South Africa has the makings of a great nation, the leader of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) country assessment team said on Tuesday.
Wrapping up a two-week visit to the country, Professor Adebayo Adedeji said South Africans are proud of their country and prepared to talk about its weaknesses and strengths.
”People are willing to talk. People could have kept their mouths shut, but they did not .. they’ll tell you frankly where they see the problems and where they see the strength,” Adedeji said.
The team travelled to seven provinces and met government leaders, opposition parties, business and civil society and considered such issues as development and crossing the floor in Parliament.
During the visit the Democratic Alliance said South Africa’s APRM self-assessment report was not a true reflection of the situation in the country because it downplayed the nature and extent of crime.
Adedeji, however, denied this, saying crime was raised in all discussions they had. ”In all the submissions that we have received, both from the country self-assessment and throughout the interaction we had, … corruption and crime have been discussed extensively,” he said.
The team’s report will be compiled by the end of September after which it would be viewed by the APRM group of eminent persons in early October before being sent to South Africa for comment.
Adedeji said South Africa would not be able to change the report and could only make extra remarks on it. ”There is room for honest people to honestly disagree … South Africa has right to give us a memorandum to publish with report [but] we cannot change a comma from the report, this for the integrity of the whole exercise,” he said.
Only after South Africa’s input on the report was received would it be made public and, as Adedeji puts it, would the ”real work” begin.
”The real work is the implementation of the national plan of action that would have been prepared due to the various recommendations prepared in the report. You cannot identify problems without seeking solutions. If you fail to search for solutions you compound the problem,” he said.
South Africa is one of 24 countries in Africa that have submitted to the scrutiny and will be the fourth country to have completed the process.
The APRM is a voluntary self-monitoring tool agreed upon by the African Union as part of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. It promotes good governance through the development of laws, policies and practices that will lead to political and economic growth. — Sapa