AU Cuts Pan-African Parliament Budget

The Executive Council of the African Union (AU) has cut the budget of the continent’s largely advisory legislative body by US$4 million.

The Pan African Parliament (PAP) during the budget processing early this year earmarked USD$ 20.8m for the financial year 2020.
The Executive Council, which is the implementer and decision making organ composed of Foreign Ministers, approved only USD$16.4m.

The activities of the continental parliament including staff facilitation, communications, missions and others are expected to be adversely affected.

The required budget covers parliamentary sessions, statutory and non-statutory meetings, conference for Speakers, women and clerks, ratification of AU legal instruments, climate change, public hearing the women conference, Bureau and MPs allowances among others.

Most of the PAP work is generated by portfolio and thematic committees. The the missions generate business for the committees, which in turn generate business to be tabled and debated in the plenary.

There are two statutory committee meetings (March and August) and two plenary meetings (May and October).

PAP President Roger Nkodo Dang said the body will not even be in position to absorb the approved funds since there will be no work to be generated by committees.

“Without the work of committees, the money will not be used. It is the AU to blame because they are the ones that reduce our budget if it is not spent. If MPs do not work, we shall close this Parliament,” said Nkodo at the opening of the PAP session last week.

Meanwhile James Kakooza (Uganda) argued that despite the challenges the PAP is going to face with the budget cuts, the PAP also needs to improve on its financial and management practice as seen from various reports on the institution.

AAtop level delegation from PAP is scheduled to travel to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia in November to negotiate supplementary budget.

The PAP also hit another funding snag when its proposed European Commission partner funded programme budget for 2020 of US$1 million for the new African Governance Architecture (AGA) was cut by nearly half to US$575,000 so as to remain within the overall budget ceiling provided as well as comply with the requirement to reduce dependence on external funding for programmes.