ARUSHA, TANZANIA - There are fears, concerns and perceptions about the East African federation process although the East African Community (EAC) is the only regional economic community that aspires to establish a political federation as its ultimate goal.
The reasons why there are fears include political, economical, socio-cultural and cross cutting issues, according to a report of the team of experts who carried out the study.
The report on addressing the fears, concerns and challenges of the East African Federation released at the recent Heads of State summit in Bujumbura, Burundi says that partner states are worried that they will lose power and independence of decision making as a result of losing sovereignity.
It says many citizens are unaware what the political federation will look like.
"Concern was raised that there is no clarity on what model of federation East Africa wants to adopt, as a consequence there is fear of the unknown," says the study report carried out by experts from the five partner states of the EAC.
It says many East Africans fear that poor governance practices including corruption, human rights abuse and failure to observe constitutionalism and the role of the law may spillover to partner states with better governance records.
"This could undo progress made at national levels for example achieving peaceful, constitutional transfer of power of fighting corruption,' says the report.
There was also concern that the democratic deficits and lack of accountability that exists in some of the partner states may be replicated at the regional level.
The report says that partner states presently persue different foreign and security policies.
"The question is how the federation will affect the individual foreign relations of each state given that people are fearing to lose security and defence autonomy especially in post-conflict countries of Rwanda and Burundi,".
The team also recognized that there are specific concerns to certain countries like the Federo issue in Uganda and the union of the formerly two independent states comprising of the United Republic of Tanzania.
The report said there are concerns that stronger economies in the region will dominate the weaker ones thus causing imbalances and inequitable distribution of benefits arising out of integration.
It says that people were concerned that with deeper integration, increased labour mobility will disadvantage less qualified and unskilled persons in the labour market.
"The Common Market Protocol lacks provisions to address the skewed labour mobility and makes not mention on how economically vulnerable groups will be assisted in catching with rest of society,".
It said concerns were raised about the differences in the land tenure systems of the partner states and loss of land due to the free movement and right of establishment within the community.
'There is concern that political federation will lead to increased taxation for sustaining an additional tier of government and disproportional sharing of the financial burden,".
The report also raised concern regarding management and exploitation of natural resources such as oil and gas among others in the envisaged political federation specifically with regard to ownership and sharing of costs and benefits.
It says that each partner states is a member of the Great Lakes region and are thus custodian of a globally important eco-resources and systems such as Lake Victoria basin.
"The EAC protocols on environment and natural resources management, protocol on establishing the Lake Victoria Basin Commission have been negotiated but implementation is very weak,".
There is concern for some partner states that federating may lead to the erosion of their national identities and social cohesion which have been developed over time.
"There is a challenge posed by lack of a harmonized form of identification especially in view of free movement of persons and other transactions as this hinders transactions and may cause insecurity.
"In the year 2002, the council of minister's directed that all partner states should introduce national identification cards, the Common Market protocol requires introduction of machine-readable and electronic national identification cards in all the partner states.
In our next issue, we shall bring to our readers the recommendations made by the experts with regard to the fears and challenges.
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