Concerns are growing over the recent cancellation of key meetings ahead of the East African Community Heads of State Summit next month.

The five presidents are expected, before the end of the year, to pass some major resolutions that will define the future and pace of the integration agenda.

At least five Sectoral Council meetings scheduled to take place before November, which should have made key recommendations to the Heads of State, have been postponed or cancelled.

Among issues top on the agenda are the signing of the EAC Monetary Union Protocol, which has been approved by the Council of Ministers, and the approval of the Political Federation Protocol. Another top issue is the handing over of the EAC chairmanship from Uganda to Rwanda, the approval of a final verification report on the admission of South Sudan into the community and the approval of the extension of the jurisdiction of the East Africa Court of Justice.

The “coalition of the willing” that has brought together Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, to the exclusion of Tanzania and Burundi, has been blamed for some of the cancellations of the Sectoral Council meetings.

“The tripartite meetings have led to postponement of most of the other EAC Sectoral Council meetings due to partner states, especially Tanzania and sometimes Burundi, not committing to attend the meetings,” said a Kenyan EAC official.

READ: Tanzania’s anger over isolation by neighbours

On Tuesday, President Kagame said the EAC partner states willing to fast track regional integration could not wait for others who were “dragging their feet.” He said they could catch up at a later stage.

President Kagame was weighing in on recent concerns that Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya had isolated Tanzania and Burundi on different projects concerning the bloc.

“The best thing would be for all five of us to move together at the same pace on everything, that would be the best starting point if we can do that. But also we say that there is a danger if we decide to wait for everyone to get whatever they want to get right, we would actually never move forward,” President Kagame said while allaying fears that the bloc had been divided with three countries teaming up against the other two, saying that countries are just not on the same level of implementation of protocols.

However, last week, Tanzanian Deputy Minister for EAC Co-operation Abdulla Juma Abdulla Saadalla said Tanzania was “aggrieved” by the three countries going ahead with the political federation without his country’s input.

Dr Saadalla warned that this was in contravention of the EAC Treaty. “The three countries should state which treaty or protocol they are using to forge ahead without Tanzania. The EAC Treaty doesn’t give permission to a trilateral group or quartet to forge ahead without the rest,” Dr Saadalla noted.

READ: Rift emerges over EA political federation

Monetary Union

The EAC Sectoral Council on Trade, Industry, Finance and Investment meeting that was scheduled for late September, to discuss mainly the monetary union, was postponed to early October but is yet to be held.

While the EAC Secretariat says the meeting was postponed because of the Westgate Mall terror attack in Nairobi, sources at the EAC say the main reason for the cancellation was Tanzania’s failure to confirm participation.

Another key meeting, of the Sectoral Council on Legal and Judicial Affairs, which was to also discuss the Monetary Union Protocol, scheduled for late last month, was postponed. Attorney-Generals from the member states are said to have differed over the final protocol.

The Attorney-Generals were to meet to agree on the final document for presentation to the Council of Ministers, but two meetings that had been scheduled to take place in Tanzania and Burundi have so far been called off.

“It is unlikely that the Monetary Union Protocol document will be ready for signing by the presidents in a month’s time,” said the Kenyan official.

The Sectoral Council on Political Federation meeting that was scheduled for this month was also postponed to next month.

Interestingly, under the “coalition of the willing” arrangement, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda were holding tripartite meetings on the same agenda.

According to Isabelle Waffubwa, the principal political affairs officer at the EAC Secretariat in Arusha, any resolutions by the three countries have to pass through the EAC Council of Ministers of all the five partner states before a final decision is made by the heads of state.

“Even though the model being used for the tripartite meetings to fast track the political federation is the one drafted by the Secretariat, what is being discussed will have to approved by the five countries. It is a good idea to have a tripartite initiative to fast track the process, but implementing it depends on the five ministers,” said Ms Waffubwa.

The Sectoral Council on Political Federation is scheduled to meet early November to draft a report that the Council of Ministers can approve it for presentation to the EAC Heads of State Summit.

Another key meeting that failed to take off was meant to discuss the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The meeting, which was set for last month, between EAC and European Union ministers in Brussels, was cancelled after Burundi and Tanzania said they were not ready to attend, officials said.

READ: Tanzania, Burundi snub EPAs meeting, negotiations postponed

The failure of this meeting to take place could complicate the conclusion of the negotiations by end of this year as earlier planned, ahead of the October 2014 deadline when the EAC should have signed a deal with Europe.

“Even though the EAC Treaty allows for bilateral and tripartite meetings, Tanzania will not consider signing on to the resolutions passed by three or four member states for the reasons that it was not involved or consulted,” said an official at the Secretariat.

While integration officials are in public insisting there are no divisions, in private, they are expressing concerns over the unity among the EAC countries.

All the five heads of states will be meeting for the first time for an integration summit since the September meeting in Mombasa between President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and his Rwanda and Uganda counterparts Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni.

At the summit, President Museveni is expected to hand over the chairmanship of the community to President Kagame. While the chairmanship is usually rotational, all the five presidents have to unanimously agree on the handing over.

While the presidents had during last year’s summit directed that protocol on the single Customs territory should be complete by November 2013, the deadline seems untenable.

Committees’ meetings

According to Barrack Ndegwa, Kenya’s EAC Integration Secretary, without the Sectoral Council committees’ meetings, the Council of Ministers will have nothing to approve and present to the Heads of States Summit for signing or recommendation.

“While the Treaty allows for bilateral and tripartite meetings, it’s difficult to make a final decision on major issues like political federation and monetary union for the community without one or two partner states’ approval,” said Mr Ndegwa.

However, Lawrence Mujuni, Uganda’s Director of EAC Affairs, said the Sectoral Council committee working on the single Customs territory will instead brief the Heads of State Summit on the progress of the negotiations.

Business executives are worried about the pace of integration in the region. Jane Nalunga, country director of Seatini Uganda, a trade lobby, says the EAC should slow down to wait for countries like Tanzania that are not comfortable with the pace. “EAC is integrating so that the market increases but if Tanzania is left out of this process, businesses will suffer,” she said.

Numerous unresolved trade disputes in the region are an indication that the partner states are still lagging behind in implementing the Common Market Protocol, just two years away from the 2015 deadline.

The protocol, which calls for the free movement of goods, labour, capital and services in the region, came into effect on July 1, 2010, and was to be implemented over a five-year period.

Regulatory barriers aside, businesses continue to incur huge costs from weighbridges, roadblocks, poor infrastructure, unnecessary delays at border posts and lack of harmonised import and export standards, procedures and documentation.

But integration officials said this year has seen a number of trade barriers eliminated. “The EAC has this year certainly worked to reduce a number of non-tariff barriers in place,” said Kassim Omar, the chairman of the Uganda Clearing Industry And Forwarding Association, adding that a number of roadblocks, weighbridges and clearance of goods procedures have been eliminated, effectively reducing the time spent between Mombasa in Kenya and the Busia border from two weeks to three days.

READ: Kenya on right track with sweeping changes at Mombasa port

EAC Secretary General Richard Sezibera told the media in Nairobi that it was not true that Tanzania was paying lip service to the integration agenda.

But Tanzanian Minister for EAC Co-operation Samuel Sitta said recently that his country was concerned by the way Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda was sidelining Tanzania in some key regional projects.

As from next year, citizens of Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda will need a single visa to travel to any of the three countries while their nationals will be able to use national or school IDs as travel documents. The three countries have also embarked on ambitious infrastructure projects including an oil pipeline and railway linking Kigali to Mombasa through Kampala. The Kigali-Isaka-Dar es Salaam railway project has since been abandoned.

Dozens of trade disputes involving companies in the five EAC member states as well as among countries have exposed the nationalistic biases that continue to haunt the integration plan as well as the growing unease among states.

Additional reporting by Adam Ihucha, Dicta Asiimwe, Ignatus Ssuuna and Edmund Kagire