Revenue bodies agree on uniform rates for dividends and royalties

• To fix the rates for withholding tax at five per cent on dividends and 10 per cent on royalties on land, books, professional fees, music and others;
• The rates of the existing agreements that partner states have with other countries will be maintained until they expire;
• To approve the remission of duty on goods manufactured for export
• To grant the request by Kenya for the extension of remission of duty on malt and barley

They also granted remission of import duty on treads for cold retreading to apply at zero per cent instead of 10 per cent.

Meanwhile, an East African Public Service Commission to oversee management and deployment of human resources in the East African Community and its organs and institutions is to be formed.

Monique Mukaruliza, the chairperson of the East African Council of Ministers said EAC ministers would examine a proposal to form the body, which, if successful, would mollify Eala legislators who have criticised how EAC staff members were recruited and deployed.

Some Eala MPs have questioned whether the community workers were bona fide employees of the regional body or accountable to their respective countries.

Dr Eriya Kategaya, the Uganda Minister for EAC Affairs and Uganda’s first Deputy Prime Minister, said professionals employed by the regional organisation should be made to understand that they were in Arusha more to serve the EAC than their home countries.

Mr Kategaya said the Council of Ministers had also been under pressure to get involved in the recruitment of people into the regional organ, a task he suggested should be handled by the proposed EA Public Service Commission.

A report for EAC Audited Accounts for the year ended June, 2008 notes that the regional body does not have a human resources management policy.

The policy would have given proper guidelines on the recruitment process, rewarding, staff rotation, promotion and other procedures intended to motivate workers.