The APNAC delegation was composed of the Chairperson, Hon. Augustine Ruzindana, the Regional Representative for Southern Africa and the Portuguese-speaking Countries, Eduardo Namburete, and Parliamentary Center Programme Officer, Charity Wakaba.

The goal of the visit was to introduce APNAC to the two institutions and promote the formation of an APNAC chapter in Namibia . In the case of SADC-PF, the delegation was also pursuing a long standing goal of Apnac to establish a formal relationship with the organization.

MEETING WITH THE SPEAKER

In the first meeting the delegation was received by the Namibian Speaker, Dr. Theo-Ben Gurirab, and the chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Mr. Johan De Waal. Speaking for the delegation, the Chairperson introduced APNAC and the other ACPSP networks of Gender Equality and Poverty Reduction as well as the objective of the visit.

The Speaker was very receptive and affirmed that increasingly, corruption was becoming an issue of concern in Namibia . Namibia is ranked among the ‘countries with a corruption problem' by Transparency International (see table). An Anticorruption Commission had been recently set up in the country, he said, inaddition to the existence of an Ombudsman. However, there were still missing links especially in anticorruption legislation, such as the whistleblower's protection. He promised that once Parliament resumed, he would open an opportunity for MPs to exchange views on the formation of an APNAC chapter in Namibia .

MEETING AT SADC-PARLIAMENTARY FORUM

In the second meeting, the delegation met SADC-PF's Secretary General, Dr. Kasuka Mutukwa, formerly and a member of parliament in the Zambian legislature. Although half of the staff was away in Maputo organizing the Forum's annual general meeting that was to be held in a week's time, a very productive meeting was held.

After an introduction of APNAC and the other PC networks by Hon. Ruzindana, the SADC-PF Secretary General expressed his organization's interest in working with networks that can enhance the work of SADC-PF. He indicated that the organization was actually working on a mechanism to ensure that these parliamentary networks obtain an observer status with SADC-PF. The SADC-PF had already received a mandate from the Secretary General of SADC to develop an MOU of cooperation with parliament-based institutions, he revealed, and so the forum was free to engage with APNAC. He was especially pleased to learn that APNAC rules allow for membership of former MPs, as he was very interested in becoming personally involved.

He identified two areas in which he thought APNAC might collaborate with the Forum:

Regional and national training initiatives on anticorruption

Towards this end, he explained that SADC-PF was in the process of setting up a Parliamentary Leadership Centre that might be of interest to APNAC members. He saw the need to link up APNAC's website to that of the Centre. Secondly, he invited APNAC to participate actively in a regional anticorruption workshop being organized by the Forum in August in Windhoek , with the goal of bringing MP's attention to the main anticorruption instruments in Africa such as the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCAC), the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the SADC anticorruption protocol. APNAC confirmed that it would send resource persons. Mr. Ruzindana commented that it might be useful to invite SADC-PF to the GOPAC conference to be held in September in Tanzania ;  

Linkages with other regional bodies

Dr. Mutukwa further informed the APNAC delegation that SADC had recently produced a report on the interface between the PAP and other regional parliaments, a copy of which he promised would be sent to APNAC later. He felt that both APNAC and SADC-PF needed to collaborate with other regional parliaments, such as the PAP, ECOWAS and the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), on anticorruption issues so as to generate African grown solutions. This could mean collaboration on anticorruption material such as the production of a guide for MPs on the three anti-corruption instruments above. It could also mean pushing for the ratification and implementation of the AUCAC amongst member countries.

SADC-PF STRATEGIC PLAN

The SADC-PF, which is observing its 10 th anniversary this year, has developed a new Strategic Plan. The plan focuses on centralizing the role of parliaments in governance, which it takes to include the anti-corruption agenda. It sets out the various programmes that will guide the organization in the coming years, among which are the following:

•  Advocating for the establishment of a SADC parliament in the region to harmonize laws on tourism, freedom of movement, access to information and oversight over the Executive in regional issues;

•  Participating in election monitoring – SADC-PF was the first institution in Africa to come up with norms and regulations on elections;

•  Strong program on gender equality – there is 23% women parliamentarians representation in the region, and goal is to increase this number. Dr. Mutukwa thought that creating synergies between the PC's gender network would be very useful;

•  Orientation and training program for new MPs. This used to be done on an ad hoc basis but efforts are on-going to institutionalize this, through the creation of the Parliamentary Leadership Centre discussed above;

•  Strategic plan issues for parliaments in the region – SADC-PF intends to give assistance in developing these;

•  HIV/Aids program – to get leaders involved; and,

•  Regional integration of protocols – there exists 22 protocols in the SADC region. The Forum would like to promote regional integration on these protocols that most MPs have never seen.

VISIT TO THE PARLIAMENTARY LEADERSHIP CENTER

The APNAC delegation also made a visit to the nascent Parliamentary Leadership , headed by Bookie Kethusegile, Assistant Secretary General at the SADC-PF. The delegation was appraised of the Centre's objectives which include, amongst others, training and professional enhancement of MPs and parliamentary staff. With the first-four-years funding coming from the Harare based African Capacity Building Foundation, (ACBF) the Leadership Centre will work at coordinating training initiatives in the region, organize workshops at a national level as well as build a pool of resource persons from across the continent. Current collaboration with State University of New York (SUNY) on MP training is on-going.

Hon. Ruzindana observed that although APNAC has held several regional training workshops so far, it has had no focal organization to deal with in this regard. He therefore hoped that the SADC-PF Leadership Centre would fulfill this purpose, where the two organizations would collaborate on training initiatives as well as co-own outputs (material, trainers, etc).

MEETING WITH THE ANTICORRUPTION COMMISSIONER OF NAMIBIA

The delegation concluded its visit to Namibia with a courtesy call on the Anti-Corruption Commission of Namibia. The Commission is an independent and impartial body consisting of a Director, a Deputy Director and other staff. The functions of the Commission include to, amongst other, receive, initiate and investigate allegations of corruption, give advice on preventing corruption, educate the public and examine the systems of organizations to ensure that corruption is prevented. In performing these tasks, the Commission is obliged to cooperate with other authorities, including those of other countries.

The Commission is quite young, as is the Commissioner himself, having been in operation since February 2006. The Commissioner, Paulus Noa, affirmed explained that the Commission has the direct and personal support of the President of the country, Hifikepunye Pohamba, though he was quick to point out that it suffered no Executive control whatsoever.

The visit at the Commission turned out to be more beneficial to the institution itself as they were privileged to get the advice and experience of Mr. Ruzindana, who had been the founder and first Inspector General of Uganda. The Ugandan Inspectorate is a similar institution to anticorruption commissions in other African countries. Mr. Ruzindana reiterated the principles that must guide the independence of an anticorruption commission and which include amongst others:

•  Ability to hire and fire staff;

•  An independent budget direct from the consolidated fund, and not the Ministry of Finance;

•  Security of tenure for top officials;

•  Power to summon;

•  Power of access to information; and,

•  Power to prosecute.

He also underlined the important role that the Commission can play in terms of helping parliament carry out its oversight role. The APNAC delegation left Namibia on the 26 th May happy and grateful to all the pleasant people of Namibia who made it such a successful and enjoyable trip.