Business at East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) came to a halt Tuesday afternoon after legislators walked out of the House to protest Speaker's move to stop discussion on a motion.

Rwanda MPs led others in walking out of the House to protest the the decision to disallow discussion of a motion on rotating House meetings among partner states.

Rwanda's outspoken legislator Abdulkarim Harelimana led the walkout shortly before 3:30 pm after the Speaker Ms Margaret Nnatongo Zziwa shot down Peter Mathuki (Kenya) from presenting the motion which appeared to have divided the legislators for some time.

The debate on whether Eala should continue to rotate sessions among the five EA capitals has been an issue for sometime, with the East African Community (EAC) preferring Arusha to be the permanent venue as it has a new headquarters with a purposely-built chambers for the Parliament.

When the Kenyan legislator Mathuki rose to table the motion when the House reconvened at 3 pm, the Speaker turned him down, saying it was not an appropriate time to debate the issue.

Even after being pressed further that it was a point of procedure that the matter be debated in the House, Ms Zziwa refused to allow the motion to be tabled.

The pleas by an Eala MP from Uganda Dan Kadega and others could not convince her to give a chance to the Order Paper to be discussed in the august House.

This eventually led to the walk-out of the MPs who were apparently dismayed by the way she was handling the matter. The walk-out was led by Rwanda MPs with Mr Harelimana being the first to march out of the House.

MPs from other countries followed shortly afterwards, forcing the House to be adjourned briefly in order to give chance for the MPs and ex-officio members, including Eala administrators and ministers from the partner states to consult outside.

When the House resumed after 15 minutes, only 15 MPs out of the 45 MPs remained. An official of the EAC secretariat said the majority of those who remained were MPs from Tanzania and Burundi ''and one or two from Kenya''.

The Eala Commission, until recently known as the Eala House Business Committee, has been meeting at the venue to discuss the development which analysts say does not augur well for the the regional body.

The House will resume at 2:20 pm Wednesday afternoon but it is not clear if the motion will be tabled.

An Eala official added that there was a likelihood the issue could generate more debate because it is believed that some partner states are opposed to having the Parliament hold all its sessions in Arusha.

Although the regional assembly which alongside the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) and the EAC Secretariat are headquartered in Arusha, Tanzania, the seat of the Community, the EAC Treaty notes ''the meetings of the Assembly shall be held at such times and places as the Assembly may appoint.

"The Assembly shall meet at least once in every year at Arusha in the United Republic of Tanzania and at a time to be determined by the Assembly," it says.