EAC yet to tackle four key issues

Delegates from the East African Community are negotiating four outstanding issues even after all the five member-states endorsed an agreement opening up their markets to each other within two months.

The two remaining countries - Kenya and Burundi - last week joined Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda in ratifying the East African Community Common Market Protocol, which comes into force on July 1, 2010.

The pact, which Kenya’s Cabinet approved on Thursday, provides for free movement of goods, persons, workers, services and capital while giving regional citizens the right of establishment and residence in the region.

“The successful resolution of these outstanding issues is crucial to the implementation and effectiveness of the Common Market Protocol,” Kenya’s Assistant Minister for EAC Peter Munya said on Monday.

The issues, which the delegates are supposed to iron out in their week-long meeting at a Nairobi hotel include, mutual recognition of academic and professional qualifications and macro-economic convergence criteria.

Others are social security benefits, additional commitment on movement of workers and trade in services.

Mr Munya cautioned delegates that the process of regional integration should not be defined by national interest but by promoting the community as a whole.

Go it alone

“In an increasingly globalised world, you cannot go it alone. We need a united region to develop our competitive advantage,” he said in a speech read to the delegates by the deputy chief economist in the ministry Peter Kasango.

Noting that the new market will have 127 million people and a combined total wealth as measured by GDP of $73 billion, Mr Munya said the common market presents great opportunities to producers and consumers in the region.

However, preliminary findings of an audit on the protocol’s provisions by a (Kenya) government taskforce shows that there is need for administrative and legal reforms.