EAC reviews monetary union roadmap

KIGALI - The Minister for East African Affairs, Monique Mukaruliza, has said that the final report by experts on the establishment of the proposed East African Monetary Union is currently under review by the five-nation bloc’s Monetary Affairs Committee. Mukaruliza made the revelation Friday while addressing a joint Parliamentary session on the current state of affairs within the East African Community (EAC) and the progress regarding the Common Market Protocol. “A team of experts was hired from the European Central Bank (ECB) which carried out the study and submitted the report to the Secretariat,” said Mukaruliza. “Marathon talks are underway to scrutinize the report”. The minister’s revelation followed a statement issued by EAC department of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs on Thursday indicating that a joint meeting will consider the final report on the establishment of a Monetary Union. Finance experts in the EAC Friday begun a five-day meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, to consider the proposed roadmap to the establishment of a monetary union.The experts meeting will later be followed by a ministerial session which will be held on March 2, 2010. At an EAC Summit in 2007, leaders of the member states decided to fast track achievement of the monetary union by 2012, but according to Mukaruliza, countries may not necessarily stick to the 2012 deadline. “The deadline will depend on the progress made during the talks; some countries have expressed their reservations over the monetary union while others have high levels of inflation so, all these issues have to be ironed out and the five countries reach a consensus,” she said. According to ECB experts, the study addresses four main issues namely; pre-requisites for Monetary Union, the establishment of the legal and institutional framework necessary for the implementation of the Monetary Union, and preparatory work for the transition to Monetary Union. The study also includes measures to replace the national currencies with the future single currency and the operational regulatory framework for Monetary Union. Ends