East African Community heads of State (from left) Uhuru Kenyatta, Paul
Kagame, Yoweri Museveni, John Magufuli and Burundi's deputy president
Gaston Sindimwo at the EAC Summit in Arusha on February 1, 2019. PHOTO |
FILBERT RWEYEMAMU
When Jakaya Kikwete, then Tanzania’s president, sharply
criticised the “Coalition of the Willing” partners for sidelining other
members of East African Community in their projects, he singled out
Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda for blame.
But seven years later, as the EAC celebrates its 20th birthday, the concerns of the three partner states are yet to be acted on.
These concerns are contained in the Council of Ministers report, signed in November 2019 in Arusha.
The
report outlined a number of decisions that are yet to be complied with
by the EAC partner states. The report is expected to be tabled before
the EAC Heads of State Summit to be held in the next couple of months.
The
concerns include failure to remit budgetary allocations by each EAC
partner state that would fund the EAC Secretariat activities, review
work permit and social security guidelines in order to facilitate the
Common Market Protocol’s Free Movement of People, finalise the tourism
protocol to market EAC as a single tourist destination and stalled
infrastructure projects.
The report, seen by The EastAfrican,
also says that a number of EAC activities are suffering following the
failure by partner states to remit their budgetary contributions.
Immediately after the meeting however, South Sudan paid up, but it still
has a deficit.
According to the report—The EAC Common Market Protocol—which
is supposed to ease the free movement of people, labour and goods is
yet to be fully in place, and the recent trade dispute over milk between
Kenya and Uganda being a case in point, jeopardising the protocol’s
implementation.
One of the major unresolved issue is
that of the work permits. Both Tanzania and Burundi have been granted up
to the end of this year to finalise their guidelines on the same.
“The
EAC Council of Ministers has extended the earlier set framework to the
United Republic of Tanzania to finalise reviewing legal framework on
harmonisation of work permit fees from September 2017 to September 2020.
And being the last extension,’’ reads the report.
The
Council also directed Burundi, “to expedite the review of national laws
to grant preferential treatment in the issuance of the work permits to
the citizens of other EAC partner states by September.”
Ministers
were informed that Tanzania requires more time to consult on the
Tourism and Wildlife, Management protocol and shall report is stand in
the next meeting. This has slowed down the marketing of the EAC as a
single destination. But the Council of Ministers say that progress has
been made.
“We met all the five EAC ministers last
November in Arusha and drew up an action plan to implement some of the
resolutions the High Level East African Business Summit brought to the
fore. The Council of Ministers resolutions will also be presented to the
EAC Heads of State sometime this year,” said Vincent Biruka, chair of
the EAC Council of Ministers and Rwanda’s Minister for Foreign Affairs
and International Co-operation.
The report is signed by
all the five EAC ministers from member states; Rwanda’s Vincent Biruta,
Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation; Kenya’s
Adan Mohamed, Cabinet Secretary EAC and Regional Development’; Burundi’s
Isabella Ndahayo, Minister in the Office of the President responsible
for EAC; South Sudan’s Paul Agec, Minister of Trade, Industry and EAC
Affairs; Tanzania’s Prof Palamagamba Kabudi, Minister Foreign Affairs
and EA Co-operation, and Uganda’s Kirunda Kivejinja minister for East
African Affairs.
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