This week, the East African Community (EAC) marked four years since the implementation of the Common Market Protocol, but various bottlenecks continue to stifle its success, regional risk consultancy and financial services firm Liaison Group has said.

The EAC common market promotes free movement of people, goods and services as well as workers.

According to Tom Mulwa, the Liaison Group managing director, said implementation is being slowed down by a number of political, social and economic risks that have curtailed realisation of its full benefits. 

He added that, presently, the most pressing issue is lack of public support, noting that there is still low acceptance of the deal in some member states, which has derailed implementation. 

"There is concern among the citizens across East Africa as people don’t know whether common market will benefit them or not,” said Mulwa.

Mulwa urged East African governments to leverage the quick wins of the partnership to generate public goodwill for faster achievement of the common market goals. 

"It should be implemented from bottom to top, not the other way round, where governments have started with the political aspects, yet there is no buy-in from the citizens who need to appreciate that its implementation will be for their own good,” noted Mulwa.

The Protocol on the establishment of the EAC Common Market came into force on July 1, 2010, following ratification by the five member states; Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Mulwa, a seasoned risk analyst, said some of the quick gains that the EAC governments could capitalise on to gain public support include infrastructure projects such as the standard gauge railway which will link Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda and the Lamu Port and South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor, which are set to significantly improve transport system and reduce costs for travelling or moving goods across the East African region.

He said implementation and investment in the electronic single window system is another initiative governments can leverage to garner public support for the common market. 

Other risks to the EAC common market, according to Kenyan-based Liaison Group, are successive national elections in the region, structural imbalance with population count as some member states do not have national identity cards for citizens and instability in neighbouring non-EAC states such as South Sudan, the DR Congo, Somalia and Chad, which they argue shift the focus away from common market implementation.

Liaison Group has offices in Kampala, Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Juba and Mombasa, and has operations in Johannesburg and London through affiliation with Lloyds Group.