Africa-Press – Angola. The member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) contributed only 47 million, out of the 129 that the organization needed, to finance its operations for the 2023/2024 fiscal year, it was announced this Friday.
According to the spokesman for the 43rd SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government, Jorge Catarino Cardoso, this matter will be referred for debate to the Council of Ministers of the regional organisation, scheduled for the 13th and 14th of this month, in Luanda.
At the end of the meeting of the Committee of Senior Officials of SADC, Jorge Cardoso said that it was defined that the Member States should finance their operations in 70 percent and the international partners the remaining 30 percent.
He pointed out that it was also treated to send to the Council of Ministers the balance of the degree of implementation of the indicative strategic plan of regional development from 2022 to 2023.
The director of Africa, Middle East and Regional Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, informed that the Committee of Senior Officials proposed to the Council of Ministers the adoption of legal mechanisms for the transformation of the SADC Parliamentary Forum into a Parliament.
He pointed out that he suggested the necessary changes to the SADC Treaty, due to the fact that the current one does not provide for the existence of this body.
He added that only eight countries signed the project to transform the Parliamentary Forum into a Parliament, when at least 12 are needed, so that the proposal to create the regional Parliament can succeed.
Jorge Cardoso hopes that at the Summit of Heads of State and Government of SADC, on 17 August, other countries will adhere to the project to make Parliament an institutional reality.
He then added that it would be necessary to establish a protocol to regulate the functions and responsibilities of Parliament.
The spokesperson declared that the Committee of Senior Officials decided to refer to the Council of Ministers the adoption of a strategy for the presentation of candidacies for the filling of vacancies, in the most diverse positions, in the African Union and in the UN.
He referred that SADC proposes to ensure the necessary consensus and the best political-diplomatic strategies for its candidates to be successful when competing with competitors from other regions.
Jorge Catarino Cardoso noted that, during the four days of preparatory work, the Permanent Committees of Senior Officials and Finance of SADC worked on consolidating the documentation to be sent to the Council of Ministers.
At the 43rd Summit of Heads of State and Government of SADC, scheduled for the 17th of this month, Angola is expected to assume the rotating presidency of the organisation, for one year, after having already done so in 2012.
The regional organization comprises Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
SADC is an inter-governmental organization created in 1992 and dedicated to socio-economic cooperation and integration, as well as cooperation in matters of politics and security.
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