Dear EAC leaders, actions do speak louder than words

As I sat to write this, Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame had joined Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni for another meeting on the East African Community’s Northern Corridor Infrastructure Projects. They include the construction of a Standard Gauge Railway network as well as oil pipelines linking Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan and Ethiopia. The LAPSSET project also has an energy component with Ethiopia expected to export surplus energy to Kenya not forgetting the construction of a larger port at Lamu for the export of oil products from Turkana and South Sudan. There are other projects under the Central Corridor spearheaded by Tanzania with plans to provide better linkages between Dar es Salaam port to Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Just like Kenya and the Lamu port, Tanzania is also working on a new port at Bagamoyo that will also be linked to a railway network. There’s no doubt that once completed, the projects will spur growth and development in the East African region. Every now and then the leaders concerned with the above projects meet to track their progress on but the Central Corridor meetings are less frequent. The script seems to be the same at each meeting with statements loaded with so much promise but little action on the ground. This trend has already irked Rwanda’s Paul Kagame who was reported by this newspaper to have pointed out that political will without action is simply not enough. “…we find ourselves saying the right things but repeating them most of the time. That means that we are only doing that to remind ourselves that there are certain things we need to be doing that we probably haven’t been doing or are very slow on,” he said. Kagame was absolutely right because most of the projects remain largely newspaper stories for now. Credit must however go to Kenya that seems steadfast on the Mombasa - Nairobi railway. A few weeks back, Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto were pictured inspecting works in the Tsavo area. Those pictures were quite encouraging to see for they were proof that the railway is right on track. Since Kenya has a rather longer stretch to cover compared to Uganda, the pace is quite good and soon other countries will embark on their side of the project as well. It is also commendable that works on the Kigali – Mbarara stretch are almost complete with only a small section on the Uganda side left. The discovery of oil and its exploration compelled a change in the earlier plans of extending an oil pipeline from Eldoret to Kigali via Kampala. A more robust plan is now needed to cater for the oil in Hoima and probably an integration of the whole network to the LAPSSET project that eyes the oil in South Sudan. But like Kagame said, focus should now shift to action and not the grand pronouncements that we are becoming accustomed to. We should show, not tell, because one’s legacy is cemented with what they did than what they promised to do. Kenya’s former leader, Mwai Kibaki is better remembered for the Thika Superhighway and not the LAPSSET project that he launched before leaving office. Meanwhile away from the misery of the protests that are being violently crashed and the confusion regarding the now postponed elections, there seems to be some good news from Burundi related to football. The news is not about the dribbling skills of President Pierre Nkurunziza, though. Considering what’s been going on with FIFA lately, it sounds like a joke to expect good news and football to sit in the same sentence. However, according to New York Times, Burundi’s Lydia Nsekera is one of the names being floated around to take over the leadership of the world football governing body. In an article about the possible candidates to replace Sepp Blatter who announced his resignation soon after being re-elected, Burundi’s Nsekera was referred to as a trailblazer thanks to the fact that in 2013 she became the first woman to be elected to the FIFA Executive Committee. Nsekera has also been a member of the International Olympic Committee since 2009 and served as president of Burundi’s football federation from 2004 to 2013. Who knows, she could be the saviour that FIFA needs to shed off the bribery scandal image that has plagued the institution lately.

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Dear EAC leaders, actions do speak louder than words