Over the last couple of months, there has been a lot of activities at the regional and bilateral levels under the East African Community (EAC) aimed at accelerating the process of integration and boost trade.

Member-states recently concluded lengthy negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union while at the same time, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya embarked on fast tracking several bilateral projects.

James Karuhanga caught up with the EAC Secretary General, Dr. Richard Sezibera, on the sidelines of East African Legislative Assembly plenary sessions for an update on a broad range of issues regarding regional integration.

EPAs negotiations are over; what next?

I am happy the negotiations that have been going on since 2007 have finally ended. It is the first time that the Community negotiates terms of trade with Europe. In the past, the Europeans made unilateral offers to us under the Cotonou Agreement .

They decided who participates, and under what terms. Such offers can be taken away; It is their decision.

With a negotiated trade arrangement, both sides have obligations.

There is some technical work that is on-going to clean up the text. We shall plan for a ministerial seminar with our partners in Europe and then the agreement will be ratified by both sides; then it will come into force. We are discussing timelines with our colleagues in Europe.

There is a perception that negotiations were handled quietly

This process has been inclusive and the business community was involved. The East African Legislative Assembly has received regular updates and played a very important role, sometimes making opinions felt. However, negotiations are technical and this is an agreement of hundreds and hundreds of pages—including annexes, some of which are extremely technical.

What is going on in the Northern Corridor after the recent Summit of Heads of State in Kampala?

There have been a lot of developments and we are consolidating the gains so far registered.

The single customs territory, as you know, is now operational in the northern corridor for an expanded number of products; not all. The next agenda is to expand the number of products to deal with connectivity issues that are still there. I foresee a lot of good movement on this.

The infrastructure projects, many of them, including rail, are now beginning. Some are in feasibility studies’ stage and for some other sections, feasibility studies are complete and work has begun.

Projects in energy are ongoing. Work in Dar- es-salaam and Mombasa ports is progressing well, including the implementation of a Port Charter in Mombasa. All agencies have signed to ease clearance of goods from Mombasa and we are doing the same in Dar.

There is now a movement to turn East Africa into a one network area. It was discussed in Kampala but it will also be discussed at the upcoming meeting of ministers. I am looking forward to the third infrastructure retreat by Heads of State in November where we will review progress and examine any challenges that still exist and take action.

One known challenge is funding. Where is the money?

Countries are mobilising domestic resources, either through infrastructure levies, or through setting aside monies from their own budgets. Kenya has done that, Rwanda is doing that, Uganda is building some hydro electric dams using domestic resources. So, first of all, there is domestic resource mobilisation.

Secondly, because of good macro-economic management, our countries are able to borrow from capital markets. Rwanda has issued bonds. Kenya did the same and Tanzania will do the same.

Thirdly, there have been good partnerships from development partners–the Chinese, Indians, Europeans, USA, the African Development Bank and the Japanese. We are now mobilising the private sector to also participate. There is a momentum and this gives us hope that we will be able to raise money for these huge capital expenditure projects.

Any other challenges?

Skills to build and maintain the infrastructure is a challenge. For example, I don’t know how many railway engineers there are in Rwanda. Probably none, or certainly not more than 10, if there are any. And that can go for any other sector such as oil and gas.

That’s why partner states are focusing on training. We have a programme of centers of excellence to train the required skills, but governments are also investing in accelerated training and, Rwanda is a good example in its partnership with Carnegie Meellon University. Kenya and Uganda are also sending people for training abroad.

We have the East African Business Council Academic Partnership Session now on going in Kigali, the whole idea being to involve the private sector in training East Africans required for some of the work.

South Sudan has been invited into the northern corridor, but where do things stand as regards its application to join the EAC?

We sent a verification team in July and have considered its report. On the basis of this report, we shall begin negotiations with South Sudan. These negotiations were supposed to have begun in August but South Sudan requested for some more time because of the current internal conflict. We are now expecting to begin negotiations in November. And, then, we’ll see how it goes.

What about Somalia?

With Somalia, we are still a bit far. We haven’t sent in a verification team. Mainly, again, because of the internal challenges there but we are working with their government to see how it can be done.

Ebola virus is troubling the world. Every partner state might have its own arrangements to keep the problem at bay, but is there any practical joint EAC effort to shield the community?

Partner states promptly put in measures to contain Ebola. Fortunately, in our region, we’ve been able to contain outbreaks of Ebola in the past. We had a number of outbreaks in Uganda in the past and they were contained, partly through the involvement of other partner states. So, we have some capacity as a region.

Through the East African Community Civil Aviation Safety and Security Oversight Agency, our regional aviation body, we organised meetings on Ebola along with ministries of health to see how we could harmonise measures. We reached an agreement--We identified gaps and how they can be addressed and who will address them. That work is ongoing.

We also harmonised procedures so that what Rwanda does, by and large, other partner states also do. After that, in Nairobi [in September], we called for an emergency meeting on Ebola involving ministers of health, ministers of internal affairs, ministers in charge of transport, and also invited the WHO. Since Ebola is wider than just East Africa, we also invited our colleagues from Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

An Ebola emergency plan was agreed on and is being implemented. We reviewed the implementation in Arusha, two weeks ago. The region has agreed that part of the response must be our direct support to affected countries. We mobilized health workers that are available to go and help fight that scourge there.

There is ongoing work, at a technical level, on training and assimilation exercises. We concluded one in Mbarara (Uganda) three weeks ago. When the Marburg outbreak occurred in Uganda, we had just concluded our assimilation training exercise.

What gaps have been identified?

I wouldn’t want to go into specifics, but we have to bring up our laboratory capacity to be able to quickly make the diagnosis. We have some capacity but certainly not enough. At our airports we have been working with the International Civil Aviation Organisation for a number of years to make sure that our standards are up to the task, and our governments are addressing gaps.