African Union leaders have resolved to set up a committee of ministers to recommend the way forward in realising the proposed Africa Union Government.

The 52 heads of state and governments who included President Levy Mwanawasa, renewed their desire for a United Africa as envisioned by Ghana’s first President Nkwame Nkrumah.

A report from ZANIS who is in Ghana, Betniko Kayaya reports that the leaders have been meeting to discuss the proposed AU government as put forward by Libyan President, Muamar Ghadafi.

The summit officially closed, Tuesday.

Closing the summit, host President and AU chairman, John Kuffour, said the committee of ministers will be given 6 months in which to come up with recommendations for consideration by the AU leaders at their next summit in January in 2008.

Mr. Kuffour said among other things, the committee will be tasked to come up with a clear road map and time table for implementing the continental government.

The decision, announced close to midnight on Tuesday, followed three days of often heated debate at an African Union summit in the Ghanaian capital Accra that overran its scheduled closing time by half a day.

It represented a face-saving compromise between some leaders who wanted to set up a continental African government immediately, and others who favoured a more gradual, step-by-step approach.

“Clearly, we’re not there yet. it’s a step forward but we’re still a long way off,” Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf told reporters.

The decision to take six more months to study the implications and timing of the proposed creation of a federated African state stretching from the Cape to Cairo was a setback for at least two leaders, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade.

Arguing that Africa, the world’s poorest continent, needed to speak and act as one in a globalised world, they had publicly advocated the immediate formation of a continental government.

They did this in the face of the more gradualist approach of presidents from southern and east Africa.

DIVISIONS

The summit host, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, sought to play down the divisions that had emerged at the meeting.

“The debate has not been about winners and losers, a majority or a minority, the ‘instantists’ or the ‘gradualists’,” he said in his closing remarks.

“We emerge with a common vision in principle for the realisation of a union government. We all have a shared vision of a united, vibrant continental union,” said Kufuor.

Gaddafi and Wade were not in their seats in the conference hall when the closing Accra Declaration was read to reporters.

While affirming the need to accelerate economic and political integration, the document said a committee of AU ministers would study how a continental union under a single government would affect national sovereignties and existing regional economic blocs.

The committee would also consider a “road map” and timeframe for the construction of a United States of Africa that would be included in its report to be presented to the next summit of the 53-nation AU in January.

The decision for more study reflected the cautious position of leaders like South African President Thabo Mbeki, who had recommended strengthening existing regional economic communities before any setting up of a continental union and government.

“Excellent, I’m very happy,” Mbeki said when asked how he viewed the result of the summit.

Kufuor testily rebuffed reporters’ questions about how long it could take before a United States of Africa was formed and what kind of government it would have.

“It is not something we can tell beforehand. Africa shall evolve,” he said, adding this would be the subject of the study.

But Kufuor said Africa in its drive for continental unity would not strive to copy the models of the United States of America or the European Union.

“We want to do a custom-made thing, something to suit the unique attributes of our continent,” he said.

African leaders argued fiercely on Monday over whether to rapidly create a single state stretching from the Cape to Cairo, with one small group threatening to break away and forge ahead with the project.

Delegates said the atmosphere in an African Union (AU) summit was charged as a group of states led by Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade argued with a more gradualist majority led by South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki.

“I think everybody is a little bit tense, because they know how serious this is,” Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio said.

“It is getting heated between Gaddafi and the southern Africans,” said one delegate, who did not want to be identified.

While almost all the 53 member nations agree with the goal of African integration and eventual unity, most of the summit leaders want this to be a gradual process.

Gadio held out the prospect that a small group of states committed to creating a United States of Africa could push forward without the others and sign up to federation, ironically splitting the AU over the idea of unity.

“If Senegal wants to build this union with two, three, four more countries, there is not a country in this room that has enough power to tell Senegal you cannot do it,” he said.

Kwamena Bartels, information minister of host nation Ghana, attacked such a strategy.

“It would be useful to all of us that there is no such breakaway group. Africa could do with a united front,” he said.

“Setting up breakaway groups is not really the answer,” Bartels added, saying only Libya and Senegal had so far openly backed an immediate federal government.

These two, apparently backed by about three or more states, want a unity government as the only way to fight poverty and other challenges facing Africa, including globalisation.

MATTER OF SURVIVAL

“Some of us think that Africa’s unity has become a matter of survival … my president is here with his pen ready to sign,” Gadio told reporters.

“Some will start and the others will follow. … Now, who is ready to start? Senegal is ready.”

Gaddafi, known for his impassioned rhetoric, was more restrained on Monday despite a speech on the summit’s eve invoking the spirit of pan-African icon Kwame Nkrumah, who led Ghana to independence 50 years ago, to support his vision of a United States of Africa.

Asked by a crush of journalists during a summit recess whether he was optimistic about unity, Gaddafi, wearing dark glasses and a black cap, declared: “I am always optimistic.”

The Libyan leader, describing himself as a soldier for Africa, is impatient with the slow pace of integration. He did not attend the summit’s opening session on Sunday and believes the decision over unity must be made by Africa’s masses and not leaders closeted in a conference hall.

The summit leaders have come under criticism for largely ignoring pressing issues such as Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe at this meeting to concentrate on unifying the continent.

Many Africans regard this as an unrealistic, if noble, dream. Sceptics point to decades of wars, coups and massacres that often sprang from ethnic and religious fault lines on a continent artificially carved up by former colonial rulers.

The summit continued into the evening on Monday and Bartels said the debate was unlikely to be “crystallised” until midday on Tuesday, the meeting’s final day. (Additional reporting by Orla Ryan and Salah Sarrar)

Health Minister, Brian Chituwo says the condition of former Information Minister, Vernon Mwaanga is stable.

Dr. Chituwo says doctors in South Africa will, on Monday continue with their investigations on Mr. Mwaanga.

He told ZNBC news that investigations will help determine the type of treatment to give him.

Mr. Mwaanga was flown to South Africa for specialist treatment on Saturday.

He was earlier admitted to the University Teaching Hospital before been flown to South Africa.

Vice President Ruphia Banda has bemoaned the lack of local expertise in most African countries, a situation, he said has retarded development on the continent.

Mr. Banda regreted that most African countries, including Zambia, still depend
largely on foreign expertise to run economies at a high cost.

The Vice President was speaking in Lusaka today when he officially opened the
African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) Board of Governors meeting.

“For unless we pay attention to this very important aspect of our national
development, all our efforts will be in vain.No matter how elaborate our plans are,
if we lack trained manpower that can efficiently execute our plans, nothing will
happen,” he said.

He said it is important for a developing country like Zambia to have adequate
doctors, engeneers, lawyers economists and other various disciplines in order to
move the country forward.

He said it is therefore important for African countries to train their own people in
order to acheive sustainble economic growth.

Mr. Banda paid tribute to the ACBF for the role it has played in Zambia and in
particular the support rendered to the ministry of Finance and National Planning in
capacity building.

“I am aware that thre is further support that is coming our way from ACBF in the
recently formed formed Zambia Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR).
This will be a semi-autonomous institute for use by government institutions
responsible for macro-economic policy formulation and implementation,” he said.

He urged all African countries to give the ZCBF all the support it needs in its
endevours to develop capacity in Africa.

Mr. Banda said African countries need to take full ownership of the ACBF and its
programmes, for it to be a relevant force  to the challenges facing the African
countries in the new millennium.

In this regard, he said, Zambia has pledged US$250,000 to the Foundation.

And ACBF chairperson Louise Clement said the Foundation plays an important role in
the strenthening of public sector capacities throughout Africa.

She said good governance is key to the success of international, regional and
national development efforts.

Government has today unveiled new penalties for public nuisance acts under the street vending and nuisance amendment regulation of 2007.

Launching the statutory instrument in Lusaka today, Local Government and Housing Minister, Sylvia Masebo said the instrument was in line with the “Keep Zambian Clean Campaign which President Levy Mwanawasa launched last week.

Mrs. Masebo said the penalty fees for various public nuisance offences have been
increased from the range of between K300 and K1, 000 to the range of between K90,
000 and K450, 000.

She said the old penalty fees were too minimal to deter offenders from committing
the offence.

In the new instrument, throwing litter in undesignated places would attract the
penalty fee of K90, 000 while passing urine in unauthorised places would attract
K200, 000.

She said trading in an unauthorised areas and operating unlicenced taxis would
attract K450, 000.

The minister has since called on Zambians to support government measures in order to
achieve a clean and disease free environment.

She further said Zambians should be vigilant and exercise their powers of citizens’
arrest by apprehending perpetrators of such nuisance acts.

Second Republican President, Frederick Chiluba has been ordered to pay the government over $57.4 million for conspiracy to defraud the state.

In a final judgment delivered, Friday by London High Court Judge Peter Smith, the state is to recover the funds from Dr. Chiluba for his involvement in the ZAMTROOP Conspiracy and a fictitious arms deal the BK conspiracy.

Judge Smith said the $57 million also caters for Dr. Chiluba’s violating the trust of the people to look after the national treasury.

However funds to be recovered from Dr. Chiluba have however been reduced from the initial $58 million announced a few weeks ago after several deliberations by lawyers in the case.

The same court has ordered that state recovers from Fugitive former Zambia Security Intelligence Services Director, Zavier Chungu, $113 Million.

Judge Smith has ordered that Mr. Chungu pays $57 million, for his involvement in the ZAMTROOP and BK conspiracy.

The Judge said the remaining $56 Million must be paid as a breach to protect the national treasure.

Others include Former Zambia Ambassador to the US, Attan Shansonga who has been ordered to pay $4.4 million, for his involvement in the ZAMTROOP Conspiracy and for dishonest assistance.

The government is also expected to recover from Access Financial Services, Chief Executive Officer, Faustin Kabwe $92 million US Dollars.

And Access Financial Services Managing Director, Aaron Chungu is required to pay $40 million for his involvment in the ZAMTROOP conspiracy and for dishonest assistance.

Meanwhile a Lusaka Magistrates Court has set July 7 as date for another mention in Second Republican President, Frederick Chiluba’s case.

The court has also set August 14 and 17 as commencement of trial and August 27-31 as dates for continued trial.

The Magistrate court has since ordered Dr. Chiluba’s Lawyers to inform the court whether the former President will appear in person or through use of video link.

This was when the matter came for mention and was held in chambers, Friday.

Dr. Chiluba is jointly charged with Acess Financial Services Director, Faustine Kabwe and Chief Executive Officer, Aaron Chungu for theft of 488,000 of public funds.