Mon 21 Dec 2009

 

The Business Daily: EAC information centres planned for key borders:Kenya has finalized plans to set up regional integration centres at key border points with neighboring countries from January next year as the East African Community (EAC) prepare to dismantle their custom systems to ease cross-border commerce.In a development that effectively starts the process of domesticating the recently signed common market protocol in the country, EAC ministry officials establishing the centres at Lunga Lunga, Isebania, Namanga, Malaba and Busia have been prioritized after donors moved to open the financing taps.

National Publicity.“These centres, run by integration officers charged with mounting national publicity and advocacy campaigns to popularize the EAC integration, will be the focal points, providing information to citizens and traders on integration matters” said the ministry spokesperson Mr.Gwaro Ogaro. The EAC secretariat has given each member state up to six months to ratify the common market protocol for possible implementation by July next year.

In anticipation of the huge role that awaited the ministry this fiscal year, treasury had already doubled the EAC’s recurrent expenditure in the 2009/10 budget to shs912.3 million compared to the Sh455.2 million it received in the previous budget.

Part of this money will be invested in hiring more staff to run the integration centers, providing technical information to Kenyans to aid ease of movement to neighboring countries.

The 2009/10 budget is also memorable as the first time since the regional integration project started that the government allocated a development budget of Shs120.9 million to the EAC ministry.

According to the budgetary proposal, the Kenyan government was contributing Sh65 million of the ministry’s development vote while the rest was to come from the British Department for International Development (DFID).

On Wednesday, both the British High Commission in Nairobi and the DFID announced plans to unlock the funding by early next year in a move that is expected to speed up the process of implementing the principles of the EAC common market protocol in Kenya.

British High Commissioner to Kenya Mr. Rob Mcaire and DFID’s head Mr. Alistair Fernie said in a joint press release that an MOU guaranteeing access the pledged development funds will be signed between the government and DFID latest by the first week of January 2010.

Mr. Fernie said the delay in the signing of the MoU was necessitated by the rigorous risk assessment process that the British agency subjects all its funding to.

While it is not feasible for the countries to remove all the national institutions currently manning the borders before the attainment of a political federation, common market requires free movement of goods and services – necessitating the presence of EAC ministry officials at border points to monitor removal of non tariff barriers.

The funding of the EAC ministry by the British government mirrors the growing interest that the EU countries in the region’s economics integration process after initially dismissing it as too ambitious and hasty.

Records at the EAC headquarters show that several EU donors who have shown interest in financing the integration project demand that their funds be channeled to specific aspects of the integration only.

“The British government recognizes the important role that the EAC regional integration process would play in the promotion of peace and economics prosperity including tackling employment challenges to the youth in the region as reflected in the British government’s favorable policy decisions towards the Kenyan government,” said Mr. Fernie.

In August this year, German embassy in Tanzania signed a treaty with EAC secretariat in a deal that is set to unlock a grant of Sh1.5billion to the EAC basket fund over the next two years.

The contributions to the EAC basket fund – a facility created a few months ago to finance reforms needed to support to the roll out of a common market in the region – has so far been dominated by the EU countries.

 Harmonising Rules

It was established to finance trade facilitation, infrastructure development and to fund the process of harmonizing rules that will ease market access for member in the region.

“We have been receiving generous support from Germany, Finland, UK, Norway and other European Union countries and even those who have not started participating have only complained of disparities in accounting standards between the region and their systems and not of financial strain,” Mr. Peter Kiguta, the EAC director general in charge of Customs and Trade told the Business Daily in an earlier interview.