adminfinance its budget was long overdue.
Reports from Luanda, Angola, say the Sadc Summit sought to grapple, among other issues, with how to secure Sadc finances.
Of concern was the fact that Sadc is largely funded by donors.
If members believe in what they talk about and believe that they need to have a regional body then they should commit themselves to financing its activities.
It is disconcerting to hear that of the US$83 million budget for 2011, only US$31 million came from member countries with the remaining US$52 million coming from donors.
If the old adage holds true that he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Sadc is not in control of its affairs at all.
Sadc will continue to be compromised as long as it cannot meet its bills. If its programmes are funded by donors, who tend to be Western donors, then Sadc remains open to manipulation.
Western donors bring money into organisations such Sadc and the African Union to support the foreign policies of their countries.
In most cases the foreign policies seek to weaken the African governments so that they can have access to African resources with which to rebuild their struggling economies.
As long as the donors control the Sadc purse they have a big say on the direction the regional body takes.
There is nothing wrong with donors supporting Sadc programmes but the bulk of the funding should come from the members themselves if they are to take full control of the organisation’s programmes.
It is no secret that the agenda of the Western donors often works at cross purposes with the desires of the members of Sadc.
This we see through the internal problems that some of the Sadc members are having because their own national budgets are funded by donors.
Some of the countries are having more than half their budgets funded by donors and can’t do much to determine the course they must follow and to empower their people economically.
At least Sadc has realised this weakness and is looking for a way out of the clutches of these donors.
They need to free their programmes by honouring their financial contributions.
A typical example of the challenges Sadc is having charting its course is the Sadc Tribunal. When we thought the Tribunal was dead and buried, the donors attempted to resurrect it at the Angola summit.
It is reported the judges of the Tribunal fighting to keep it alive are being funded by a foreign donor and some of the countries were beginning to waver from the position they took just recently.
Why would any country be keen to subordinate its own judicial system to a foreign-funded Tribunal, unless it is being arm-twisted through threat of losing funding for its budget at home? Since the
Tribunal is a Western project its existence is being tied to the funding of other Sadc programmes.
The secretariat, which has to worry about funding issues, obviously finds itself in a compromising position as it needs funding for other programmes from the same donors that fund the Tribunal.
This is the same problem the African Union has. Its secretariat sometimes appears more powerful than the executive arm because it has direct contact with the donors. It has often been accused of surreptitiously making decisions, which the executive arm has had to fight to reverse.
So if the Sadc Summit is saying it will convene a summit of ministers to look at funding issues, we hope they are saying they will look inward for that funding. Perhaps they will need to decide what percentage of foreign funding they will allow in order to retain control of the organisation.
But again as long as some of the countries cannot fund their own national budgets, it is unlikely that they will do much to fund Sadc programmes. Perhaps they will need to first free themselves before they can free the regional body.
Recently, liberation movements in the region met in Namibia and resolved to meet on the sidelines of annual Sadc summits. Among the things that irked them most was Western interference in their internal affairs.
Yet in some cases the governments would have given the West a foothold through over-dependence on it for funding.
Unless member countries can seriously empower their people and take charge of their economies they will remain at the mercy of the donor countries.
Member countries are endowed with enough resources to be self-sufficient in the funding of their budgets. In fact they should have enough to meet their obligations not only to Sadc but also to the African Union and other progressive bodies.
Online Reporter