SPEAKER of the East
African Legislative Assembly (EALA) Martin Ngoga has apologized to the
regional business community for bad policies that hinder economic growth
in the region.
Mr Ngoga was
apologetic over the assembly's failure to rectify the policies which he
said weren't in favour of the regional business environment.
"I'd like to
apologize to the business community for allowing such laws and policies
to thrive and stood in the way of most of your ventures," explained the
EALA Speaker before a host of regional Chief Executive Officers at a CEO
Roundtable Meeting held here yesterday.
Without divulging
on the policies, Mr Ngoga observed that a great deal of the guidelines
has scared away potential investors in the region, with many opting to
shut down their businesses.
In the same vein,
the EALA Speaker challenged the CEOs to play their rightful roles in
ensuring that the community was moving in the right direction.
Referring to the
collapse of the former EAC in 1977, Mr Ngoga challenged the business
community to ensure it doesn't face a similar fate.
"Have you subjected your collective voices for the interest of the community," he queried.
The EALA Speaker
further urged the CEOs to do away with nationalistic sentiments,
challenging them to provide leadership to the regional intergovernmental
organization of six partner states.
Earlier on, the
East African Business Council (EABC) Executive Director, Mr Peter
Mathuki commended the regional business fraternity for exhibiting
resilience as some countries grapple with Covid-19 Pandemic.
The EABC boss
rooted for continuous engagement with partner states as well as
strengthening supply chains and responding to customer needs.
The CEOs met in Arusha to deliberate on the fate of the business environment within the EAC.
World Bank's
initial projections indicate that as a result of the pandemic, economic
growth in East Africa, as well as other sub-Saharan African countries
will decline from 2.4 per cent in 2019 to between - 2.1 and 5.1 per cent
this year, depending on the success of measures taken to mitigate the
effects of the pandemic.
The pandemic is
also projected to cost the EAC Partner States between 37 billion US
dollars and 79 billion US dollars in terms of output losses.
At the regional
level, 51 per cent of EAC's exports are destined to countries highly
impacted by Covid-19, at the same time 53 per cent of its imports
originate from such highly impacted countries.
Substantially
reduced movement of international freight, and reduced capacity or in
many cases closure of borders by EAC Partner States and their trade
partners as a measure to contain the pandemic within a space of less
than a month since March 2020 halted virtually all trade.
The trade
disruptions and losses represent a major shock to the EAC economies
since trade is the driving force behind their economic growth and
development as evidenced by the high total trade-to-GDP ratios averaging
27.4 per cent during 2018-2019, according to 2020 statistics by the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
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