The African Union (AU) Commission has projected to raise 1.2 billion dollars from member countries in its new resolve to begin to fully fund its activities.

This is the decision reached by Heads of State and Government of the commission during its retreat at the ongoing 27th Ordinary Session of the AU summit in Kigali, Rwanda.

Amb. Claver Gatete, Rwanda’s Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, on Sunday at a media conference said that the decision was to help the AU sustainably fund its activities and operations.

He said many proposals had come up in the past on how to go about the revenue generation but that the heads of state were determined to find a final solution to it.

“The normal way of financing the AUC activities had been a formula that was used on accessed contributions taking into consideration the key principles, equitable payment, capacity to pay and ensuring that no single country is left behind.

“They use a proportional and indexed Gross Domestic Profit (GDP) kind of formula to determine how much each country is supposed to contribute.’’

Gatete said that the main issue had been defaulting in payments and sometimes delay to disperse the amount of money and that it had affected the functioning of the AU.

He said that because of the lapse, a big chunk (76 per cent) of the AU’s financing had been by donors.

Gatete said many suggestions had come up but that what was adopted would ensure that all member states were carried along in the revenue generation.

“What happened yesterday was trying to find a single formula that could work, is predictable answers call of the heads of states and make sure that it is uniform to all the African member countries.

“There is a formula of the 0.2 per cent of the eligible levy on imports; all of us have the imports and we have what we call eligible goods that are coming to our countries.

“The formula is a levy that is equal to 0.2 per cent. It is simple because it has worked in West African states and Central African states within their own economic operations and it can work in every country.’’

Gatete said that when the module was adopted, it was discovered that the budget that was voted for the AU in 2015 and this year was 447 million dollars, but that the present formula was capable of generating more than the projected 1.2 billion dollars.