations through the established policy-organ processes. Neither arrangement should convert the Commission or PRC into the governing authority of PAP.

Yet questions concerning PAP’s budget, recruitment, staff management, Rules of Procedure, leadership arrangements and political development have repeatedly passed through the Commission, PRC and its subcommittees. In practice, institutions composed of executive officials have sometimes exercised greater influence over the functioning of the continental Parliament than its own elected Bureau and Plenary.

The democratic paradox

The imbalance becomes even more striking when viewed from the national level.

Ministers and ambassadors are appointed by national executives, but many operate within domestic systems in which governments are subject to parliamentary approval, budgetary authorization, questioning, investigation or other forms of legislative accountability. Depending on the constitutional arrangements of each Member State, ministers may require legislative confirmation, appear before parliamentary committees, defend their departmental budgets or answer questions about government policy.

At the continental level, however, that relationship is effectively reversed. Ministers sitting in the Executive Council and ambassadors operating through the PRC participate in decisions affecting the mandate, budget, administration and development of the Pan-African Parliament.

National executive officials who may themselves be accountable to parliaments at home consequently exercise substantial authority over the continental Parliament.

This inversion is one of the clearest manifestations of the AU’s executive-centred character. PAP does not exercise the degree of scrutiny over the Commission, Executive Council and PRC that a legislature would ordinarily exercise over executive institutions. Instead, those executive institutions exert considerable influence over the conditions under which PAP operates.

The result is not a conventional system of separation of powers or checks and balances. It is an institutional arrangement in which executive representatives occupy the dominant position while the parliamentary organ remains consultative, financially dependent and administratively constrained.

The Protocol gives PAP an express budgetary mandate

The budgetary relationship provides one of the clearest examples of the difference between legitimate AU-wide financial supervision and encroachment upon PAP’s treaty-based authority.

Article 11(2) of the PAP Protocol gives Parliament the power to:

“Discuss its budget and the budget of the Community and make recommendations thereon prior to its approval by the Assembly.”

This is not merely a power to receive information about the AU budget after executive bodies have settled it. It envisages parliamentary consideration of both PAP’s own budget and the wider Community budget before final approval by the Assembly.

Article 15 reinforces PAP’s role. Article 15(1) provides that the annual budget of PAP shall constitute an integral part of the regular budget of the OAU/AEC. Article 15(2) then states:

“The budget shall be drawn up by the Pan-African Parliament in accordance with the Financial Rules and Regulations of the OAU/AEC and shall be approved by the Assembly until such time as the Pan-African Parliament shall start to exercise legislative powers.”

The allocation of functions in this provision is deliberate. PAP draws up its budget. The Financial Rules and Regulations govern how it performs that function. The Assembly approves the budget.

The Protocol does not say that PAP’s budget shall be drawn up by the Commission or determined by the PRC. Nor does it make the PRC the final approving authority. The fact that PAP’s budget forms part of the overall AU budget does not extinguish Parliament’s express power to formulate its own financial requirements.

The phrase “in accordance with the Financial Rules and Regulations” regulates the manner in which PAP draws up its budget. It does not transfer authorship of the budget to another organ. Compliance with common financial rules and institutional ownership of budget preparation are compatible obligations.

Accordingly, the Commission may consolidate PAP’s proposals into the overall AU budget, provide technical guidance, verify compliance with financial rules and implement the budget after approval. The PRC and its relevant subcommittees may examine financial implications and make recommendations within the broader AU budget process. However, these functions should not be exercised in a manner that deprives PAP of its Protocol-based responsibility to draw up its budget.

The Assembly, not the Commission or PRC, is the approving authority

Article 15(2) identifies the Assembly as the institution responsible for approving PAP’s budget pending the Parliament’s acquisition of legislative powers.

This is important because it defines both the extent and limit of external authority over the budget. PAP does not possess final approval power under the existing Protocol, but neither are the Commission and PRC designated as the institutions that replace PAP in preparing the budget.

Their involvement is intermediate and facilitative. The Commission supports, verifies, consolidates and implements. The PRC scrutinizes and recommends in preparation for consideration by the policy organs. The Assembly approves.

Within that process, PAP must remain the originating institution for its budget. It should determine the activities, programmes, staffing requirements and resources necessary to fulfil its mandate, subject to the available resources of the Union and applicable financial rules.

This does not guarantee that every amount requested by PAP must be approved. Under the Protocol, the Assembly retains final approval authority and may, in exercising that authority, accept PAP’s proposal or require adjustments consistent with the Union’s priorities and financial capacity. But there is a material difference between the Assembly modifying a budget drawn up by PAP and executive institutions effectively constructing PAP’s budget on its behalf.

The former follows the allocation of functions under the Protocol. The latter risks reversing it.

The budget provision anticipates PAP’s institutional evolution

Article 15(2) also links Assembly approval of PAP’s budget to the period before Parliament begins to exercise legislative powers. The wording reflects the transitional character of PAP under the existing Protocol.

PAP currently operates mainly as a consultative and advisory institution, but the Protocol contemplates its eventual evolution into a Parliament exercising legislative powers. The Assembly’s approval of its budget is therefore expressly connected to the present phase of its development.

This does not mean PAP already possesses the power to enact and approve the AU budget. It means that the Protocol envisaged an institutional trajectory in which PAP’s authority would increase rather than remain permanently constrained.

Administrative practices should therefore support that development, not entrench a relationship in which PAP becomes progressively more dependent upon the Commission and PRC.

Budgetary scrutiny must not become political control

The PRC Subcommittee on General Supervision and Coordination on Budgetary, Financial and Administrative Matters performs an important role in overseeing the financial and administrative management of the AU. Its responsibilities include reviewing programmes, budget estimates, administrative matters with financial implications and the implementation of approved budgets.

Such scrutiny is necessary to ensure discipline, affordability and accountability across the Union. But it should be guided by clear legal boundaries when dealing with PAP.

The PRC may legitimately ask whether PAP’s proposed expenditure complies with AU financial rules, whether it is properly costed and whether it can be accommodated within available resources. It should not substitute its policy priorities for those of Parliament or decide which lawful parliamentary activities are politically convenient for national executives.

A Parliament whose sessions, committees, staffing and oversight functions depend on allocations controlled by the executive representatives it is expected to scrutinize cannot easily become an effective continental accountability institution.

Persistent reductions or restrictions affecting parliamentary work may formally appear to be budgetary decisions, but their cumulative effect can be political. Control over resources can become control over institutional relevance.

The Commission’s role requires clearer boundaries

The Commission occupies an especially influential position because it is the Secretariat of the Union and administers many common AU systems. It facilitates meetings, manages central financial and human-resource frameworks, coordinates procurement and implements decisions of the policy organs.

These responsibilities give it considerable practical power. An organ may possess a clear legal mandate, but its ability to exercise that mandate may depend upon the Commission processing recruitment, releasing approved funds, facilitating procurement or providing administrative services.

This makes a clear distinction between coordination and control essential.

The Commission should support PAP in preparing its budget in accordance with the Financial Rules and Regulations. It may provide budget ceilings, technical advice, costing standards and information about the wider financial position of the Union. It should not take over the substantive function of determining PAP’s priorities or preparing the Parliament’s budgetary programme.

Similarly, the Commission should facilitate implementation after approval. It should not use central administrative systems to prevent PAP’s Bureau from exercising the management authority conferred upon it by Article 12(5).

PAP is an organ of the Union, not a department of the Commission. Its Secretariat is the administrative machinery of Parliament, not an extension of a Commission directorate.

The PRC is not a second parliamentary chamber

The position of the PRC also requires careful definition. Under the Constitutive Act, the PRC prepares the work of the Executive Council and acts on its instructions. It is not established as an upper chamber of PAP, nor is it a continental senate authorized to review and direct every aspect of Parliament’s internal governance.

Its ambassadors represent Member States and, therefore, their national executives. Their scrutiny of AU expenditure forms part of the intergovernmental control of the Union. But that scrutiny should not be expanded into continuing ambassadorial supervision of Parliament.

The PRC’s recommendations must remain consistent with the PAP Protocol ratified by Member States. Administrative practice cannot lawfully rewrite the distribution of functions contained in that Protocol.

The same principle applies to PAP’s Rules of Procedure, staffing and internal management. Consultation may be appropriate where alignment with binding AU law is required. But the Protocol expressly gives PAP the power to adopt its own Rules of Procedure and assigns management and administration to its Officers.

The difference between ensuring legal compliance and assuming institutional control is fundamental.

Recent decisions expose the tension

Recent Executive Council decisions illustrate both the extent of executive intervention and the continuing effort to clarify PAP’s governance.

In February 2026, the Executive Council (EX.CL/Dec.1331(XLVIII)): directed the Commission, working with PAP and relevant PRC subcommittees, to align the instruments governing PAP’s administrative and financial functioning with the PAP Protocol. Significantly, Article 12.5 of the Protocol expressly recognized that the PAP Bureau is the Parliament’s principal governance organ and that PAP staff exercise their functions under the authority of the Bureau.

That recognition confirms that the Commission cannot be treated as the governing authority of PAP.

At the same time, Executive Council decisions demonstrate how deeply the PRC and Commission remain involved in the Parliament’s affairs. The PRC has participated in processes concerning PAP’s Rules of Procedure and budget allocations. The Commission has been directed to coordinate the alignment of administrative and financial instruments, while a Commission-led high-level group was mandated to supervise elections of the PAP Bureau.

Whatever the immediate justifications for such interventions, they reveal a structural problem. A Parliament cannot develop stable institutional autonomy if its internal rules, leadership processes, staffing arrangements and financial priorities remain subject to recurring executive intervention.

Why participation in drafting AU instruments matters

Against this background, Executive Council Decision EX.CL/Dec.1362(XLIX) assumes wider institutional significance. The decision requests the Commission to engage PAP, ECOSOCC and AUCIL on possible modalities for structured advisory input into selected draft AU legal instruments before their submission to the competent policy organs for adoption.

The decision does not confer legislative authority on PAP, make its recommendations binding or displace the respective powers of the Assembly, Executive Council, .the relevant Specialized Technical Committees, the Specialized Technical Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs (STC-JLA), the Commission and Member States. Nevertheless, it creates an opportunity to introduce a parliamentary perspective at a stage of AU law-making historically dominated by executive and technical institutions.

That opportunity is important precisely because PAP’s existing powers have not always been given effective institutional expression. Article 11 authorizes PAP to examine, discuss and express opinions on matters, work towards the harmonization of Member States’ laws and consider budgetary questions. Yet the Parliament has frequently remained peripheral to the processes through which continental legal instruments and policies are developed.

If PAP cannot yet enact binding continental legislation, it should at least be able to scrutinize and influence draft instruments before their content becomes settled.

Parliamentarians can assess whether proposed obligations are politically acceptable, capable of attracting ratification and suitable for domestication within different national legal systems. They can identify provisions requiring new legislation, parliamentary appropriations or sustained legislative oversight. They can also consider how an instrument will affect citizens, opposition parties, vulnerable groups and democratic accountability.

These are not merely technical drafting questions. They concern the legitimacy and practical implementation of continental law.

From executive ownership to parliamentary acceptability

One reason AU treaties experience delayed ratification and weak implementation is the distance between continental negotiation and national legislative processes. Governments participate in negotiating and adopting instruments, but national parliaments may become involved only when ratification, domestication or budgetary implementation is required.

By then, parliamentarians are often presented with a completed instrument they had no role in shaping.

Early PAP participation could help bridge that divide. Because PAP members come from national parliaments, they can bring knowledge of domestic legislative systems into the AU drafting process. They can also take information about proposed instruments back to their national legislatures, building political ownership before adoption.

This would enhance parliamentary acceptability without displacing Member States or the competent policy organs. The objective is not to give PAP a veto but to ensure that the institutions eventually responsible for legislative implementation are heard while amendments remain possible.

PAP must claim its institutional space

The Executive Council’s decision creates an opening, but PAP must be prepared to use it. The Parliament should develop a clear internal procedure for scrutinizing draft AU instruments and present its proposed modalities to the Commission.

That procedure should provide for early notification, formal referral of selected drafts, objective selection criteria and assignment to the appropriate permanent committee. It should allow consultation with national parliaments, regional parliamentary bodies, experts, civil society and affected groups while establishing firm timelines to avoid unnecessary delay.

PAP’s contribution should take the form of concise, reasoned opinions identifying the provisions examined, proposed amendments and likely implications for ratification, domestication, financing and implementation. The Commission should subsequently indicate how PAP’s recommendations were treated, while the opinions and responses should form part of the legislative history of each instrument.

For this mechanism to work, PAP will require adequate legal researchers, legislative drafters, policy specialists, translators and committee support. An invitation to provide input without the resources to examine complex legal texts would offer only the appearance of participation.

Restoring the proper institutional balance

The long-term issue extends beyond PAP’s participation in drafting legal instruments. It concerns whether the African Union is willing to evolve from a predominantly intergovernmental organization into a genuinely people-centred political community.

The Assembly, Executive Council, PRC and Commission perform indispensable functions. Member States remain the foundation of the Union, and their governments cannot be excluded from continental decision-making. But the same Member States that established the AU also established PAP and ratified the Protocol defining its powers and organization.

Respect for Member State sovereignty must therefore include respect for the institutional choices Member States made in that Protocol.

The appropriate relationship is neither executive domination nor parliamentary exemption from accountability. PAP must comply with common financial standards, accept audits, maintain internal discipline and demonstrate that public resources produce measurable continental value. At the same time, accountability mechanisms must not be used to displace its treaty-based authority.

The Protocol provides a coherent distribution of budgetary responsibilities: PAP draws up and discusses its budget; the Financial Rules and Regulations govern the process; the Assembly grants final approval. The Commission and PRC may facilitate, scrutinize and recommend, but they should not appropriate powers the Protocol assigns to Parliament and the Assembly.

The paradox at the centre of the current system remains difficult to ignore. Ministers and ambassadors representing national executives exercise considerable influence over a continental Parliament established by Member States to represent Africa’s peoples.

Providing PAP with a structured role in developing AU legal instruments would not, by itself, correct that democratic imbalance. But it would affirm a foundational principle that the present architecture too often obscures: Africa’s continental laws and policies require more than executive agreement. They require parliamentary scrutiny, political legitimacy and a credible connection to the citizens in whose name the African Union acts.