Outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived on Thursday in Johannesburg on the final leg of his farewell tour of Africa ahead of his departure from office next month.
Blair, who flew into Johannesburg airport from Sierra Leone, is expected to meet with South African President Thabo Mbeki and his predecessor as president, anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela, during his two-day visit here.
The Zimbabwe and Darfur crises, world trade and the G8 summit next week in Germany will all feature in a speech he will deliver at the University of South Africa Business School, Johannesburg, at 11.30am (9.30am GMT), his office said.
The speech, extracts of which were released by his office, will be his last keynote address in Africa as prime minister before leaving office on June 27.
In the speech, Blair expresses his concern that the world’s richest countries are falling short on the pledges they made to increase aid and grant reliefs at the 2005 G8 summit, which Britain chaired.
He calls for an even greater commitment on Africa from G8 countries at the Germany summit.
”We now have a broad political consensus for Africa in the UK. We need the same in the European Union. We need each G8 to be bolder than the last”, he says.
”If we do this and Africa responds as an equal partner, we will have set a strategic goal which with time we will then achieve,” he said.
On the crisis in Zimbabwe, Blair said that Britain supports South African President Thabo Mbeki’s dialogue with Zimbabwe and the need for a swift resolution of the situation.
In an email interview last weekend with South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper, Blair said he would ”promise” that Africa would remain at the top of Britain’s agenda after he steps down. He said he would also be discussing the issue with Mbeki.
”We’ll discuss the desperate crisis in Zimbabwe, which is causing such misery for its people and is now having a damaging impact on neighbouring countries,” he said.
On the Darfur crisis, Blair said Britain wouuld back tougher sanctions against Sudan.
”We must offer President [al-]Bashir a choice: engage with us on a solution or if you reject responsibility for the people of Darfur, we will table and put a vote sanction against the regime,” he said in the Thursday speech.
He commended some African countries like Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique and Botswana for achieving economic growth due to good governance and anti-corruption measures.
But he criticised others like Zimbabwe and Sudan for, according to him, choosing ”bad government and violent oppression”, which had put their economies in freefall.
”Our challenge is to support the good. Africa’s challenge is to eliminate the bad,” he stated.
He is scheduled on Thursday afternoon to meet Mandela at his Johannesburg residence. – Sapa-AFP