African Ministers of Finance and Economy have set end June 2010 as the new deadline for African Union (AU) member states to provide inputs on an ongoing study on alternative sources of financing the body’s budget.

This comes after the ministers held an extraordinary Conference of African Ministers of Economy and Finance (CAMEF) Thursday at the headquarters of the African Union Commission (AU) in Addis Ababa.

Olivier Nduhungirehe, the First Counsellor in the Rwandan embassy in Addis Ababa attended the meeting which largely discussed issues related to the alternative sources of financing the AU as well as the roadmap for the development of microfinance in Africa.

"The CAMEF has given a new deadline of end June 2010 to Member States to provide their inputs, in order to enable the Commission to enrich the Study, with a view to present it to the Extraordinary CAMEF, scheduled to be held in November 2010,” Nduhungirehe told The Sunday Times after the meeting.

The study on Alternative Sources of Financing the African Union, which shall replace the current contributions from Member States, has been ongoing since 2001.

Also adopted, in the meeting were the Annexes to the Statute establishing the African Investment Bank.

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