To make EAC strong, give the Secretariat teeth

There is a school of thought that says partner states should cede more power to the Secretariat to enable it to make key decisions. How much power does your office enjoy?

One of the frustrations I have come across as Secretary General has been the centring of decision-making authority on the partner states.

This is, of course, through the various structural meetings between our officials, our permanent secretaries and the ministers.

When you go into, say, a controversial election — for example when Kenya went into the December 2007 polls and violence ensued, a long period of inactivity follows. In Kenya’s case, it was more than six months.

Meetings were not taking place in Arusha on key matters. Why? Because decisions are made by consensus. And, therefore, when you don’t have one partner state attending, no decision can be made.

Next year, Burundi will have a general election; Rwanda will hold presidential polls and Tanzania will conduct elections.

From about June next year to November, the operations of the EAC could grind to a halt. The EAC will be like a bureaucracy, merely managing its affairs.

Now, if you don’t give the EAC Secretariat more authority to deal with situations of that nature — where there is a state of flux — you could end up with no decisions being made.

The solution, really, is for partner states to realise that they need to cede more authority, the way the European Union did.

In fact, under the Treaty of Lisbon — and Ireland has now voted yes — more authority will be given to the European Commission in Brussels. That kind of thing should be happening within the EAC.

Is it something you have impressed on the partner states?

We have. Under the Common Market Protocol, there are proposals have been made. This is something that we are now going into.

It should be the institutional arrangement that drives the Common Market?

And, of course, there are proposals that the Secretariat should be reconstituted into a Commission with more decision making powers.

That may mean sharing more authority between the Secretariat, or between the Executive — which means the Council and the [East African] Legislative Assembly.

So there are these proposals; which means that immediately the Protocol is signed, we will look into the institutional arrangement, which may include a review of EAC’s decision-making structure.

There is no timeline to achieve political federation. Why then do we still need to be fast tracking this aspect of the integration process?

First, the timeline was seen by our Heads of State to be part of the problem. People were saying; ‘Oh, 2013 is too close’. The people just looked at 2013, rather than the objectivity of political federation.

That undermined the ethos and purpose of fast tracking. So the Heads of State have said, ‘No, let’s not talk about the timeline. Let’s talk about making the people understand why we are talking about political federation.

And let the whole idea of when come not from the top but from down, from the people themselves. We are more comfortable with this kind of timeline.

On the position of DSG for Political Federation, there is a misunderstanding on what you mean by “the movement towards political federation.” It’s not episodic; it’s a process.

So there is that whole sensitisation, preparing the people; and you know political federation needs certain habits, cultures of governance, human rights, rule of law and constitutionalism.
You need to have all these things — the best practices — in place before you go into political federation.

There is a lot of work to be done as we go through this transition. That is what the DSG Political Federation is supposed to do, including this Conference on Peace and Security, which is really EAC Deputy Secretary General Beatrice Kiraso’s baby.

Popularising the process will present certain challenges. Some people will pose arguments such as, “If you have a problem in Migingo, how can you have a political federation?”

We are talking about peace and security within the EAC. How do we deal with instability that spills over from neighbouring countries?

That’s a good point. This whole concept of security cannot be homogenised; it cannot be just an EAC thing as we have geographical interfaces with the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and Southern Sudan.

We cannot say this peace and security is just for us.

We must work out a concept and institutional framework that looks into peace and security beyond our own immediate region.

If Rwanda and Burundi had not joined the EAC, we would be talking about them, too.

Some of these unstable areas may have to be brought on board so that we stabilise them in the interest of peace and security.

But you never know where geographical instability will end.

It’s like a moving target.

You could keep expanding the EAC to accommodate a larger, more stable area.