President Thabo Mbeki has confirmed that Nepad’s African Review Mechanism will not review the political governance of African countries, as this was the task of African Union (AU) watchdog institutions such as the Commission for People’s and Human Rights.
Speaking in Cape Town after talks with visiting Greek President Constantinos Stephanopoulos, Mbeki was asked to clarify the position following a similar statement by Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad earlier this week which reportedly shocked diplomats.
Newspaper reports quoted diplomats as saying Pahad had either got it wrong, or that African governments might be backing away from independent review of their political performance.
Even Wiseman Nkuhlu, the head of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) secretariat, was reportedly surprised by Pahad’s remarks.
”As far as I know, the African peer review mechanism will deal with political and economic governance. It has to,” he reportedly said.
Asked by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to repudiate Pahad’s statement, Deputy President Jacob Zuma told Parliament during question time on Wednesday afternoon: ”The behaviour of the countries on the continent should be understood … so that we can be in a position to deal with the matters that affect the continent and that’s what we have been saying.
”I’m certain that the deputy foreign minister must have been saying that, he must just have been understood in a different way.”
However, Mbeki backed Pahad on Wednesday and said the peer review mechanism arose out of the Nepad process.
Nepad was the AU’s socio-economic programme, and peer review arose out of ”those matters which are on the agenda of Nepad”, such as economic and financial questions.
”From the very beginning because it arose out of the Nepad process, it had to deal with those issues which are relevant to a socio-economic programme.”
Mbeki said the reason why peer review did not arise from the African Union context ”is because there are various institutions in the AU which are intended to carry out similar oversight with regard to … the Constitutive Act and the various conventions that the union had inherited from the Organisation of African Unity”.
The African Commission for People’s and Human Rights was the body charged with oversight over human rights questions.
”That will be part of the review system with regard to those various objectives that govern the African Union,” Mbeki said.
The Pan African Parliament would also look at ”all those matters that will arise from the constitutive Act”, including democracy, respect for human rights and the independence of the judiciary.
”The Pan-African Parliament will have the possibility to discuss those matters. You have a number of institutions in the AU context with an oversight and enforcement mechanism …”.
Mbeki repeated that the peer review mechanism arose in the context of Nepad and would have to review ”matters that have to do with the economy”, including financial management and budget policy.
”There was never ever any suggestion that we have a Nepad Peer Review process that would conduct the work of the commission on human rights…” he told reporters. – Sapa