The East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) on Tuesday passed the East African Community (EAC) Supplementary Appropriation Bill 2015, providing a supplementary expenditure to the tune of $2 million out of the budget for the Financial Year ending June 30.

The biggest chunk of the budget presented by the Chair of the Council, Dr Abdalla Sadaala Abdalla, ($1.9m) will be sourced from development partners, while $99,840 will come from the five-member Community’s General Reserve Fund.

The supplementary budget allocated $919,413 to confidence building activities prior to Burundi’s upcoming May-June presidential elections.

This also comes after the EAC Secretary General, Amb. Richard Sezibera, earlier this month emphasised the importance of organising free and fair elections.

Sezibera, who was officiating at the launch of roundtables aimed at consolidating regional stability through peaceful elections in the Burundi, said: "EAC challenges all the stakeholders to put the interests of Burundians first.”

Meanwhile, the supplementary budget earmarks $295,000 for maintaining both the EAC Regional Food Balance Sheet (RFBS) and the EAC Trade Helpdesk.

Another $150,000 will go into conducting a regional HIV/Aids Symposium under the theme; ‘Getting to Zero in the EAC region’.

Presenting the supplementary budget, Sadaala (Tanzania) said the symposium will focus specifically on HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis (TB) and Sexually Transmitted Infections.

A similar amount is required to support the expenditure for carrying out a baseline survey on population, health and environment (2015-2020).

An assessment study on the needs and preparedness of the partner states to implement the new generation e-Passport and a review of the existing passport issuance legal frameworks also gets a boost following the allocation of $49,840 to the activity.

Dr Sadaala said procurement of necessary e-passport issuance infrastructure, passport booklets and capacity building for the immigration personnel need to be integrated into the 2015/16 budget cycle.

The phase-out programme of national passports as proposed in the roadmap shall be customised by each partner state to address respective needs and peculiarities.

Some $50,000 is earmarked for the formulation of EAC’s Vision 2050.

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