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.
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