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Hon Chief Fortune Charumbira, the President of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) has set the ball rolling for the continental parliamentary body’s Bureau and Regional Caucuses to come up with a roadmap for the review of the Rules of Procedure.
Chief Charumbira revealed this while officially opening the First Ordinary Session of the Sixth Parliament of the PAP in Johannesburg today.
There are recommendations that the Rules of Procedure must be aligned to the definitions used in the Consultative Act of the African Union adopted in Lome, Togo (2000) as well as the Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community relating to the Pan African Parliament.
The amendments are meant to give PAP the capacity to respond to a multiplicity of challenges faced by the continent across the political, economic, and social spectrum.
The PAP is comprised of the Eastern, Southern, Western, Northern, and Central African regional caucuses that will focus on rules as regards the organs of the PAP; status, tenure, and mandate of members; waiver of immunity; nomination of candidates; leave of absence; and procedure of committees, among others.
“Amendment to the rules of procedure will help address some gaps that we have been experiencing. When PAP was formed 18 years ago, the idea was just to come up with something that worked but along the way, we saw some gaps. In order to make PAP more effective, we want to make amendments to the rules of procedure,” Hon Charumbira said.
Recommendations from the current PAP session will be tabled at the Summit of African Heads of State in February 2023 with issues of food security, women and youth, and power transfer expected to be topical in the discussions.