What EAC needs to become a community of peoples, not a house divided

Fourteen years ago on November 30, 1999, a treaty reviving the East African Community was signed by the three heads of state of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

The Treaty entered into force on July 7, 2000. From that time on, a lot has been said about how EAC integration is deepening in the sense of having a Customs Union, a Common Market and now the expected signing of a monetary union protocol.

There has also been rhetoric among the official circles of fast-tracking a political federation.

A legal and institutional framework has been put in place to deepen integration. It includes the EAC Secretariat, the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), a regional judicial court (EACJ), ministries responsible for EAC affairs in each member state that together constitute a Council of Ministers and of course the Summit of Heads of State.

However, beyond rhetoric, is East African integration deepening? Ideally, a community is not just about economic co-operation. A community is characterised by a people who share much in common beyond official and formal structures.

This includes a common heritage, culture, norms, values, interests, visions and social institutions — in other words social integration.

A community deepens integration through shared policies, laws, plans and ideologies. A community is a people who have attained consensus values and have agreed to share a common destiny.

Is the EAC today coming closer to achieving the above characteristics? Some examples showing the trend, events and practices in the EAC region can suffice to give us a sense of direction that EAC is taking.

If we go by what is in the media today President Kagame has declined to take up the rotational chairmanship of EAC. Not long ago, Presidents Museveni, Kenyatta and Kagame formed the Coalition of the Willing (CoW) leaving out Presidents Kikwete and Nkurunziza.

Before the CoW was formed, Presidents Kikwete and Kagame had openly and publicly disagreed over the suggestion by the former that Kagame talk to Rwandan rebels in Dr Congo.

Before the frosty Kikwete/Kagame exchanges, Uganda and Kenya nearly went to war over a small rocky island in Lake Victoria called Migingo and the boundary matter has never been resolved.

As I write this article there are many Ugandans living in camps along the Tanzanian/Ugandan border after being expelled from Tanzania as illegal immigrants. There are also many in Burundi and Rwanda who were expelled from Tanzania.

Students from EAC partner states who cross over to study in other partner states are treated as foreign students and pay fees as foreign students.

Nationals who cross over to another member state seeking employment are also treated in a discriminatory manner. Some EAC countries demand work permits from fellow East Africans that are very expensive to obtain.

In Tanzania, besides the work permit requirement, one needs to speak English and Kiswahili in order to compete for a job. These and many other discriminatory measures are used to discourage free movement of labour in the region.

When one is a trader moving across the region, one faces a number of non-tariff barriers across the region. If is not roadblocks, it is discrimination at ports in terms of fees and at times delayed clearing of containers in favour of nationals. There are many restrictions officially and unofficially imposed on traders and transporters across the region.

In terms of land policies, in Tanzania, land is owned by government— it is placed in the hands of the president in trust of the people. On the other hand, in Uganda, land belongs to private individuals.

The different partner states of the EAC have comprehensive Vision documents and development plans that are incoherent with each other. The above-mentioned litany of divergences does not reflect a region that is deepening its integration. Integration seems to be 10 miles wide in rhetoric but one inch deep in practice.

What then is the way forward? The 14-year old marriage is still standing but has not developed taproots. It can be shaken by the slightest policy or political disagreement as happened in the past few months when influential ministers from Tanzania were beginning to talk of divorce, a situation that was saved in time by the statesmanlike response from President Kikwete when he addressed parliament insisting Tanzania was not leaving the Community.

The marriage insurance for EAC survival is citizen participation and citizen ownership of the integration process beyond rhetoric and assumptions. Admittedly, the EAC is an intergovernmental organisation.

However, there is an assumption that it is private sector-led. How can an intergovernmental organisation be private sector-led? Another assumption is that the EAC is citizen-centred when the Community nearly broke up recently simply because two of its leaders had a difference of opinion? Realistically speaking, EAC is still largely leadership-centred and not citizen-centred.

The biggest challenge for EAC integration is not the presence of physical borders but mental borders. There is a need to encourage trans-nationalism within the region through both official and unofficial spaces.

The political parties in the region should be encouraged to have networks and interface regularly. They should also have integration matters in their manifestoes. There is a need to evolve consensus political values around democratic norms and standards.

Beyond politics, there is a need to encourage social fellowships across the region such as fellowships of musicians, artists, academicians, social movements, media fraternity, trade unions etc.

Even the spiritual space can promote the spirit of East Africanness as we should encourage trans-national fellowships of different religious groups and denominations and missions across the region.

The media space can also be harnessed to promote trans-national public discourse. At the private-sector level, we need to promote trans-national joint ventures in trade and investment among East Africans.

Co-operatives representing farmers and farmer groups across the region need to meet more regularly to promote social capital and share the common challenges they face and find common solutions.

Mwambutsya Ndebesa is a lecturer at Makerere University and interim chairman of Vision East Africa Forum, Uganda Chapter, a regional think tank.