Nearly five years after it was launched, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), an initiative of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) is running behind schedule. That the APRM is an unprecedented experiment in reform cannot be gainsaid. Many African countries have over the years jealously guarded their sovereignty, but a few are now willing to be scrutinised by their peers and civil society.

The APRM offers the continent a chance to redeem itself politically, economically and socially, but the way the process is being conducted and the behaviour of participating leaders threatens to undermine the credibility of the whole system.

African leaders appointed Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to head Nepad, and by implication, the ARPM. Yet this is a man whose government frequently jails journalists, shoots election protestors and even invaded a neighbouring state. None of his peers has ever protested.

While Kenya had a leading role in APRM, there has been little implementation of good governance. President Mwai Kibaki continues to renege on his election promises, his pledge of zero tolerance of corruption remains a hackneyed phrase since those involved in corruption are allowed to go scot-free, the constitution review has not taken place and ethnic favouritism continues to dominate top appointments.

IN NEIGHBOURING Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni, a former reformist-turned-big man, is presiding over a regime that does not respect the independence of the judiciary. Even as the peer review was taking place in his country, Museveni’s security agents stormed the High Court for the second time and re-arrested suspected rebels who had been freed on bond.

South Africa, one of the architects of APRM, conducted the exercise in a chaotic manner, in complete disregard of the rules other nations were expected to follow.

Although countries are advised to establish a council with a civil society majority and civil society leader, South Africa hand-picked a compliant council and put a minister in charge. That stifled debate and prevented any serious discussion of the many procedural flaws or the hopelessly rushed exercise, which seriously affected the quality of the country’s self-assessment.

For example, it conducted a survey of citizens but refused to extend the process to allow for examination of the citizen survey.

Worse still, the government reedited the self-assessment after it had been publicly validated, removing or downplaying crime, xenophobia, corruption, conflict of interest and major problems of ownership of state assets or ruling party officials awarding themselves tenders, or involving themselves in shady deals to finance the party.

With civil society denied a chance to air its views, the country submitted a weak and shallow programme of action (POA), negating the very essence of peer review. Instead of condemning this behaviour, the Panel of Eminent Persons praised South Africa.

In an interview last year, Dr Bernard Kouassi, the executive director of the APRM Secretariat, noted: “It is true the base APRM document says civil society must be involved at every stage, but the secretariat cannot force anyone to do anything.”

Whereas African heads of state are to blame for reneging on APRM principles, the South Africa-based APRM secretariat is not without fault. For instance, it omitted the question on media freedom from the APRM questionnaire. Consequently, the media, a cornerstone of democracy, has been left out of APRM good governance assessment. Though the requirement was originally included in the self-assessment questionnaire, it later disappeared after the questionnaire was presented to AU member states for approval.

THIS JUST goes to show how dishonest our leaders are, even as they jostle each other to sign up for the peer review. The raid on the Standard Group by hooded men and that on the Nation Group by the First lady are still fresh in the minds of Kenyans. Ironically, both the raids took place after Kenya had acceded to peer review. In Uganda, the government seems ready to shut down radio and television stations on the flimsiest of grounds. And the undignified expulsion of Kenyan journalists from Tanzania is not easy to forget.

It is lack of clear guidelines from the APRM secretariat that has delayed the process in many countries, because they do not have a clear understanding of how to proceed, or what a realistic budget should be. This lack of information contributed to distrust between the government and civil society in many countries.

In Kenya and Ghana, for instance, the process stalled for several months when civil society felt that the government was dominating the exercise.

Unfortunately, governments see APRM as a threat and try to control it. They do not seem to realise that if they embraced it and pledged to act on all the problems and allowed civil society to define the problems, they would get all the credit and steal the thunder from their critics. But if they manipulate it or come across as heavy-handed, they only reinforce the same old social and political tensions and distrust.

For the APRM to be effective, governments must put all resentment aside and accept that it is healthy and appropriate for civil society to want to verify what they say and ensure that the APRM process is not government-dominated.

Governments should also recognise that it is natural, nay unavoidable, that civil society will be concerned about government domination. Modern democratic theory is based on the assumption that unchecked power will inevitably result in abuse of rules and resources, a fact reflected in the APRM questionnaire’s call for effective separation of powers,, transparency and accountability.

But civil society groups are not blameless either. While they regard themselves as watchdogs, they are also to blame for the delays that have characterised the exercise in some countries.

In Kenya, for example, civil society groups forgot that they were representing the interests of the public and literally fought to be given money to run their own NGOs. The ugly scenes that led to the barricading of the Governing Council offices clearly attests to this. When the then leader of the focal point Prof Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o had had enough, the Governing Council was shown the door. They further came across as more interested in advancing their personal interests than the process, convening many unnecessary meetings whose sole purpose appeared to be to earn them sitting allowances.

Still, heads of state and government shoulder the blame for not taking the exercise seriously. Many countries have signed up but have taken no action for a year or more. Acceding countries are also obliged to contribute $100,000 but to date, some have not paid up.

South Africa has two representatives on the panel of eminent persons when other countries are not represented.

The APRM secretariat has also failed to offer clear guidance on the complex process. Whereas its guidelines say that a review should take six to nine months, so far no nation has come close to achieving this.

Ghana took 15 months to complete its country self-assessment and another 18 months before presenting the report to heads of state. Rwanda spent 12 months on self-assessment, and another 16 before presenting its report for the heads of state review, while Kenya took 18 months from the formation of its ministerial task team to completion of self-assessment, with another 11 months lapsing before its heads of state review. No reviews were completed in 2006.

Unless the APRM secretariat and governments of acceding countries get their act together, the peer review exercise will drag for years on end. Reviews should be conducted every three years by countries that sign up but as things stand, it will take another 23 years to get all 26 APRM countries through their first review. The irony is that the APRM Secretariat has the funds to hire all the staff it needs to expedite the process. The delays we have been seeing are undermining the credibility of the process and the promise by African leaders to improve governance.

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