Revealed, Corruption scandal in an African Union body

PERSISMA, South Africa – A new corruption scandal has erupted in an organ of the African Union (AU), the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), based in Johannesburg and where an internal investigation is underway into the disappearance of more than one million dollars.

The case erupted last July, when employees of the African Mechanism, a structure dependent on the AU, revealed a whole series of overruns. “Bad governance, corruption, nepotism, favoritism”, everything goes.

The document also points to “intimidation and arbitrary dismissals” in the management of the organization, supposed to be a mechanism for evaluating good governance and which is chaired by a South African in the country of Cyril Ramaphosa.

“The APRM should be at the forefront of promoting African Union values such as respect, loyalty, integrity, impartiality, transparency, accountability, efficiency and professionalism. However, its continental secretariat seems to go in the completely opposite direction,” indignant the authors of the document.

The African Peer Review Mechanism is an instrument for voluntary self-assessment of member states’ governance performance.