Integration: Kagame’s way is the best for EAC development

AS EAC PRESIDENTS met in Kampala the last week of January, The EastAfrican reported that Presidents Yoweri Museveni and Mwai Kibaki differed on the future of the region’s integration, while the Daily Monitor reported that President Paul Kagame visited Quality Chemicals, where he said Rwanda will invest in the drug complex.

These two events, ordinary as they may look, point to the fate and future of the East African Community, depending on which option we take.

The Museveni-Kibaki difference in opinion reflects one fundamental flaw that has been overshadowed by all other matters EAC. This flaw is the trade approach to the whole process of integration.

Trade has taken centre stage, to the level where every time any newspaper carries a report or an article about integration, the accompanying captioned image will invariably be “trucks at Busia border,” “Customs post at Gatuna.”

It is this narrow trade perspective of integration that explains President Museveni’s call for compensation mechanisms, for countries that will lose revenue once all the trade protocols are fully implemented. Museveni here represents the fears of the less industrialised member states, who want to continue depending on Customs revenue for their national budgets, while their nascent industries stagnate. Typical narrow national interests while preaching integration.

Narrow national interest number two is President Kibaki’s call for the full implementation of all the already signed protocols, in essence rooting for Kenya’s interests, as the industrial powerhouse of the region, whose goods, capital and manpower dominate the region’s economies and will lead to a skewed integration, if we continue along the current path. Add to this the stalled Economic Partnership Agreements negotiations because of Kenya’s primus inter pares status, which does not allow it to trade with the European Union under the EBA arrangement, and you have a region still wandering in the woods in the name of integration.

Narrow national interest number three is expressed in Tanzania’s reluctance in all matters East African, the latest being their actions at the Bujumbura Summit.

The correct path for the region is Kagame’s. Trade is a function of production.

Kagame saying that Rwanda will invest in Quality Chemicals Uganda, is the simple secret to meaningful integration, which seems to have eluded the planners and thinkers for this region. Deliberate, well thought-out, focused, joint ventures in key sectors of the region is the only path to meaningful integration.

Spread across the entire region, guided by such variables as natural resource endowment, skill transfer, technology transfer, et al, these will form the pillars upon which the integration will be built.

The Kagame approach does not need protocols, conventions, agreements and accords. Libya is thousands of kilometres away from East Africa, with little possibility of ever joining the bloc, but holds a substantial stake in the region’s economies.

If we are truly serious about EAC integration, then the focus should be on the following joint ventures by EAC partner states according to each one’s capacity, with minority foreign capital where need arises, but with investments evenly distributed across the region: East African Energy Corporation; East African Airways, with all flights within the region deemed domestic; East African Railways and Harbours, with all ports declared domestic to all member states; East African Agro-Industries for all subsectors; East African Petroleum Company, for all matters oil, from prospecting to flexi glass; East African Textiles, farm to catwalk, as some company slogan goes and East African Pharmaceuticals.

The list is endless and is actually gathering dust somewhere in Arusha. Unless we take such a practical, simple approach, we may not escape the demons of 1977.

The bilateral manpower and professionals exchange between Rwanda and Kenya for example, is already pushing the two countries ahead of the pack.

Matsiko DB Kahunga
Via e-mail