Govt ready to host APU conference

DEPUTY Senate president, Lieutenant General (Retired) Michael Nyambuya (Retired), has assured African Parliamentary Union (APU) member states that Zimbabwe is ready to host the upcoming APU conference scheduled for November 2022.

The country is billed to host the 44th session of the Executive Committee and the 78th Conference of APU member States in November 2022 in the resort town of Victoria Falls.

Speaking on the sidelines of the APU Executive Committee Meeting in Kigali, Rwanda yesterday, where he is leading a Zimbabwean delegation to the 77th session of the committee, Rtd Lt Gen Nyambuya said the country takes seriously the issues of image-building, engagement and re-engagement.

“As espoused within the country’s economic blue print, the NDS1 document, Parliament of Zimbabwe is mandated to ensure that it represents the country well on the international stage. To this end, the country is hosting the November 2022 showcase as part of conference diplomacy,” he said.

Rtd Lt Gen Nyambuya highlighted that the Zimbabwean delegation took the opportunity to play a three-minute video to conference members, in which President Mnangagwa, Speaker of the National Assembly Advocate Jacob Mudenda, and Senate President Senator Mabel Chinomona welcomed the opportunity to host the coveted conference.

“In fact, the November conference has the blessings of the highest office in the land, which is His Excellency, President Mnangagwa himself.

‘‘We are grateful to His Excellency for his visionary leadership and recognition of the pivotal role that Parliament can play in the image-building, engagement and re-engagement drive which led him to acceding to our request to host the conference,” he said.

Zimbabwe will harness the opportunity to ventilate the abundant investment opportunities available in the country, specifically in the tourism, mining and agriculture sectors.

The conference is also expected to give a major boost to the tourist destination of Victoria Falls, which is on the rise following a forced hiatus courtesy of Covid-19.

The APU is a continental inter-parliamentary organisation established in 1976 with a membership of over 30 African States. Its major goal is to promote unity of action among parliamentary institutions of all African States in the service of peace, democracy, good governance and sustainable development.

Retired Lt Gen Nyambuya also made interventions at the conference to the effect that Africa needs to set up a consortium which produces vaccines to combat pandemics such as Covid-19, rather than individual approaches currently being undertaken.

He indicated that Airbus, for example, is a conglomeration of European countries which realised that to counter the monopoly of the American company, Boeing, they had to pool resources together, and they have fared considerably well.

Zimbabwe continues to make a mark on intercontinental bodies of this nature as the country led a No rotation, No election charge at the Pan-African Parliament in South Africa last year.

Some West African countries, riding on their superiority in numbers, had attempted to circumvent an earlier agreement on the need to rotate the Presidency in line with the African Union principles and values.

The position taken by SADC culminated in reaffirmation by the African Union of the principle of rotation and the endorsement of the position that the PAP presidency be rotated between the Northern and Southern Regions, which have never held the PAP Presidency. President of the Chief’s Council, Senator Fortune Charumbira, is the Southern African candidate in polls scheduled for April this year.