Business frustrated at slow Africa governance review

JOHANNESBURG – Business leaders are impatient with Africa’s progress in establishing a political review mechanism and may set up their own rating system for the continent’s governments, a top businessman said on Friday.

The Group of Eight industrialised countries have made it known they will boost aid to countries that receive good reviews of governance from the independent peer review panel may cut aid to those that perform badly, African officials have said. Reuel Khoza, chairman of South African utility Eskom and a key business supporter of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), Africa’s home-grown economic rescue plan, said the review process now being discussed lacked teeth.”We would be much happier with the mechanism being a little more robust,” Khoza told a news conference ahead of an African business summit in Mozambique this week.”We would be a lot happier with a mechanism which said (if) you are not behaving, there may be some form of sanction.”The peer review process is a key element of Nepad, the South Africa-backed plan to spur more foreign aid and investment to the world’s poorest continent by improving political and economic governance.The review panel, set up in 2003 and made up of seven eminent Africans, has received applications for review from some 18 African countries and at least three – Mauritius, Ghana and Rwanda – are due to be examined this year.But critics say the process is moving slowly and expressed concern that the voluntary reviews may not take a tough enough line on questionable governments.Khoza, who chairs a committee of business leaders supporting Nepad, said the group’s concern over slow progress on peer review had inspired it to begin discussing setting up its own rating system for governments which could be used in tandem with the peer review findings.The panel is chaired by Senegalese political activist Angelique Savane and includes Cris Stals, former governor of South Africa’s central bank and former Mozambican Education Minister Graca Machel, the wife of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.-Nampa-ReutersReuel Khoza, chairman of South African utility Eskom and a key business supporter of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), Africa’s home-grown economic rescue plan, said the review process now being discussed lacked teeth.”We would be much happier with the mechanism being a little more robust,” Khoza told a news conference ahead of an African business summit in Mozambique this week.”We would be a lot happier with a mechanism which said (if) you are not behaving, there may be some form of sanction.”The peer review process is a key element of Nepad, the South Africa-backed plan to spur more foreign aid and investment to the world’s poorest continent by improving political and economic governance.The review panel, set up in 2003 and made up of seven eminent Africans, has received applications for review from some 18 African countries and at least three – Mauritius, Ghana and Rwanda – are due to be examined this year.But critics say the process is moving slowly and expressed concern that the voluntary reviews may not take a tough enough line on questionable governments.Khoza, who chairs a committee of business leaders supporting Nepad, said the group’s concern over slow progress on peer review had inspired it to begin discussing setting up its own rating system for governments which could be used in tandem with the peer review findings.The panel is chaired by Senegalese political activist Angelique Savane and includes Cris Stals, former governor of South Africa’s central bank and former Mozambican Education Minister Graca Machel, the wife of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.-Nampa-Reuters