The Ministry of East African Community (MINEAC) will next week hold a sensitization workshop for all media practitioners on the contents of the just signed East African Community Common Market Protocol.

The Protocol was signed by all the five Heads of State in November last year and now awaits ratification by the five partner states before it starts full operation.

According to Robert Ssali, the Permanent Secretary of MINEAC, the workshop to take place next Tuesday at the Bambino Super City Hotel, is part of a larger nation-wide awareness campaign to educate masses on what the protocol means to them.

"We found it imperative to kick off the campaign with the media practitioners and later on with other sectors.”

"The prime reason here being that through the media, information on EAC related issues is certain and fast,” he told The New Times in an interview yesterday.

The EAC Heads of State Summit held in November recommended that all partner states undertake a vast campaign to sensitize all East Africans on the protocol, and other stages of regional integration which include the Customs Union and the Political Federation.

"Apart from the fact that the media plays an instrumental role in dissemination of information; they are also directly affected by the protocol, especially when we talk about free movement of persons and services.

"People don’t know yet as much as they should know about issues of regional integration and that is why we need a lot of information dissemination,” Ssali added.

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