Members of Parliament from the East African Community (EAC) and Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) have vowed to set up strict measures in their respective parliaments to ensure that all ethnic groups benefit equally from political privileges.

This was announced by Anne Semamba Makinda, the deputy Speaker of the Tanzanian Parliament, while presenting recommendations of the two day regional conference on the contribution of parliament to national reconciliation and institutional reform agenda.

"The sensitive issue of ethnicity has been manipulated in a number of situations by political forces to subjugate and eliminate the other,” Makinda said. "We have heard in greater details of the very different paths countries have taken in the aftermath of conflicts to avoid such manipulation in future.”

She hinted on the Rwanda style whereby the government opted to pursue a path emphasizing the unity of the nation while Burundi has put in place a legal framework that overtly takes ethnicity as a basis and provides for ethnic quotas in parliament and other state institutions.

"Irrespective of the path taken, in the final analysis only the end results counts; no ethnic group should be sidelined and all segments of society should benefit equally from the dividends of peace,” Makinda said.

Meanwhile, regional lawmakers also vowed to empower institutions by use of best practices that have been tested successfully in other countries.

"The functioning of parliament itself should not be immune from the reform agenda. In fact, for parliament to be truly effective in contributing to reconciliation efforts, several conditions need to be met,” added Makinda.

She pointed out that parliaments need to have legal and financial autonomy as well as competent and independent staff.

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