Heads of State of the East African Community (EAC) met last month in Nairobi for a summit where, among others, they discuss sustainable financing mechanisms for bloc’s activities.
In a statement after the meeting, the Minister for EAC Affairs, Valentine Rugwabiza, said new financing mechanisms were presented as per a directive by the Summit in November 2013 that tasked the Council of Ministers to present a report on alternative financing mechanisms, including the option of one per cent of imports from outside EAC.
This is one of the ways the bloc is looking to adopt to reduce overreliance on donor aid, where going by the 2014/15 Budget passed by the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala), last year, out of the total budget of $124 million (Sh11.3 billion), member states contributed $41.9 million (Sh3.8B), while $73.2 million (Sh6.8B) came from donors.
Other items on the agenda were the creation of a One-Area Network that will ease telecommunication by residents in the five partner states. Following the meeting, Uganda joined the One Area Network; the initiative is now in full force.
The meeting also considered the appointment of a new deputy secretary-general from Burundi to replace Jean Claude Nsengiyumva, whose tenure of office ends next month.
At the same summit, President Uhuru Kenyatta officially handed over the chairmanship of the EAC to Tanzania’s Jakaya Kikwete. The meet was postponed from November last year as President Kikwete could not attend owing to medical reasons.
Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan committed to construct crude oil and petroleum products pipelines to ease reliance on petroleum tankers with the delays involved, while the construction of the standard gauge railway (SGR), planned to run from Mombasa to Kigali, and also to South Sudan, was also identified as a flagship project in terms of regional integration.
In the central corridor, Tanzania and Burundi intend to construct a 200-kilometre SGR between Uvinza in Tanzania and Musongati in Burundi.
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