Kagame raps EAC failures
The Citizen, Dar Es Salaam
Kagame raps EAC failures
By Citizen Correspondents, Kampala
12 December 2008
Lack of political will and enforcement of protocols and treaties is dragging the implementation of the regional integration process, the East African Community (EAC) Chairman and Rwandan President, Mr Paul Kagame has said.
Speaking at the opening of the Tripartite summit in Kampala on Wednesday, President Kagame said despite the good policies that African countries have come up with, they are not fully supported.
"We know the effect of non-tariff barriers in hindering the expansion of trade. Removing these obstacles does not necessarily require a great deal of financial resources, but political will," Mr Kagame said.
He said overlapping membership issues and duplication of responsibilities are some of the challenges that have undermined African integration efforts.
"It is inevitable that integration will seemingly produce losers and winners initially, a consequence of a number of factors, including differences in productivity and economic strength of individual economies participating in an integrated market," he said.
"That is why successful integration processes incorporate compensation mechanisms to provide the least prepared member states with time to execute mitigating strategies against initial shocks," President Kagame added.
The summit that attracted six out of the 26 heads of state from the Comesa, East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (Sadc), seeks to create a free preferential trade area for the three trading regional blocs.
President Museveni termed the summit as a historic meeting because it brought together heads of state and governments from East and southern Africa to chart a common goal of attaining an African economic community as stipulated in the Abuja Treaty.
"The greatest enemy of Africa has been disunity and low level of political and economic integration. That is why Africa suffered from the nightmare of slavery for 300 years," President Museveni said.
And he added, "Africa is, actually, culturally and linguistically closely linked. Where, then, is the irreconcilable heterogeneity of the Africans so much emphasised by the colonialists and the African reactionaries?" President Museveni blamed African chiefs for splitting up closely linked people from the point of view of language and culture.
He said the mini-kingdoms and chiefdoms did not see the need for bigger political units, hence causing the disintegration of Africa.
The newly elected South African President Kgalema Motlanthe said regional integration is a central component for development in an increasingly globalised world economy.
President Motlanthe said time had come for Sadc, Comesa, and the EAC to bring together regional integration programmes to enlarge markets and unlock the region’s productive potential.
"As a next step in expanding regional markets in Africa, the process we launch today will place us in a stronger position to respond effectively to testifying global economic competition and overcome the challenges posed by multiple membership of regional organisations" Mr Motlanthe said.
Sadc executive secretary Tomaz Salomao said, "This Tripartite summit is a watershed and shall no doubt change the pace and course of the three sub-regions, and constitute a sound basis for the achievement of the African Economic Community as espoused by the Abuja Treaty and the Lagos Plan of Action."
The summit held on the sidelines of a joint meeting of permanent secretaries and senior officials and the council of ministers drew over 1,000 delegates including six heads of state from Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Uganda.
The other 20 countries sent representatives. The fact that only six out of the 26 heads of state expected attended the summit, signals further challenges lying ahead of the regional integration process that badly needs the political will to be implemented
