Editor,

RE: "Why did the EAC Secretariat shut the peace and security department?” (The New Times, September 5).

I initially thought the author raises very important questions and pertinent concerns but then his sentiments expressed in the statement below rendered the whole article grossly biased:

"In fact, the Republic of Burundi owes the Community $13,987,908, which includes outstanding contribution for the fiscal year 2015/16 and 2016/17, but none of this country’s staff contracts has been terminated”.

Should individual EAC staff be paid when their respective countries of origin pay their contribution and be terminated when not?

Zamu

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To Zamu, isn’t the statement correct, though?

Usually, the staffer’s employment contract is with the EAC and not their country, and their country’s delinquency should not be conflated with that staffer’s employment—even if, long-term, nationals of a consistently delinquent member may be barred from seeking employment with the organisation.

But, the same principles apply to those whose contracts of employment the Secretary General has terminated. Their employment is with the EAC, not the donors. It is thus abusive to terminate their employment under the justification of reduced donor support, unless their contracts specifically provide that their continued employment is conditional on continued donor funding.

It is also very congruent that a Secretary General from a consistently delinquent member state should believe it is alright to terminate the employment of staff members from member states who are timely payers of their dues to his organisation, while retaining the employment of his own fellow nationals, while his and their country is a perpetual delinquent.

An executive head of an international/regional organisation whose own government fails to meet its obligations to the organisation needs to learn to walk on eggs, not act as tyrannically as the incumbent EAC Secretary General thinks he is authorised to do.

When your own government fails to honour its obligations, you need to learn to be extremely self-deprecating, not throw your weight around. You particularly need to understand not to take unilateral decisions, such as the closure of critical programmes and departments that were put in place by your governing organ (i.e. representatives of member states).

That the particular programme he has closed is, conveniently, the one overseeing the work his government would like to see closed down — the monitoring of that delinquent government’s out-of-control murder, almost genocidal, of its own citizens as part of the EAC’s peace and security initiative for the unfortunate people of the country which nominated him to his post—makes this action, without the express authorisation of the Council of Ministers, even more improper and illegitimate.

In my view, therefore, Mr Albert Rudatsimburwa’s comment is right on point. All this needs to be pointed out in no uncertain terms, and the appropriate consequences must follow.

Mwene Kalinda