The South African Cabinet has dismissed as ”misleading” media reports that government has rejected the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) country review report on South Africa.
At its fortnightly meeting on Wednesday, the Cabinet repeated Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi’s rejection of inaccurate and misleading media reports suggesting that the government has rejected the APRM report, government communications head Themba Maseko said on Thursday.
”As required by the APRM process, the South African government is responding to the report, commenting on and correcting facts before it is considered by the African Union heads of states, who alone have the power to accept or reject it,” he told a media briefing in Cape Town.
There were ”quite a number of inaccuracies and misrepresentation of the facts” in the report, which had to be corrected.
However, Maseko said it was not an attempt to ”rewrite, or even reject it”, as insinuated in some media reports.
Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi said the process provided for the country under review to make comments on the report.
”That can’t be construed as rejection. We are making use of provisions that exist in the rules of procedure,” he said.
On Tuesday, Public Service and Administration Ministry spokesperson Lewis Rabkin said the government’s response to the review would be tabled at the AU’s mid-year heads of state meeting in Accra, Ghana.
”The government has drafted a response to the APRM review team’s country review report, as required by the APRM base document,” he said.
”According to the base document, the review team drafts a report and discusses it with the government concerned.”
The discussions were to ensure the accuracy of the information and give the government reviewed an opportunity to react to the team’s findings and put forward its own views on how to deal with any shortcomings, said Rabkin.
The APRM review team was led by a Nigerian economist, Professor Adebayo Adedeji.
Rabkin said government was committed to the review process and had been ”meticulous” in complying with the process requirements. — Sapa