Ngwazi the AU chair tours Addis office hqs

By William Malimero
In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Malawi State President and Chairperson of the African Union Ngwazi Dr Bingu wa Mutharika, has urged the African Union (AU) secretariat staff to be innovative to ensure that aspirations of Africans are realized.

He was speaking at AU Secretariat in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa on familiarization tour to acquaint himself with activities of the Secretariat on Wednesday.

Dr Mutharika said at the just ended AU summit, a bureau comprising Malawi, Uganda Gabon, Liberia and Libya set priorities and isolated agriculture and food security, transport infrastructure, communication and energy to be priorities among priorities for the AU.

“For the priorities to yield results there is need for the secretariat to work hard for the union to yield results within a short period of time,” he said.

President Mutharika observed that any meaningful development starts with food security and hoped that Africa will achieve that within the coming five years.

“I am optimistic that in five years time no child will die of hunger or go to bed without eating in Africa,” he said.

He also said that transport and infrastructure were important for Africa as food produced need to be transported to the market or other areas of need within Africa and beyond.

He noted that most African countries construct roads of no direction as most of them fail to link with their neighbours.

“It is time we make our transport network, be it roads, railway or airline have a purpose. It is sad to note that some countries in African can only be reached though Europe. For how long are we going to go through that,” wondered Dr Mutharika.

He, therefore, advised the Secretariat that as they are entrusted in running the affairs of the AU they should consider linking Africa so that mobility of people and commodities can be eased.

President Dr Mutharika also said that Africa need to improve its communication facilities to ensure that services are improved.

“I note with sadness that when one want to communicate with countries in Europe faces not problem but when it is countries within Africa there are a lot of intermissions,” he observed-Malawi News Agency.