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AU Eyes Pension Funds for Infrastructure Development
By Josephine Lohor and Kola Ologbondiyan, This Day (Lagos)
June 21, 2005
...Seeks parliamentary support Masari: How debt relief can be beneficial
Chairman of African Union, President Oluse-gun Obasanjo, yesterday said that African leaders will soon refer to their parliaments their decision to use dormant pension funds for Africa's infrastructural development.
Addressing the opening of a four-day African parliamentary conference on the role of African parliaments on the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), Obasanjo said that the executive and legislature within the continent must work together to achieve the goals of the NEPAD program.
But conference host, House of Representatives Speaker Aminu Bello Masari charged African leaders to pursue economic diversification if there are to be any tangible results from debt relief.
Obasanjo said that one of the agreements reached at the third African Peer Review forum held in Abuja at the weekend was to utilize part of the $130 billion of pension funds lying fallow across the continent.
The president said the funds could be used for the development of infrastructure in Africa, one of its major hindrances to development.
Obasanjo tasked the parliamentarians to support the plan to use the pension funds by effecting the necessary amendments of their national laws to allow for the use of such funds beyond their borders.
He said that with the creation of Pan African infrastructural fund, Africans needed to generate funds from various sources, adding that one of these was the pension funds that could be invested within the continent.
He said that the progress and development of Africa can only be achieved if the various components of the continent come together to pursue common goals.
He also advised the parliamentarians that "this is not the time to joke around with serious issues. We have had enough of negative images, stereotypes and denigration of our peoples and continent. It is time to do something sustainable about moving Africa forward. History and posterity will not forgive us for failing to do the right thing at the right time. Our children are watching what we do with the present because it has implications for the future".
While commending the initiative of Speaker Masari, and his colleagues for convening the conference, Obasanjo challenged the parliamentarians to on behalf of Africa address four crucial issues:
The first is for every one of you to depart this conference with much more than a functional knowledge of NEPAD. You must seek additional information on NEPAD and the African Peer Review Mechanism from the various offices, the internet and from your respective leaders.
The second is to encourage you to engage more with yourselves in forum like this one. It is instructive that some of the latest updates, problems and opportunities can only be identified when you meet with yourselves and bring in other stakeholder to discuss with you.
The third is you must find an effective way to engage the rest of the international community in fulfilling its obligations to Africa. Too many things have been taken out of Africa and too little given back. When we speak together, our voices will be heard around the world.
The fourth and probably most important is that you must start to find avenues of integrating relevant aspects of NEPAD into national legislation for this is part of the way we can ensure sustainability. NEPAD requires that all of us, including parliamentarians, should place the interest of the common people, that of their respective countries in Africa above personal interest.
Obasanjo also noted that the repatriation of stolen wealth from Africa should be taken seriously because "the thief and the receiver of the stolen items are guilty of the same offence especially when the owner has made a good case to establish ownership. It is morally reprehensible, unjust, unfair and against all established human values to engage in actions that actually encourage corruption in poor nations to fatten your own country".
He said that "while we recognize that globalization is an over-arching reality of the new age, we cannot afford to resign ourselves passively to its adverse consequences. While fully acknowledging the harm, distortions, contradictions, suspicions, conflicts and underdevelopment that history had precipitated in Africa through slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism, the real challenge is to do something about our situation rather than hide under excuses and rationalizations".
"The dignity, strength, power, and progress of Africa lies in our ability to reflect together, strategize together, act together and stand together at all times and on all issues," he said.
He added that the NEPAD peer review was yet another innovative strategy of playing oversight functions.
In his opening remarks, Speaker Masari charged African leaders to pursue policies of economic diversification, sustained economic growth and prudent debt management for any debt relief framework to deliver tangible results.
Masari who spoke on the Role of Parliaments in the Implementation of NEPAD, noted that "success in this regard calls for better access to markets, much increased investment in human and physical infrastructure and a considerable widening of the policy space narrowed by the adjustment program."
According to him, "African parliaments must also seek to confront headlong the debt overhang issue which has acted as a drawback of development efforts in Africa.
The NEPAD/African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) framework which seeks to institutionalize good governance as a starting point of the drive towards socio-economic development must address the debt question.
"While globalization is deepening Africa's integration into the world economy, NEPAD, it must be understood, has as its main objective a "Self-reliant development.
The critical challenge therefore is that Africa must engage globalization within the framework of
NEPAD.
"Clearly and surely, Africa is determined to create a path for sustainable development. In furtherance of this, we require the continuous positive engagement of the international community. The call for debt cancellation should be seen in this regard. I believe it is imperative that African parliaments and parliamentarians should also begin to champion the call for debt cancellation.
"The support and engagement of fellow parliamentarians from other regions of the world will be crucial if not critical of past and present initiatives at international debt relief are increasingly acknowledged to be inadequate and flawed.
"The Enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and the Cologne Agreement by the leaders of the G-7 countries, only represent modest advances and are too little to resolve Africa's debt crisis.
"The recent move by the G8 countries towards debt cancellation is therefore a welcome development; however, debt cancellation, lofty as it may sound, would not be enough to bail Africa out of the abyss of poverty, disease and underdevelopment," Masari said.
He said that "a full debt write-off would be only a first step towards restoring growth and meeting the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs)."
He also noted that "while the popular impression that Africa's debt overhang is simply the legacy of irresponsible and corrupt African governments might not be too far from reality, certainly, exogenous shocks, commodity dependence, poorly designed reform programs and the actions of creditors did play a decisive part in the debt crisis.
"African parliaments, therefore, have a key role to play in instituting good governance especially in performing its traditional role of parliamentary oversight, albeit with innovative features." He said the goals of NEPAD/APRM could be achieved of parliaments perform certain roles.
These include:
As parliament performs its oversight role, its significant decision-making powers could enhance the peer review process;
Parliaments should regard NEPAD and APRM programs as substantive issues to be dealt with rather than leave those issues entirely to the executive arm of government;
Key issues of parliament and democracy in the review and capacity learning process should be enhanced by parliamentary discussion and action, among others.
Former President Shehu Shagari, who was the chairman of the forum, said that he was happy to be associated "once again, with parliamentarians, this time, from all over Africa," having attended Commonwealth parliamentary conferences in the past 40 years.
He said that the NEPAD program was a novelty that needed to be supported by all and urged African parliaments to give it their full backing and also evolve ways and means of sustaining it beyond the present crop of African leaders.
The four-day conference is being attended by representatives of the Pan African Parliament, the ECOWAS parliament and national assemblies of Chad, Ethiopia and Algeria.
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