With a population of 1.4 billion and a median age of 19 years old, Africa has untapped potential to enable it thrive in infrastructure development and innovation, and good governance is critical in achieving these goals, South Africa’s Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Ronald Lamola has said.
The minister said this when he delivered a keynote address on Monday during the opening of the first ordinary session of the 6th Parliament of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) in Midrand, a suburb of Johannesburg, on behalf of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Lamola said Africa could not continue to govern in the same way “we have been governing in the past.”
“Corruption and misgovernance should never define us,” Lamola said.
He added: “Instead, Africa should be defined by digitisation, innovation, world-class infrastructure and modernisation.”
The minister said Africa needed “a generation across the continent that will give rise to the ideas of the likes of Prof. Ali Mazrui, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Jean Martine Cisse, Thomas Sankara, Nelson Mandela and Samora Machel.”
Lamola noted that as an institution supporting the African Union (AU), the PAP had a critical mandate to contribute to the “strengthening of the culture of democracy, good governance and the rule of law in the continent.”
“This includes through the implementation of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance which provides a framework for election monitoring on our continent,” he said.
He said there was need to interrogate the responsibility of the PAP as an institution in supporting the AU.
NM/jn/APA