Who Audits the Auditors: Scandal at the Heart of the African Peer Review Mechanism

Inside figures allege that the APRM is fraught with corruption and mismanagement, and that its integrity and independence have been undermined.

By Ramata Sore

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:It is 5:20am on 30 January, 2014, and most of the residents of Ethiopia’s capital are asleep. On the streets, a few vehicles prowl as night-time revellers – mostly girls in short skirts – make their way home after a long night of merriment. On Bole Avenue, some guards stand in front of the enticing window displays of the well-stocked shops as the artificial palm trees that line the street shimmer in the biting morning cold.

Near a roundabout, our source approaches us. Despite the early hour, she seems alert, her bright eyes piercing in the pre-dawn light.

« I hope that no-one will recognise me, » she says in a soft Southern African accent. She wears a hood over her head and asks us not to look at her. « Walk right and stick to me, » she urges, hoping we will look like clubbers returning home.

After a long silence, she speaks. « I fear for my job by talking to you, » she says before another long pause, « but my job is nothing compared to the fate of the continent through the APRM. »

The APRM she is referring to is the African Peer Review Mechanism, an instrument set up by the African Union in 2003 to encourage good governance through mutual assessments. The mechanism was heralded as an innovative African solution to African issues, and so far 34 countries have joined voluntarily. But over a decade on from its establishment, it seems a number of problems have developed, distracting the APRM from its mission.

These are problems that few in the organisation are willing to talk about. One Cameroonian minister, for example, declined to be interviewed for fear of retaliation against his government, commenting mysteriously “each state has its own skeletons in the closet. » Meanwhile, two other senior figures − one a former member of the APRM’s Panel of Eminent Persons, the other a minister in a West African government − first agreed to speak before having a change of heart.

Another individual who evaded persistent requests for an interview was Assefa Shifa, who was at least until this January, head of the APRM Secretariat. Shifa’s reluctance, however, may be understandable given that, according to many people, he’s at the centre of the APRM’s travails.

Lire la suite en suivant ce lien : http://thinkafricapress.com/politics/scandal-heart-african-peer-review-mechanism