President Mugabe

PRESIDENT Mugabe yesterday handed over a $1 million cheque to the African Union Foundation to fulfil the pledge he made when he chaired the continental organisation whose budget is largely donor-driven.

Over 60 percent of the AU budget is met by development partners who end up influencing or trying to influence union programmes.

Nowhere was this more apparent than at the 24th session of the African Union General Assembly when Western countries led by Britain and the United States — who account for over 60 percent of the AU budget — sought to use that as leverage to determine who should assume the AU chair which was then set to be taken by President Mugabe.

The westerners opposed President Mugabe’s chairmanship as they argued that the continental body should not be led by a man and country under sanctions. This was despite the fact that the AU, and other multilateral organisations have long condemned the sanctions regime.

To this end, the AU — under President Mugabe’s watch — adopted a resolution on alternative sources of funding under which it sought to fund 100 percent of its running costs, at least 75 percent of its programme expenses, and at least 25 percent of its peacekeeping operations by 2020 and to cumulatively build on this till it is able to fund its entire budget.

This is a noble objective indeed given that the brief of the AU is taking African independence from the political dimension the OAU managed to the economic dimension which will realise the dream of the founding fathers of the OAU. And only an independent, self-financing Union can dream of achieving such a feat.

President Mugabe’s gesture reminds us of the Biblical story of the widow’s mite where a poor woman donated two small coins, while wealthy people donated much more. In relating the tale, Jesus explains to his disciples that the small sacrifices of the poor mean more to God than the extravagant, but proportionately lesser, donations of the rich.

This is the spirit in which the President’s gesture should be read and received. This is one million dollars from a country that has been reeling under an illegal, Western economic sanctions regime imposed because it dared take its independence from the merely political to the economic dimension.

The sanctions regime is estimated to have cost Zimbabwe over $42 billion in revenue since the turn of the millennium. It is vitally important that the AU becomes self-reliant because as currently constituted, it is encumbered by many institutions that are African in name only.

It is time Africa stepped up and emulated President Mugabe’s noble gesture, a gesture made possible because Zimbabwe dared to repossess land from white commercial farmers whose forebears had stolen it from indigenous Zimbabweans.

It is from that land that the cattle that were sold to raise the $1 million were reared. If ever there was need for an illustration of what Africa can do if it controls its resources, then this is it!