Secretary General of the East African Community, Amb. Dr. Richard Sezibera

Despite some challenges, the East African Community (EAC) recorded key achievements in 2011, among them the appointment of a new secretary-general and the Common Market Protocol, which marks the start of a crucial stage in the region’s integration.

In April, at a ceremony in Dar es Salaam, Dr Richard Sezibera of Rwanda took over from Tanzania’s Juma Mwapachu as EAC Secretary- General.  Paying tribute to Mwapachu, Sezibera said: “The shoes (Mwapachu’s) might be big, but they are travelling on a road that has been paved by the heads of state, which gives me the confidence that we will continue to be in a good direction.”

Previously, Sezibera had served as Rwanda’s Ambassador to the US and was Special Presidential Envoy to the Great Lakes Region, before becoming Rwanda’s Health Minister in 2008.  As to why the Common Market Protocol – which came into force in July 2010 – has not become operational over a year later, Sezibera said a lot of the work has been about domesticating the components of the protocol.

“A lot of work has been about identifying the laws which need to be changed by all partner states,” Sezibera told Rwanda’s New Times. “This is not yet complete, it takes some time.”  Although the protocol, enabling free movement of labour, goods and services across the region, was supposed to eliminate the trade barriers, they still exist and continue to undermine  free movement of goods, especially along the Central Corridor (Dar es Salaam – Kigali) route.

On a positive note, the performance of the intra-EAC trade has continued on an upward trend over the last five years, rising from about US $2 billion in 2004 to about $3.5 billion in 2009. To date, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda incur the greatest cost of Non- Tariff Barriers (NTBs) due to the distance from the main ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.

In December, the 13th Heads of State summit was held in Bujumbura, Burundi, with the notable outcome being the rejection of an application by the Republic of Sudan to join the EAC.  “The summit observed that this application does not meet the criterion on geographical proximity and contiguity and cannot therefore be considered at this point in time,” Sezibera said when he read out the summit’s final communique.

Sezibera said the summit received a report that Africa’s newest state, the Republic of South Sudan,had made an appplication on 11 November to join the EAC. The summit directed the council of ministers to verify the application on the basis of the criteria for admission of foreign countries and submit recommendations to the summit at its 10th extraordinary meeting.   In 2011, the EAC experienced challenges ranging from lack of capacity to lack of commitment to enable progress of the political federation agenda.

At the Bujumbura meeting, Tanzanian officials did not show up to sign a key report that was to be presented to the heads of state on the community’s political federation.   In what may be described as another challenge facing the bloc, the Registrar of the East African Court of Justice (EACJ), Dr John Ruhangisa, called for permanent judges to be resident at the regional court, saying the continued operations on ad hoc basis rendered the court inefficient.

Ruhangisa made the appeal during a sensitization workshop on the role of EACJ in the EAC’s integration process in Kampala, Uganda.   “We strongly feel that time has come for at least the President of the Court and the Principal Judge, to start with, to be permanently resident in Arusha,” Ruhangisa said during the workshop held in November, last year.

By MARK MUGISHA, Tanzania Daily News

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