Presidents agree to fast track EA political federation

From left: Presidents Yoweri Museveni, Uhuru Kenyatta and Paul Kagame. Analysts say the Entebbe proceedings indicated the first clear move to break away from the laborious consensus model of the EAC, to one where there is a “leading tendency” by a willing few. Photos/FILE  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By JOINT REPORT The EastAfrican

In Summary

• The three leaders agreed to fast-track plans for a political federation, alongside the more organic evolution of the Common Market into a monetary union, promising to put “accelerated energy into implementing it.”
• Each of the three presidents was given cross-border responsibilities: Kenya takes the lead on the pipeline and electricity generation and distribution; Rwanda on the Customs, single visa and EAC e-identity card; and Uganda the railway and political federation.
• Analysts say the Entebbe proceedings indicated the first clear move to break away from the laborious consensus model of the EAC, to one where there is a “leading tendency” by a willing few.

Apart from agreeing to push ahead with bilateral and tripartite infrastructure projects, Presidents Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame and Uhuru Kenyatta also struck a deal to fast-track plans for a political federation during their meeting in Kampala, which has been described as “a breakthrough.”

“I think it will be a breakthrough because we have been going round and round in circles,” Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa told The EastAfrican.

The three leaders agreed to fast-track plans for a political federation, alongside the more organic evolution of the Common Market into a monetary union, promising to put “accelerated energy into implementing it.”

They are expected to formally sell their position to their counterparts, Presidents Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania and Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, who were not present at the Kampala meeting.

READ: Political unity talks to begin in November

Informal discussions were expected to take place as early as the last weekend of June during the Smart Partnership Dialogue in Dar es Salaam, which Presidents Kenyatta and Museveni were expected to attend.

The need to reaffirm the commitment to a political federation appears to have been prompted earlier this year when Tanzanian journalist Timothy Alvin Kahoho went to the East African Court of Justice and argued that the Heads of State Summit had violated the EAC Treaty in asking the Secretariat to draw up a roadmap to a political federation.

Although the court threw out the application, sources familiar with the matter say some of the actors keen on political federation saw this as an attempt to filibuster the process and sought to test support for the project among some of the principals.

The three presidents reaffirmed that support in a joint communiqué issued after the meeting and Mr Kutesa indicated in his comments to The EastAfrican that the deliberations were partly informed by regional events.

“We are reiterating some of the decisions that had been made, that the EAC Secretariat makes some kind of road map, especially now that the court has ruled on the recent case,” he said.

Officially, the meeting was not an EAC Summit and any decisions agreed upon that impact on the operations of the Community will have to be presented and formally discussed at the next Heads of State Summit in
 November. However, the three countries are free to pursue the more bilateral aspects of their agreements.

Officials in Kampala downplayed the absence of Tanzania and Burundi, pointing out that most of the deliberations were about infrastructure projects along the Northern Corridor.

But frustration with the slow turnaround of regional projects was evident in the words of one regional official.

READ: State of the EAC: Too many delays

“We have been talking of upgrading the railway for 10 years and nothing has been happening,” he told The EastAfrican. “We have to break the cycle of talking and talking.”