The East African Legislative Assembly has rejected yet another report from the East African Community Secretariat, citing poor quality and irrelevance to the bloc.

The annual report, which had been approved by the EAC Council of Ministers for adoption by the regional assembly details annual Community matters of legislation, budgeting and oversight over projects and programmes for the entire financial year under review.

According to EALA Speaker Dan Kidega, the report presented to the House for approval was an outdated report of 2012/2013.

“This report was expected in the House for debate last year August to September, and we had asked the Secretariat to work on it early enough and present it to us on time for scrutiny,” said Mr Kidega.

“Of what importance will it be, for example, to the planning for the 2015/2016 budget?” He asked.

He said that the EAC Secretariat has in the past delayed to hand over the annual report for scrutiny and approval before the planning of the next budget.

“We have raised this before to the Council of Ministers but no action has been taken. This time we expect the Council to take action after it has been rejected,” he said.

The EALA Committee on General Purpose, which had looked at the report before its debate in the House noted that the 2012/2013 annual report contained draft financial statements as opposed to audited accounts as has been the norm.

“With such mistakes in an old report, it is hard to demand an explanation and request the Secretariat to provide the audited report because it is of no relevance to follow old matters,” said AbuBakr Ogle, a Kenyan EALA representative.

Underlying problems

“The Council of Ministers is expected to address the underlying problem at the Secretariat or else we shall continue having similar problems,” said Mr Ogle.

The committee also noted that the report lacked basic information, details and statistics in line with the thematic areas of the budget in the financial year under review.

“Given that the theme of the budget for the financial year was full implementation of the EAC Common Market Protocol, establishment of the East African Monetary Union and laying a strong foundation for an EAC political federation, interventions made and outcomes of those interventions should be reflected to give a more authentic and realistic picture of the Community,” said the EALA Committee on General Purpose in a report.

Although EALA members had earlier threatened to delay the approval of the EAC 2015/2016 budget until the Council of Ministers addressed the issue of the annual report, the proposed $110,660,098 budget for 2015/2016, which is lower than $126,069,625 budget for the current financial year, sailed through.

READ: Ministers to slash EAC budgets over audit report

The reduction in the budget, the Committee was informed, was due to a phase-out of some projects funded by donors.