By Kebba AF Touray
The Pan African Parliament (PAP) has resolved to advance efforts to ratify the instrument on the free movement of persons through its committees and national delegates and challenged both delegates and committee members in member states to report back during the next ordinary session of the sub-regional parliament.
PAP made this resolution in its report adopted at the just concluded session, held in Midrand, in South Africa. The resolution was tabled before the Gambian parliament by Hon. Suwaibou Touray, a member of the Gambian delegation to PAP. While tabling the report before his fellow Gambian lawmakers, Hon. Touray said the continental parliament considered Article 17 of the Constitutive Act of the African Union which established PAP to make these resolutions.
“This Article is to ensure the full participation of the African people in the development and economic integration of their continent,” he said. He added that PAP resolved by considering Article 3 of the Protocol on the treaty establishing the African Economic Community relating to the Pan-African Parliament, and Rule 4 (a) of the Rules of Procedure of the Pan-African Parliament. He explained that the Article empowers PAP to facilitate regional cooperation, development, and promotion of a “collective self-reliance and economic recovery”, as well as the implementation of the policies, objectives, and programs of the African Union. The treaty, he further explained, envisaged Africa’s integration by providing for the free movement of people, a single currency, and continental suffrage for the Pan-African Parliament. He said that in making the resolutions, PAP also noted the AfCFTA Protocols including the protocols on trade in services, investment, and competition, which have all been adopted by the 2024 Heads of States Assembly on the mobility of persons.
In light of the above, the member for Wuli East and delegate to PAP told his fellow Lawmakers that the continental parliament also tasks member states to establish a Pan-African Parliamentary Network on the free movement of persons in Africa to advance and improve the free movement of people. The continental parliament, he said, also mandated the Parliamentary Network on Free Movement of Persons, under the coordination of the Committee on Trade, Customs and Immigration Matters, to spearhead the sensitization and mobilization of members of the National and Regional Parliaments on the importance of ratifying and domesticating the Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons.
The report was subsequently adopted by the members of the National Assembly of the Gambia on Thursday, September 26, 2024.
