BY HARRIET CHIKANDIWA PAN African Parliament (PAP) president and President of the Chiefs Council Chief Fortune Charumbira yesterday outlined his vision for Africa, saying one of his wishes is to see the relaxation of visa laws.
Charumbira was speaking to journalists at the Robert Mugabe International Airport after arriving from South Africa where he was sworn in as the new PAP president.
He became the first southern African representative to be elected as the PAP head.
“Africa should now expect a leadership that ensures that PAP is brought back to its core business,” Charumbira declared while also emphasising the need for harmonise immigration laws.
“I should not be shy to say PAP has been performing below the expectations of the citizens of Africa and some don’t even know what it means. People now need to know that there is a Parliament for the continent which should harmonise these immigration laws, movement from one country to another.”
The PAP is the African Unions (AU’s) consultative assembly. It was created in 2004 and is composed of more than 200 MP’s appointed by their respective parliaments.
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“People have problems moving across the continent and we are fighting that we should relax some of the visa regimes, our people should be free to move from country to country,” Charumbira said.
“PAP should play a leading role in making sure that people are aware of that and trade regimes are harmonised, so that we change some of the laws that do not promote intra-regional trade within Africa ,our trade rule tends to favour countries that are outside the continent.
“We want to strengthen our economies so that we launch our economic development from the various economic powerhouses on the continent.”
- Follow Harriet on Twitter @harrietchikand1