Moussa calls on the media to popularise the PAP

(AU Monitor)-- The chairperson of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP), Idriss Ndele Moussa, during a press conference that he held on 30/01/2010 at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, called on the media to popularise the PAP, one of the youngest organs of the continental organisation.

Since its establishment on 18 March 2004, the PAP is still a consultative organ of the AU, but it has proposed to the heads of State and government of the AU to become a legislative body of the whole continent. ‘If our leaders are committed to continental integration, having a United States of Africa with executive powers, they will then accept the proposed legislative powers of the PAP’, said Moussa

Under the proposed changes, national parliaments will elect five members to represent their respective countries to the PAP for a period of five years and they will be replaced as they take on PAP responsibilities. This arrangement will be for the first ten years of the proposed legislative body.

The first mission of the new body would be to ensure ‘the implementation of AU assembly decisions, propose supranational laws for the whole continent that would be implemented by individual countries according to national realities’, added Moussa

The AU has hired an expert to study the proposed recommendations and the report is scheduled to be ready at the 15th ordinary session of the AU. ‘2011 will be a key year for us’, added Moussa while expressing the optimism that the PAP has to assume legislative powers in 2011.

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