Editor,

Refer to the commentary, "EAC states can overcome land-lockedness”, by Nathan Gashayija (The New Times, August 7).

Economic bottlenecks brought about by the land-lockedness of the mentioned states could also be mitigated through the implementation of the EAC Common Market Protocol (CMP).

Please, let us know which EAC states are implementing the CMP of 2009, especially on the free movement of people, free movement of capital and the right of establishment within the partner states.

Implementation of the protocol will stir up innovation and businesses. Thank you.

Johnson Kamugisha, Rwanda

*********************

The article clearly shows the challenges faced by landlocked countries. I do subscribe to the points articulated; however, I believe if we are to offset all these hurdles, this is a war we have to fight collectively.

Hitherto, if you compare our imports against exports, you definitely find exchange of value for no value (coffee against sweets or sweeteners), cooper against second-hand clothes commonly called chagua.

If ever we are to break away from this state of affairs we need to educate our people to tame our appetite to slowly reduce on "no value” imports while our business community seriously deals with import substitution.

Since none of us was at Berlin Conference that partitioned Africa, this time it is not a question of "...grapes are sour...” rather we are "land-linked” and this has to be harnessed with invention and innovation.

Inertia will enslave us if no timely mindset shift is done. United we stand and divided we fail.

KJ, Rwanda