Comrades:
As the trend continuous, lack of sound fiscal policies as contributed to our country's indebtedness to the OAU. Please read the posted news from The Independent:
Gambia owes over $650,000 to OAU
Amara Essy the secretary of the Organisation of African Unity has said The Gambia is one of 45 African countries collectively owing a whopping $54 million to the organisation. Amara Essy who faces a tough challenge to transform the OAU into the African Union said The Gambia is yet to account for $650, 465.00 she owes as arrears to the organisation. Essy’s revelation comes more than eight months after reports that a mysterious account had settled The Gambia’s arrears to the OAU, which had caused sanctions on the country’s right to speak during meetings and its voting right during sessions.
Essy who was elected last July with a one-year mandate to transform the organisation into an African Union warned that four things are ‘dangerously’ threatening and sabotaging his work and the Union’s project. According to reports, OAU is owed a whopping $54.33 million by 45 of its 54 member countries, including The Gambia. Only nine member countries have paid their arrears and they are Angola, Bostwana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland and Zambia.
Mr. Essy fears that the arrears crisis riddling the organisation would very likely cause the A.U. to be stillborn as it tries to take over from the O.A.U, which is acutely short of money for the transition process. African Ambassadors accredited to Addis Ababa are reported to have failed to ensure that their respective African governments pay their dues, as overseers of the OAU budget. At their first Eminent Persons Panel meeting in Addis Ababa from 3 to 5 May, the Ambassadors were unable to come up with plans to ensure that the A.U is not saddled with debt at its birth in Durban. Neither have they formulated any strategies to help the secretary general to recover the arrears reports suggest.
For now, the secretary general has set up a 15 member Eminent Persons Advisory Panel on the transition to the A.U, chaired by General Yakubu Gowon, former Nigerian military leader. The panel is charged with looking into the would-be obstacles and constraints of the organisation, making recommendations to heads of state and advising its administration on those issues, salient among them the union’s funding. Among other things reported to be ‘dangerously’ threatening the union and sabotaging the work of secretary general Essy is sabotage by the cabal of former secretary general of OAU Salim Salim loyalists at the headquarters in Addis Ababa. Salim Salim ‘reluctantly lost’ the chance of a fourth term in office.
His loyalists, according to reports, think that the union should go with him, now that he is gone. Essy said they are reported to be deliberately sabotaging Africa’s progress to the union. Some of them had worked for the OAU for decades, according to secretary general Essy, even if the pay is low compared to the UN systems. Another problem Essy was quoted as mentioning is related to NEPAD, which is feared to become an institution or organisation of its own, with its own secretariat in South Africa.
‘Yes, I admit that to administer NEPAD from the OAU secretariat wouldn’t work’ the OAU secretary general was quoted as saying. Also, the would-be chairman of the A.U commission is reported to be a ‘preserve of former and burnt-out heads of state’. So far, the Eminent Persons Advisory Panel proposed for an extension in the transition to the union and summoned at short notice, but some panel members could not make the inaugural meeting of the panel, including Gambia’s Abdoulie Janneh, the Assistant Secretary General of the UN and Director of UNDP’s regional bureau for Africa. The UNDP which is financing the transition under its Preparatory Assistance Programme has so far given the OAU $1 million and has even pledged to give more, as it is reckoned that the transition from OAU to AU might take ‘18 months or more not one year’.
This shows that The Gambia is further sinking in debt threshold.
Naphiyo,
Comrade ML Jassey-Conteh
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