Arusha — All East African Community (EAC) partner states are largely non-compliant of most of the trade commitments under the Common Market Protocol.

This was disclosed in Kampala on Thursday by the EAC deputy secretary general in charge of Finance and Administration Jesca Eriyo when she launched the second EAC Common Market Scorecard.

The Scorecard 2016, which measures the partner states’ compliance to the free movement of capital, services and goods, was developed by the World Bank Group together with Trade Mark East Africa a the request of the EAC secretariat.

The Scorecard was developed over a period of 18 months under the supervision of the EAC secretariat and the partner states; Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda. The areas of capital, services and goods were selected for scoping as they are fundamental to the operations of the Common Market.

But addressing scores of officials during the launching Ms Eriyo said although non-conforming measures (NCMs) have this time around been brought down to 59 from 63 registered during the Scorecade in 2014, the difference was marginal and enough indication that the partner states were largely non-compliant in their services to trade liberalisation commitments.

Ms Eriyo argued that subsequent Scorecards should consider assessing implementation of the trade commitments with the aim to ensure it contributed to strengthening the regional market, private sector growth and deliver benefits to consumers.

She said the implementation in terms of recognition of certificates of origin, an issue repeatedly identified as a significant non-tariff barrier (NTB) in 2014, Burundi continues to earn full points and Kenya continues to score 90 percent.

Tanzania’s recognition of certificates of origin has improved from 50 to 60 per cent, Rwanda and Uganda’s scores have both declined, indicating a worsening performance in terms of recognising certificates of origin of other EAC Partner States.

Most countries improved their score on applying tariff equivalent charges, though such charges persist as barriers to intra-EAC trade, stated the EAC official.

Source: All Africa

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