EALA amends Bill on border posts to ease doing business

  Containers at the port of Mombasa. Delays in clearing often lead to congestion at the port. Photo/FILE  NATION MEDIA GRO

By CHRISTABEL LIGAMI Special Correspondent

Posted  Saturday, April 20  2013 at  18:38

In Summary

• The East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) made changes to the One Stop Border Post Bill, which provides a legal framework for uniform operation of border posts in different countries, significantly reducing the time taken to clear goods and passengers.
• The changes in the law introduced measures to be undertaken in case of a dispute between two partner states’ officials at the border.

A key Bill seeking to ease movement of goods and people across East African borders will have to wait until next month, following amendments introduced last Wednesday in Kigali.

The East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) made changes to the One Stop Border Post Bill, which provides a legal framework for uniform operation of border posts in different countries, significantly reducing the time taken to clear goods and passengers.

The changes in the law introduced measures to be undertaken in case of a dispute between two partner states’ officials at the border.

According to the Bill, partner states are supposed to implement one-stop border processing arrangements by setting up control zones at their respective border posts.

“These control zones shall be arranged that for each direction of travel, border controls shall be carried out in the state of arrival,” says the Bill.

The Bill will be tabled this week in the EALA chambers in Kigali for a second reading and adoption of the amendments.

Kenya gets highest number of deals, executives cite Uganda, Tanzania as next frontiers but Rwanda and Burundi miss out. TEA Graphic  Nation Media Group

The third and final reading will be in May before being passed into law. Poor infrastructure and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) have been cited as the biggest threats to doing business in East Africa.

While the five EAC partner states have in principle agreed to remove non-tariff barriers by December this year, this largely depends on good faith on the part of the five countries due to the absence of a legally binding framework.

Kenyan EALA MP Peter Mathuki says that the additional clause indicates that in case of a dispute at the border post, like one country putting a stop on the free movement of persons, goods or introducing new procedures, then partner states will have three months to sort out the issue.

“If the issue is not sorted out within that timeline, then the EAC legal body will have to intervene,” said Mr Mathuki.

The amendments have also stripped the EAC Council of Ministers of the mandate of having authority over all the border posts.

“A legislative body will be formed by the EAC Secretariat to oversee the operationalisation of the border post and the Council of Ministers will only supervise that legislative body,” added Mr Mathuki.

The EAC plans to establish one-stop posts at 15 border crossings in the five partner states.

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