East African Business Week

The East African Community member states seek to progressively transform the region into a single market that allows free movement of goods, persons, services, labour and capital while guaranteeing rights to residence and establishment. Kenya's East African Community Ministry Permanent Secretary David Nalo spoke to East African Business Week's Esther Mugoh on the opportunities and challenges for the EAC region one year since the protocol came into force. Excerpts below:
 
Q. When the EAC protocol came into force it was anticipated that it would take Kenyans at least two months to enjoy the freedom of movement under the Common Market protocol. Is this now a reality?
 A. The implementation of the free movement of persons is progressive- meaning it is dictated by the pace with which we reform immigration laws. We finalized the proposal to amend 27 pieces of legislation, in July 2010. But soon after that, the new constitution was promulgated introducing new dynamics. In the rest of the partner states not much progress has been made which is impeding the pace of the realization of this.
Q. How is the interpretation of the provisions in the Common Market Protocol a factor in the pace of achieving it?
A. So long as people are not aware of the contents of the protocol, so long as they don't understand the meaning of the rights of establishment and the rights of residence, they will take decisions which most likely are misinformed and when they encounter problems they will translate those problems to be negative to the process. They will not account that their own failure to understand the definitions led to the wrong actions being taken. This is why the ministry invested heavily in an awareness campaign between February and June.
 Q. Do you think there is sufficient political will in the five EAC nations for the full implementation of the protocol?
A. Yes there is very strong political will in this process. When we recently attended the tripartite meeting in Johannesburg, the five heads of State from East Africa at that meeting agreed to speak with one voice. And although Burundi is the chair of our Summit, Burundi asked Kenya to be the spokesperson in that meeting. That would not happen if there is no political support working together. It was strong political will when you recently saw the Head of State chairing a Cabinet meeting to push in the reading of the budget of Kenya consistent with the other partner states. That marked political commitment to drive the implementation of what has been agreed at the EAC level. The support for cross border infrastructure programmes for e.g. the Arusha-Namanga-Athiriver road which is a multibillion shilling project that connects Kenya and Tanzania also signifies this.
 Q. How are non-tariff barriers affecting the implementation of the Common Market protocol?
 A. Non tariff barriers escalate the cost and really slow down the pace of doing business. They are a major impediment in terms of accelerating the Common Market Protocol. To check this the one stop border post legislation is proceeding to the next sitting of East Africa Legislative Assembly. That legislation is critical because it will pave the way to creation of one stop border post.
We as a ministry have also invested in creating Regional Integration Centres and those centres are already assisting us in documenting the non tariff barriers as they occur in the border points. The EAC Secretariat has scaled up the issue of axle load harmonization and engineers from the whole region are in Bujumbura discussing divergent views on the axle load issues. I see a lot of momentum in terms of resolving or creating an environment to resolve issues of non-tariff barriers.
Q. How consistent is Kenya's Constitution with the EAC Treaty?
A. I don't see the conflict between the two as they are both people centered. When it comes to the operational modalities of the application of provisions of the details of the Constitution and the treaty then there do appear to be variances. These variances are informed by the interpretations of individuals of various groups.  For instance the old debate of whether we should have read the budget on the same day as the others marked these differences. There is need for a lot of appreciation and understanding of our dynamic Constitution on how it plays in the international community.
 Q.  The President directed the Immigration ministry to waive work permit fees charged on the citizens of Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania has this directive taken effect?
 A. Yes, Kenya has waived the work permit fee for EAC citizens.
Q. Under the protocol, member states had up to the end of August to ratify laws that give effect to the Common Market. Has this happened?
A. Yes this has happened. But beyond the 27 pieces of legislation we have proceeded under the Rapid Results Initiative of this ministry to subject those pieces of legislation to what is considered an amendments bill that would make those pieces of legislation consistent with the Common Market protocol. We have also undertaken an audit of our Constitution vis a vis the Protocols and Acts of the EAC with a view to search for the way forward.
Q. The EAC Heads of State have issued a directive that the East African Monetary Union should be in place by 2012. Where are we on the journey to the establishment of a single currency? And in view of the challenges we have had so far how feasible is the monetary union by 2012?
 A. If we are imagining having a single currency by then, the answer is no. If we are talking about having a policy framework that would lead us to negotiate on how to have a single currency or how to have a single Central Bank the answer is yes because the discussion is ongoing. The lesson that we have learnt from Europe and the rest of the world is that this is a process that you don't want to rush too much. You want to make sure that the earlier issues of the Common Market protocol, the Customs Union are functioning and that the trust level within institutions and Governments within the region is high enough. This is critical so that by the time you talk of a single currency you don't have problems. The high level taskforce involved in negotiations is shooting for 2012 but at the moment we cannot say what they will give or put on the table. I don't see a single currency in 2012.
 Q. Granted the EAC's promise of improved quality of life for the people of East Africa through increased competitiveness, value-added production, trade and investment is yet to be fully realized when do you think this will finally happen?
 A. It is difficult to determine that, but if you were to go by the measure that Kenya as a country is exporting more manufactured goods into the EAC region I would like to argue that on that basis Kenya is making inroads in terms of value addition and her competitiveness. The fact that the country generated 500,000 jobs, the majority of which came from the small and medium enterprises engaged in this value addition underscores this.