The South African government has strongly denied that it intervened on Sunday to prevent discussion by the Africa Union of a report that criticises the crime rate in this country, among other things, Beeld reported on Monday.
The report of the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) on South Africa was not tabled before the AU’s heads of state, as planned, reported the newspaper’s correspondent from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The APRM forum dropped the South Africa peer report from its agenda on Sunday morning.
President Thabo Mbeki’s response to Beeld’s enquiry was: ”The document is still in draft form. We can’t discuss it if it’s not the final version.
”We agreed that all comments should first be integrated into the report.”
Mbeki is attending the AU’s biannual conference in the Ethiopian capital.
Discussion of the report was delayed by six months until the next AU conference in the Ghanaian capital, Accra.
On Sunday, Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said report would only be tabled in July this year.
The report, which was due to be tabled on Sunday ahead of the African Union Summit, was found to have factual errors and did not include the most recent programme of action that would be taken by the South African government.
”It was decided that the South African report, along with the review reports of Algeria and Nigeria, would be tabled and discussed during the next AU heads of state summit in Ghana in July 2007,” said Moleketi. — Sapa