The Pan-African Parliament (PAP) is scheduled to commence its sittings on Monday with a planned three-day Reorientation Capacity Building Workshop for African legislators, H.E President, Chief Fortune Charumbira has said.
Set to be held from 22 August to 02 September 2022 in Midrand, South Africa, the August Sittings of the Permanent Committees of the sixth Parliament of the PAP will be guided by the African Union theme of 2022; ‘Building resilience in nutrition on the African continent: Accelerate the human capital, social and economic development’.
The upcoming sittings constitute the first statutory assignment of the parliament since the elective ordinary session in June 2022, which signaled the resumption of parliamentary activities.
“From Monday we are commencing the business of renewing, reviving, renewing, repositioning, reinvigorating, relooking, reenergize, reinventing our continental Parliament,” said H.E Charumbira.
“As we are commencing business, more serious we have a number of activities that we are focusing on as parliament. Committee meetings will be held during this session, while we will have a plenary session around October-November. We have been meeting as a Bureau ironing out things.
“We invite the media to take a keen interest in our activities as all Members of Parliament are expected to be in our plenary. We will be conducting a three-day workshop, a workshop that will be supported and led by experts from across our continent,” added H.E Charumbira.
H.E Charumbira also highlighted that it is high time for the PAP to trace its purpose.
“The time has come for us to realise the importance and existence of parliament. We need to return to the basics and trace why parliament was created, what were the objectives behind the creation of parliament? With this in mind, we will come up with an institution that is people-centred. During the workshop, parliamentarians will be involved in discussions and presentations are expected to flow throughout. We mean business and this will help in orienting everyone on the whole purpose of the parliament,” he said.
H.E Charumbira further mentioned that the PAP must align itself with African Union’s Vision2063.
“Our agenda must feed into the expectations of our citizens. Already there are programmes and projects that are being pushed for by the AU through Vision2063. As PAP, we need to align ourselves with our mother body. We have been working with various organs of the AU and expect to continue building relationships with them as we aim to improve the livelihoods of our people. Collaborating and connecting with sister organs will do our duty as PAP easily when it comes to formulating and implementing people-driven programmes. We need one another to grow and have a developed Africa.”
The PAP committees will also look into updates on the peace and security situation on the continent; model law on Food Security and Nutrition; Covid-19 Crisis and economic and social recovery strategies in Africa; status of implementation of the AfCFTA; model law on Gender Parity; and implementation status of the African Union Ten-Year Action Plan to eradicate Child Labour and Human Trafficking.
“The August Sittings will also feature the Speaker’s Conference where the leadership of Africa’s national and regional legislatures will concert on AU decisions and policies as well as evaluate the state of the ratification of the PAP Protocol and ways to speed up this process,” disclosed H.E Charumbira.
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