The Coalition of the Willing was billed as a better alternative to the snail’s pace push to integrate the East Africa Community.

But the events of last week indicate that the new alternative — bringing together Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya — could be just another show of all talk and no action.

On Wednesday, the stage was set for what would have been the first visible achievement of the talks by the Coalition of the Willing (CoW) to fast-track integration — rolling out of the One Network Area aimed at lowering roaming charges within three East African countries. It was to be a culmination of months of talks. Rwanda, however, had other ideas.

“Cartels connected to the government of Rwanda, which are benefiting from the business, frustrated all attempts by the Rwandan regulator and telecommunications operators to launch the EAC One Network Area just a day before the launch,” sources close to the Rwandan government’s operations disclosed.

FRANTIC EFFORTS
Rwanda’s Information Ministry ordered MTN Rwanda to halt all processes towards roll-out of the One Network Area. On Tuesday, MTN Rwanda and Safaricom had announced a partnership that would have seen the cost of calls falling by up to 60 per cent.

“These are the early wins of the joint lobbying between operators in both countries and their respective governments over the past one year. We believe that by having affordable regional calling rates, we will be playing a crucial role in boosting regional commerce and social integration within the EAC,” Safaricom chief executive officer Bob Collymore noted.

On Thursday, Mr Collymore issued a statement expressing regret at the suspension of the proposed international and roaming tariffs between Kenya and Rwanda.

“This follows a directive by the Rwanda government yesterday (last Wednesday), announcing the introduction of new levies on international calling and roaming tariffs between the two countries. We will, therefore, revert to the previous tariffs,” Mr Collymore noted.

What followed were frantic efforts by bureaucrats to rescue the process and save face as respective government ministers had already travelled to Rwanda for the ceremony.

“Having finalised all technical, regulatory, and policy issues, we have now instructed operators in the respective countries to conclude ongoing negotiations in readiness for the launch scheduled for 8 October, 2014, when the Heads of State reconvene for the summit in Kampala, Uganda,” said a statement signed by ICT ministers Jean Nsengimana of Rwanda, Fred Matiang’i of Kenya, and John Nasasira of Uganda on 3 October.

On the ground, though, nothing has changed and MTN has not made any attempt to reverse its earlier statement.

“We have not received any further communication from MTN,” Mr Collymore said on Friday, “This new development makes it impossible for operators in Kenya and Rwanda to go ahead with the planned downward revision in tariffs. We will revert to the previous tariffs.”

KENYATTA’S ABSENCE

One Network Area talks are now set to be launched on 8 October during the Heads of State meeting in Kampala, Uganda — a meeting that may be affected by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s absence if he honours summons to appear before the International Criminal Court at The Hague that day.

At the meeting, the CoW, which was formed in June last year to steer implementation of projects in the region, will discuss infrastructure projects. Tension among individual governments has hurt CoW’s mandate to fast-track regional projects.

“The five partner states are committed to the Common Market Protocol, the Customs Union, the Monetary Union, political federation, and fast-tracking of all phases of integration… and therefore the community still holds,” said EAC spokesperson Richard Owuora as he sought to address concerns on the slow progress made.

Take the Lamu Port Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (Lapsset) Corridor project, whose completion date has been indefinitely pushed beyond the earlier estimate of November 2016.

“The initial design was for Kenya alone. We have now slowed down to accommodate South Sudan and Uganda,” Kenya’s Energy and Petroleum Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir said in May.

Various Kenyan government agencies have failed to agree on the list of landowners to be compensated, delaying construction of the first three berths in Lamu. Kenya set aside Sh1 billion for compensation, which is insufficient for the 208 Lamu residents involved.

Mr Patrick Obath, a former chairman of Kenya Private Sector Alliance, said projects in the region are suffering because of disorganisation in the take-off plans.

INCLUSION OF TANZANIA
“EAC projects have had a lot of challenges. Each project has been challenged in court for one reason or another — the Southern By-pass and the standard gauge railway (SGR) are among them,” said Mr Obath.

He added that political influence on projects — such as Kenya’s case on SGR that opened parliamentary discussions on the subject — delayed the projects further. These are some of the setbacks that CoW must work on.

Adding salt to injury is the rift between Tanzania and Burundi and the other EAC partners — Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.

A group of Tanzanians on 3 September asked the court to withdraw their request for an order to stop meetings of the coalition in a case they had filed at the East African Court of Justice.

They had wanted all future CoW meetings to be suspended, as well as all decisions reached during previous meetings held in Entebbe, Mombasa, and Kigali, until the hearing and determination of their main suit.

They argued that CoW meetings had isolated Tanzania and Burundi, which were partner states of the East African Community (EAC).

The Tanzanians’ latest action was prompted by the recent inclusion of Tanzania and Burundi in the fourth and fifth meetings of the coalition held on 24 February and 2 May this year.

Both Tanzania and Kenya are in a race for infrastructure development, with support from China to spur their economies. There are ongoing works in port expansion, setting up of economic processing zones, agriculture, road and railway networks, building satellite cities, and exploration of minerals, oil, and gas.

Both countries have strategic access to the Indian Ocean and are gateways for international trade for landlocked East African Community neighbours.

KEPT AWAY
Kenya controls the Northern Corridor route linking Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Tanzania controls the central development corridor to Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and, additionally, eastern DRC, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi.

EAC Secretary General Richard Sezibera was early this year quoted by The EastAfrican as saying: “Tanzania was consulted before the trilateral arrangement was formed. Its concerns were also addressed in the last Council of Ministers meeting. But it initially kept away from these talks.”

He added that the three countries were not using EAC resources, but were funding their own meetings and projects.

Postponing talks has, however, been a problem because all the partner states have to agree before they can meet. This has been a major calendar issue, especially for Kenya and Uganda.

Key issues on the CoW agenda are infrastructure, freedom of movement, and technology. In February, the World Bank Group said the bloc was performing poorly in implementing the Common Market Protocol.

Old regulations restricting movement of goods, capital, and people are still in the law books, while fresh restrictions have been brought in through legislation or administration, The East African Common Market Scorecard 2014 report notes.

Source: Daily Nation

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