Member states of the East African Community must accelerate the bloc’s integration or risk failure, making a failure out of it, the outgoing chairperson of the EAC business council has said. 

Gerald Sendawula, who relinquished his duties as chairperson of the East African Business Council (EABC), said this during a meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, at the weekend. 

He said EAC had failed to create a levelled ground for common trade regimes, warning that the community may end up in failure. 

"Let us not wait to witness the repeat of the 1977, when the original EAC collapsed. We must sort out all impediments and talk the same language. Doing business and embracing full regional trade partnership is still a problem. There are forums to address this, let us use them for the common good,” he said. 

Dr Enos Bukuku, the EAC deputy secretary-general for planning and infrastructure, echoed similar concerns that states were not fully embracing the integration process. 

He urged EABC to engage partner states to promote intra-EAC trade by creating conducive environment. 

Breaching principles

Bukuku noted with concern that partner states were not living to the agreed principles of integration. 

"Who is holding the process? I will be very transparent; I have been here for two years, and it is the partner states. They signed to participate in the integration agenda, but in meetings they say loudly that because they are sovereign they say no to what they signed. How many years do they need to agree on small matters that don’t threaten security of their countries?” he asked. 

He said money was spent on meetings, but that the decisions made were never respected.  

"How many meetings have we convened? This is taxpayers’ money spent on these meetings. There are very few decisions taking the region forward. It is not the secretariat that is holding back integration, but member states,” Bukuku said. 

"They appended their signatures on integration matters. You can’t have it both ways, more sovereignty and more integration, the arithmetic doesn’t add up. Integration means foregoing part of what is under national sovereignty toward a regional cause,”  he added.

Even the creation of a single currency will require partner states to relinguish monetary policy to a regional centre, Bukuku said. 

Meanwhile, Kenya took over the chairmanship of EABC from Uganda under the rotational policy. 

Vimal Shah, the head of Kenya private sector, was unanimously elected to replace Sendawula, who had served out a one-year term.