Africa’s Foundation for a Bright Future

With the possible exception of South Africa, there is no single country on the African continent that is self supporting. The political map that was put in place following the triumph of the allies in World War II must be redrawn so that the landscape changes from a large number of unsustainable dependent countries to larger self-sufficient nations. The current map was drawn with the interests of the controlling countries in mind and not those of the inhabitants.

Nobody likes to be dependent on others especially when they know that given the chance they can actually stand on their own two feet. In order to move Africa to a new and bright future a conference should be organized the objective of which will be the consolidation of large parts of Africa into larger countries. It is unlikely that the entire continent can move in that direction at one time so one area has to take the lead. My proposal is that Sub-Saharan Africa east of Nigeria should be the region to take the lead.

Lead Africa Transition Group Countries

The following is a list of the twenty countries that make up the region in alphabetical order.

1. Angola
2. Botswana
3. Burundi
4. Cameroon
5. Congo
6. Gabon
7. Guinea
8. Kenya
9. Lesotho
10. Mozambique
11. Namibia
12. Rwanda
13. South Africa
14. Swaziland
15. Tanzania
16. The Central African Republic
17. The Democratic Republic of Congo
18. Uganda
19. Zambia
20. Zimbabwe

It is important that the leaders of this group of countries understand and accept that their personal prestige should take a back seat to the interests of their people. They were elected or appointed to leadership positions with the responsibility of furthering the interests of the people they serve and it is these interests to which they are bound by oath.

Working Group

A working group made up of public policy professionals drawn from the executive, elective and judicial branches of the representative states should be developed with representation from each country. An executive office should be established the head of which would be appointed by the heads of state of the representative states and ratified by all the current legislatures.

The executive office would have the responsibility of managing the day to day operations of the working group and would chair a cabinet with the following departments.

• Treasury
• International Affairs
• Transportation and Communications
• Juridical
• Legislative
• Industry
• Health
• Agriculture
• Military
• Education

Oversight

Providing oversight of the executive would be a council made up of the heads of state of each of the representative countries sitting on an oversight committee. The heads of state would be required to report back to their respective legislatures.

Transition Planning

The departments under the executive would have the responsibility of formulating policy for each of the areas that fell under their purview. The initial part of the work of each of the departments would involve the creation of a transition plan to move the region from multiple countries with disparate bureaucracies, legislative, and judicial systems to a unified and functional system. This transition plan would involve the top to bottom evaluation of all the current governments departments and agencies in the twenty countries including staff skill sets, processes, service delivery, budgets, and all matters operational. Once they have documented the existing environment they will move on to an operational needs assessment. They will then use the information from the evaluation and the needs assessment to develop the transition plan including timetables and milestones.

Once the transition plan has been completed it would have to be reviewed and approved by the oversight committee. The members of the oversight committee would provide approval after consultation with their respective legislatures and judiciaries. Each member of the executive committee would have the responsibility of presenting the plan to their legislature for debate and approval by simple majority vote. The legislatures would not be given the authority to modify the plan they would provide a straight approval or denial vote.

Major objections or debate points would be noted and any glaring omissions would be addressed by the working group. The modifications to the plan would then receive the final approval from the oversight committee.

Referendum

With the approval of the oversight committee, the final version of the plan would have to be presented to the citizens of each country in the form of a referendum. It would be the responsibility of each head of state to lead the effort to gain the support of the public in their respective countries for a plural vote in favor of the move to a unified region. The referendum would be public and monitored openly by anyone who felt the need to do so.

Implementation of Transition Plan

Once the approval of the public had been given, the plan would go into effect. The current legislatures would be dissolved and elections would take place for the seating of legislators in a single assembly. Heads of state would officially step down and hand over power to the executive office of the working group. Current government departments and agencies would continue to operate until their functions had been rolled into the central offices using the transition plan and government structure that had been approved by the legislatures. Courts would remain in place but the high courts of each former nation would hand their authority over to the central high court and be dissolved with former members being absorbed into judicial work groups that would work with the executive committee to implement uniform judicial code through the new entity.

New Government Structure

The new government would be structured as follows. There would be an appointed chief executive with responsibility over appointed committee members in office functioning as acting head of state in a defined and limited period leading to elections. There would be an independent judiciary with broad representation from all former countries and there would be an elected legislative body.

The executive would be required to complete the functional transition to a functioning central government within the timeframes agreed upon and ratified by the former legislatures. The new legislature would have oversight authority over the executive as well as budgetary approval authority. The judiciary would have the responsibility of administering a working court system.

Once the transition was completed, there would be a separate election for the head of the executive branch. This election would be open to all citizens of the new entity with the exception of the appointed current executive. Upon election, the “acting” designation would expire and the individual would assume the office of head of state upon ratification of the election by the legislature and endorsement by the judiciary. This head of state would preside over the nation and deliver government services through the branches of the executive.