Positive regional attitudes are the way to go

The entity commonly referred to as East Africa is probably the most difficult to package as a unit. This is due to the fact that the differences between the five member states seem more profound than the similarities. For example, there is a very clear distinction between Kigali, Kampala, Bujumbura, Dar and Nairobi. Each of these cities has its own identity and the people found in each of these places behave and even sound different for those in another. I have actually developed a hobby of looking and listening to people while at the border immigration points to tell which country they come from. Even Kiswahili that is supposed to clearly define an East African is spoken differently in each country. However there are some good signs on the horizon. I have noticed a new trend where something good happening in one country is soon adopted by another. A few months back, Kenyan telecom companies made headlines with their fierce tariff wars. The wars were triggered by the Communications Commission of Kenya pushing down the interconnection rates in a bid to rein in the ‘club’ mentality that leader Safaricom had created in the market. Safaricom which controls about 80 percent of the telecom market in Kenya was accused by its rivals of charging a high interconnection fee, and consequently frustrating their plans of wooing customers towards new networks like Orange (Telkom), Yu and Zain (soon to re-brand as Bharti Airtel). The moment the interconnection fee was brought down, Zain launched the lowest rates the region had ever seen. Before the dust raised by the price war in Kenya could settle, the fever spread west to Uganda. Uganda Communications Commission also reduced the interconnection fees pushing the market leader, MTN Uganda on the back foot after Warid Telecom announced a huge cut in its rates. The others soon followed suit and announced their new rates. Interestingly, in Rwanda talk has gained ground on the need or desire for RURA to intervene and force the interconnection rate to go down. Here too, the market leader MTN Rwanda is not so happy with the move that will most likely see new players Rwandatel and Tigo encroaching on the huge customer base it mainly built during its 10 year monopoly. At the beginning of September, it was reported in Kenya’s leading newspaper, Daily Nation that road experts from Uganda and Tanzania were in Kenya studying work on the expansion of Thika Road into a superhighway of eight lanes, with plans of replicating it in their respective countries. For the uninitiated, Kenya’s Thika Road is considered to be the busiest road in East Africa and so its expansion plans are aimed at decongesting it and Nairobi city roads in general. Since Kampala and Dar es Salaam are both suffering from chronic traffic congestion, the Thika Road project can serve as a good template. On the academic front, the education ministries of Tanzania, Kenya and Burundi eventually saw the wisdom behind what was previously a Uganda-Rwanda affair. For sometime, Uganda and Rwanda had been holding joint education exhibitions on a rotational basis. However starting this year the other East African members have come on board and the event is now a regional one, aptly referred to as the EAC Education Expo. It is currently taking place here in Kigali at the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology. Numerous schools and education service providers from the whole region are taking part in the event. This emerging attitude towards regional integration is indeed a commendable step. It is an illusion to continue treating the EAC as if it were one small nation with endless similarities. On the contrary it is smarter for us to acknowledge our differences and see what each individual country can adopt from across the border. It will for instance be wonderful if the other members of the region copied the work ethics of the Kenyans. Kenyans are known to be very ambitious and hardworking fellows. Even before all these nice pronouncements were being made about the EAC; several corporate firms in Uganda were hiring Kenyans at the managerial level to introduce efficiency in their workforce. In a similar way, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi could devise ways of copying Rwanda’s zero tolerance to corruption and government efficiency. Kampala City Council can find ways of learning from its Kigali counterpart how to keep Kampala city clean and organised. Aspects of the recently passed Kenyan constitution can also be studied and probably adopted by the other members. Each country should keep looking over its border to see what good it can ‘import’ in order to improve on the welfare of its citizens. Eventually the region will begin to look like one big happy family with a united destiny. ssenyonga@gmail.com