KAMPALA – The East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) MPs have appealed to regional Heads of State to urgently assent to the long-awaited One-Stop Border Posts Bill that was passed last year in Kigali to facilitate trade and movement of people within the region.

Susan Nakawuki, a Ugandan member of EALA, told journalists in Kampala that the Bill would remove bureaucracies at border posts when it becomes law. It would also compel countries to establish and designate one-stop control zones at their border posts, she added. 

"We urge leaders to assent to this Bill because it will ensure faster integration of the region by removing bureaucracies that have in the past hindered achievement of Common Markets and Customs protocols, hampering free movement of goods and labour,” she said.

She said Article 10 of the Common Markets Protocol guarantees that partner states provide for free movement of workers from other partner states within their territories.

"Our leaders recently challenged us to ensure issues of common market protocol are addressed through legislation. We passed this Bill and expect them to urgently assent to it to become law,” Nakawuki observed.

The Bill, she said, seeks to extend partner states’ national laws relating to border control officers of adjoining partner states permitting their free movement within the controlled zone(s) in the performance of their duties, without producing passports, but by simple and appropriate identity documents. 

It also makes provision for the application of border control laws and provides for institutional arrangements in the co-ordination and monitoring of the one stop border posts.

However, it does not affect the rights of any adjoining partner states to take temporary measures in the interest of defence, security, public safety and public order.

Common border posts designated in the EAC as OSBPs include the Taveta-Holili border and the Namanga border (Kenya-Tanzania), Busia and Malaba borders (Kenya-Uganda) and the Kanyaru-Akanyaru border (Burundi-Rwanda).  Others are the Mutukula (Tanzania-Uganda), Gasenyi-Nemba (Burundi-Rwanda) and Lungalunga-Horohoro (Kenya–Tanzania).

EALA general purpose committee has been in Uganda since last week discussing the 2013/2014 budget of about $130m that will be passed this month by the plenary in Kampala. 

Agencies