AU secretariat 'not moving fast enough on African integration'
EAC secretary-general Juma Mwapachu (left) speaks on regional integration in Dar es Salaam on Sunday during a meeting on good governance in Africa organised by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. Others (from second left) are Comesa secretary-general Sindiso Ngwenya and executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa Abdoulie Janneh.
By Samuel Kamndaya
The African Union (AU) secretariat is partly to blame for the delay in the realisation of the United States of Africa dream,
according to East African Community secretary-general Juma Mwapachu.
Mr Mwapachu said during a twoday event to promote good governance in Africa, organised by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, that the AU was lagging behind some of the regional blocs in the integration process.
"The problem I see here is that some regional integration blocs are moving faster than the AU," he told a gathering in Dar es Salaam attended by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation chairman, Mr Mo Ibrahim, and several current and former African leaders.
Citing the EAC, Mr Mwapachu said several overlapping regional groupings throughout the continent were trying to knit their economies closer together, but the pace of integration is
much slower at AU level.
"We in the EAC are currently in the Customs Union and next week, our heads of state will be signing a Common Market Protocol, and we are going ahead with other integration
stages," he said.
Trade between Kenya and Tanzania has grown by 119 per cent, while that between Kenya and Uganda has grown by 140 per cent since the EACCustom Union came into force.
“There have also been a lot of cross-border investments and stock market cross-listings… EAC citizens are being encouraged to take part in IPOs (Initial Public Offerings)floated in each of the member countries… the union has surely proved helpful to all, but we're being let down by the continental body," he said.
In his remarks, Dr Mo Ibrahim advised members of the business community to spearhead the integration process, noting that the integration agenda is mostly not in the interest of politicians.
“It is not in the interest of politicians to move into a union… the business community should lead the way, they have to feel bad about the ills that they go through when trading across borders of several disunited countries and that feeling should force them to force their governments to take action," he said.
He said political leaders hate union because some of them will have to sacrifice their positions when the union comes into force.
"Having a United States of Africa means that only one out of 53 presidents will retain the position of president… we will have only one central bank governor, signaling that 52 central
bank governors will lose their jobs… the same goes to the numerous ministers and so there is no way these politicians can be interested in the integration process… they are required to be forced into it by businesspeople… businesses should say, 'give us space or else we will die'," said
Dr Ibrahim. He warned that failure by African states to immediately integrate may have devastating impact on some of the countries in Africa.
"Remember, we are in the era of globalisation… the economy of Germany alone is stronger than the economies of all the 53 African states, now can Africa survive when each country goes competing independently?"
he wondered.
In his view, European politicians were acting in the same way as their African counterparts, but the business community forced them into the now famous, 27-member European Union.
The head of the EU delegation in the country, Mr Tim Clarke, said the dream of a United States of Africa will only become meaningful if a system to integrate the continent’s economies is worked out.
"If the integration agenda contains nothing regarding Africa's economic integration, then the continent is dead," he said emphasising on the need to start with integration o infrastructure.
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), secretary general, Mr Sindiso Ngwenya, told the gathering that EAC, Comesa and Southern African
Development Community (Sadc), foresaw the need to knit their blocs closer together some time back and are currently working on how to integrate the blocs' infrastructure.
He acknowledged the commitments by 26 heads of states of the three regional blocs to unite the three blocs into a single trading bloc.
"When we met in Kampala last year, it were not technical people, but rather, heads of states who proposed to have the three blocs undergo several of the integration processes," he
said.
AU secretariat 'not moving fast enough on African integration'
Hindrances to Africa’s development cited
