Kenya’s president calls for borderless EAC as he tours the region, but will he succeed?

NAIROBI, Kenya - President William Ruto has traveled to several countries since his inauguration as Kenya’s 5th president. These countries include; the United Kingdom to attend Queen Elizabeth II's funeral and the USA for the United Nations General Assembly.

In Africa, he was recently in Ethiopia for bilateral trade where he joined Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in the national launch of Safaricom Ethiopia. While the most recent visit was a state invitation by Yoweri Museveni of Uganda where he attended the country's 60th independence celebrations.

It was in Uganda where President Ruto while addressing the other heads of state and diplomats attending the country’s 60th celebration urged President Yoweri Museveni to Museveni to take the mantle of EAC leadership to ensure the region becomes a borderless community.

“Your Excellency you have the age and you have the experience, take the responsibility and lead the charge in the realization of a borderless community within the EAC. It is our place as leaders and citizens of the EAC region for us to work together so that we can transform our borders which today stand out as barriers and convert them to bridges so that goods, services, and people can move across East Africa without any impediments, “President Ruto said.

Kenya’s head of state also announced that he had directed Trade Cabinet Secretary to work with his Ugandan counterpart in facilitating Uganda to join Kenya in the cohort of eight African countries that have opted to trade together under the guided trade initiative of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement-[ACFTA].

President Ruto "We cannot share poverty, we cannot share hunger but we can share opportunities and we can share prosperity. We should take advantage of the protocols and platforms of the EAC and ACFTA to do business across the region."

Kwame Owino –Economic Expert argues that for EAC fully integrate it will require more than just lip service.

“We have had this kind of talks for years now but what we need is an implementation plan that will ensure that we achieve the EAC free trade and borderless community as inscribed in the EAC Act. I mean President Ruto is not the first head of state to call for a borderless community, the late Magufuli did the same and even Kenya’s former president really spearheaded this agenda, infant Uhuru Kenyatta during his administration did a lot for the EAC, from ensuring DRC becomes a member state. The bottleneck here is the trade barriers and policies that affect the realization of this dream.”

Kwame further added that “Within EAC we have member states like Tanzania that is still part of the SADC-a trade bloc on its own. This now begs the question, how do we harmonize all these EAC and SADC trade policies into one that accommodates both sides? The other issue is trust, its no doubt that there are some member states that have trust issue with each other, and this has been the main thorny fact that the EAC is facing unless it's addressed then President Ruto’s call for a borderless community might be null and void hence its full integration a mirage .”

President Ruto also rooted for an EAC Joint project venture where member states have an abundance of raw material but lack the processing manpower. Among the two areas of collaboration the president mentioned were clinker, fertilizer, and steel.

“We have the raw materials in our region. Our business people should harness those opportunities and harness leverage on the friendship we have as East Africans and save us the foreign exchange and create jobs for the millions of young people in our region.” President Ruto affirms.

AfCFTA was established in 2018 by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, which has 43 parties and another 11 signatories, making it the largest free-trade area by a number of member states, after the World Trade Organization.

Apart from Kenya’s heads of state, other presidents who joined Museveni in marking 60th years since Uganda attained independence were; President, Salva Kiir Mayardit (South Sudan), Hussein Ali Mwinyi (Zanzibar), Evariste Ndayashimiye (Burundi and EAC chairman) and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (Somalia).

A representative for the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda was also present during the celebration.

GAROWE ONLINE