East Africa: EAC in Last-Ditch Efforts to Rescue Budget

By Zephania Ubwani

Arusha — Last minute efforts were underway yesterday to rescue the cash-strapped East African

Community (EAC) whose $97.6 million 2020/2021 estimate budget has stalled.

For a better part of the day, technocrats and lawmakers at the regional body met to address how to end a standoff and have the estimates tabled.

It emerged later that finally the $29.4 million revenue and expenditure estimates for the first quarter of 2020/2021 would be tabled this afternoon.

The move, analysts say, would save the Arusha-based regional organisation from a much deeper financial limbo with the 2020/2021 budget two months late.

Among the technocrats who attended yesterday's meetings held through video conference, were the EAC secretary general Liberat Mfumukeko and his deputy Steven Mlote.

The latter is a substantive DSG for Planning and Infrastructure but holding the key Finance and Administration docket on acting capacity.

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"It has been a hectic day today. Meetings have been underway to rescue the situation," one official told The Citizen on condition of anonymity.

The virtual meetings scrutinized the emergency budget for the first quarter of 2020/2021 so that it is tabled before the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) today.

The emergency budget known as Vote-on Account could not be tabled at Eala last week for lack of quorum after the lawmakers from Kenya boycotted the sitting.

The Kenyan MPs with the support of fellow lawmakers from five other partner states threatened not to approve the budget unless their outstanding claims were settled.

Eala, through an internal memo, yesterday was not clear as to whether a raft of financial claims by its members had been settled to pay way for the sitting.

"I cannot say in the affirmative if the claims have been paid or will be paid. But a consensus has been reached on the issue," one official hinted.

The MPs have lately agitated for prompt payment of their outstanding dues which included sitting allowances and daily subsistence allowances and one time salaries.

The allowances, in particular, were for the plenary sessions held virtually between April and June this year following the spread of Covid-19 into the region.

The issue of daily subsistence allowances nearly brought Eala and the Secretariat, the key organs of EAC, on collision course with the latter opposed to such allowances during the virtual sittings.

The Secretariat, the executive arm of the Community with vast powers over the accounts, maintains that any payment of daily subsistence allowances should entail travelling.

This, it insisted, was not the case with the Eala sessions held virtually after the Covid-19 outbreak where MPs were hooked from their home towns.

But Eala Speaker Martin Ngoga stressed during an interview on Monday that the MPs were fully entitled to these allowances no matter where the House sitting took place.

Eala members are entitled a daily travel allowance of $400, a sitting allowance of $160 per day and a salary of $6,408 per month.

Mr Ngoga also hinted a possibility of integrating the Vote on Account budget with the main budget of the Community for the entire 2020/2021 estimated to be $97.6 million.