Make travel easy, EAC urged

Arusha. Infrastructure should be improved in the East African Community (EAC) to ease the movement of labour and goods, the bloc’s stakeholders say. By doing so, the EAC integration will speed up.

Kenya’s East African Affairs secretary for Commerce and Tourism, Ms Phyllis Kandie, remarked here recently that EAC’s ambitions sit on a well-established infrastructure whose improvement is key to fast-track the pillars of integration.

She lauded the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) for undertaking the Kenya tour, saying the assembly was the custodian and guardian of the integration process.

“Eala is a critical stakeholder especially as we move closer to the latter stages of integration. I thank it for its work,” she added, according to a dispatch from the EAC Secretariat.

In her remarks, Eala Speaker Margaret Nantongo Zziwa reiterated that the assembly was committed to sensitising the citizens of the region as part of its mandate.

“This interface with various stakeholders is a significant factor enabling Eala as representatives of the people to fulfill its mandate as per Article 5 and Article 49 of the Treaty. It further enables the Eala to make better informed decisions as it legislates and superintends the implementation of all the pillars of integration,”

 she said. She was emphatic that the region was making irreversible progress in the integration agenda. She cited recent efforts put in place by the partner states to promote free movement of persons as cases in point.

“Already, the partner states of Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda are making some progress with regards to the use of identity cards despite few operational hiccups.

Last week, none other than President Uhuru Kenyatta and President Paul Kagame travelled to Uganda to attend the summit of the Northern Corridor Integration Project using their identity cards and this is a step in the right direction,” Ms Zziwa said.

Mr John Ngumi, the chairman of the Konza Techno City, a proposed state-of-the-art centre outside Nairobi, remarked that there were vast opportunities in the various sectors of the Konza Techno city for interested parties to tap. “We are working hard to deliver on the infrastructure to open up avenues for investment,” he stated.

Konza Techno City is expected to contribute an estimated 10 per cent to Kenya’s GDP annually. “We want to create 200,000 jobs in the Business Process Outsourcing, Information Technology Enabling Service and related sectors in the next two decades,” Mr Ngumi added. “A detailed economic strategy and master plan for phase 1 is to be developed in the next five years.”

Infrastructure is expected to be funded to the tune of $1 billion in the next 15 years. So far, the Konza Techno City has purchased 5,000 acres of land for its first phase. At the same time, feasibility studies have been completed with the opening up of areas marked for roads and provision of adequate energy to phase 1.

Mr Ngumi cited finances, conflicting priorities as some of the challenges. Konza Techno City shall be a sustainable world class technology hub and a major economic driver for the nation with a vibrant mix of businesses, workers, residents and urban amenities.

The director of the Economic Pillar at the Vision 2030 Secretariat, Dr Mohammed Omar, remarked that his organisation, established in 2008, had succeeded in coordinating government services to operate within the economic pillars, social and political pillars.

Vision 2030 operates under flagship projects with five-year implementation projects. The director noted that the special economic zones had been established considering the EAC as a domestic market.

EAC linked projects, Dr Omar noted, included the standard gauge railway connecting major cities in the region, Lapset project, electronic real time systems to reduce clearing of cargo, road networks and clearance of goods at the border posts.

The legal advisor at the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa), Mr Gichinga Ndirangu, remarked that the organisation wanted a review of the national laws and policies to strengthen key sectors of the economy such as the services sector.

This would involve, among other things, sustaining efforts to remove restrictions on trade in services. At the moment, according to Mr Ndirangu, a number of laws are being reviewed to conform to the common market protocol.

He cited some of the key bills as the Companies Act (Amendment) Bill 2010, Special Economic Zones Bill 2012 and Business Regulation Bill 2012.

The presenter challenged Eala to maintain dialogue with the various stakeholders in the private sector. He cited awareness raising and information campaigns, establishment of topical dialogue platforms to augment interests of the private sector and the dissemination of regional targets and benchmarks such as the removal of non-tariff barriers.

Kepsa also maintains that the harmonisation of the EAC domestic taxation should be speeded up to create a level playing field for taxes.

On negotiations about economic partnership agreements, the apex body is pushing for the application of the national treatment rule of the World Trade Organisation, which calls, inter alia, for equal treatment of EAC partner states without differentiation in the domestic market.

A board member of the East African Business Council (EABC), Ms Agatha Juma, remarked that dialogue between the private sector and legislators was a priority.

“We need to interface so that the business community is made aware of pieces of legislation that affect them,” Ms Juma noted.

EABC attends policy making meetings at the EAC and is the apex body that brings the private sector together.

Ms Juma, however, cited the high costs of transport and the slow pace of the harmonisation of products standards as impediments to business. Other challenges include the high costs of air transport in the region and the inefficiency at ports, which need to be unlocked, Ms Juma noted.

The ten-day tour seeks to enable Eala to appreciate the diversity of the people and the development initiatives that Kenya has to offer to the region. At the same time, the legislators shall interact directly with citizens and hear their views, aspirations and fears on the integration process.

Eala members are also expected to get first-hand experience on the workings of a devolved government following the promulgation of the Constitution in Kenya in 2010.

Last week at the Coast region, Eala members undertook an extensive tour of the Kenya Ports Authority, holding discussions with the Port’s senior management led by managing director Gichiri Ndua.