The East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) sits in Rwanda this week for its second meeting this year. The meeting started yesterday in Kigali and comes barely a month after the one held in Kampala, Uganda.

It is worth noting that the Kigali sessions have coincided with the release of the East African Common Market Scorecard 2016. The document, whose findings representatives to the regional body are likely to find troubling, was released in Dar es Salaam last Wednesday.

It paints a worrying picture of the commitment of the governments of Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi in moving the key protocol forward.

It is important to note that the report is a review of the progress made so far in entrenching the Common Market agreement, a year after it came into effect. Findings show that the EAC is still synonymous with trade restrictions.

All countries are said to be dragging their feet in meeting agreements in the free movement of goods, services, people and capital. Even more worrying is the fact that Tanzania and Kenya, the two leading economies, were found to have introduced new barriers to trade, reversing significant progress that helped move the countries forward towards becoming a truly integrated market of more than 120 million people.

These countries still treat people from elsewhere within the bloc as foreigners, while some bar residents from investing in capital markets within their jurisdiction. Regional investors seeking to open shop in either of the markets have found restrictions and hurdles that defeat the purpose of this same protocol. Many old restrictive laws remain in place.

Big opportunity

Yet experts, including from the World Bank who were involved in the study of the scorecard, aver that EAC countries have a big opportunity to industrialise their economies by opening up their markets for goods and services from partner states.

The fear of domination of big players such as the EU through the EPAs will hugely diminish in an integrated economy of consumers expected to be in excess of 200 million by 2025.

EAC members are said to trade less with each other and wish to trade more with countries thousands of kilometres away. This is despite evidence that intra-Africa trade could significantly reduce aid dependency and raise millions of people out of poverty.

This is why as Eala members meet, they should take cognizance of the fact that they are the champions of integration and their success cannot be judged merely by how many meetings each country held or whether they stuck to the election calendar or not.

The regional assembly should ask tough questions whether it wants to pay lip service to promises by respective governments to integrate their people or find the means to hold accountable member countries seen as reluctant to move with the speed that will make EAC a force to be reckoned with.

Eala must find ways and means to enforce its own decisions on governments. It will be unacceptable that huge sums of taxpayers’ money are spent on endless plans and meetings that do not yield the desired results.

The basis for Eala’s existence demands that it rises above narrow political and economic interests to set the bloc firmly on course to being one entity with the interests of the people ahead of those of the political class.

Source: All Africa

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of TradeMark Africa.