Gaborone - The newly elected chairman of the Southern African Development Community, Botswana President Ian Khama, has announced that he is against leaders who stay in power for too long.
Khama took over from his Zimbabwean counterpart Robert Mugabe at the 35th Summit of SADC heads of state held in Botswana.
Addressing a media conference on Tuesday, Khama said Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza had served two terms.
He said he had listened to Nkurunziza’s argument that his first term did not count because he was appointed by parliament.
”It doesn’t matter how you got there. At the end of the day, once you sit in the office and you assume all the functions and duties of that office, you are serving your term,” he said. “In my opinion, he has served two terms.”
However, Khama said that, since Nkurunziza approached the Constitutional Court, which gave him the green light to contest, there has to be respect for the rule of law in accordance with the constitution.
Also at the media conference, SADC executive secretary Stergomena Lawrence Tax denied media reports that the secretariat was embroiled in corrupt activities that were unearthed by a recent forensic audit.
She said Ernst & Young were commissioned to undertake a forensic audit that ended in 2012, and that recommendations were made.
“About 95 percent of the recommendations were implemented but it is disturbing that the media misinformed the public and were malicious,” she said.
Khama said the SADC region had made progress as the summit had resolved to revive the regional tribunal with a renewed mandate and jurisdiction under a new name – the SADC Administrative Tribunal.
Former heads of state have been appointed to mediate on the border dispute between Malawi and Tanzania. Khama said the new tribunal wouldn’t be handling the case between the two countries because that was no longer the mandate.
“The mandate of the new tribunal is to intervene when cases are brought to it, which concern interpretation or different interpretations by member states regarding the protocol and treaties of SADC. What happened before, it was like open season – anything and everything could be brought to the tribunal,” he said.
He said that had presented a challenge to the member states as they had not amended their laws to recognise the tribunal as the highest court.
He cited the case in which white Zimbabwean farmers approached the court, which ruled in their favour, but there was no law in Zimbabwe that recognised the tribunal.
The chairman denied any knowledge about a delegation of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change members to bring to his attention the political crisis bedevilling their country, and further denied having any special relationship with the MDC.
Khama said SADC would continue to work with other stakeholders, such as civil society.
“SADC does not see itself as an exclusive club where we think we’re the ones who have the answers to all problems facing the region because the organisation is government based. I’m not aware that the MDC consider me to be a soft spot for me because I’m the new chairman; they have not communicated that to me. We have protocols on the conduct of elections and that’s what we’re there to implement.”
Khama said Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa would continue as mediator in the Lesotho political crisis, adding it was a coincidence that he was assigned at the same time when President Jacob Zuma was chairman of SADC’s Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation.
On the youth population of the SADC region, Khama said the member states had signed a protocol on a declaration to do with youth development.
“We recognise the importance of youth in the region and that we need to step up and put more emphasis as a priority for young people in the region,” he said.
The Star