PARTNER STATES REVIEW IMPLEMENTATION OF EAC COMMON MARKET PROTOCOL

 

 The East African Community Partner States concluded Friday a five-day review of the implementation status of the EAC Common Market Protocol as at December 2012. The Protocol came into force in July 2010.

Addressing Partner States’ experts in Kampala, Uganda’s Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of East African Community Affairs Mrs. Edith Mwanje recalled the concerns expressed by both the Summit of the EAC Heads of State and the Council of Ministers on the slow pace of implementation of the Protocol and emphasized the need to reflect on “where we are, where we ought to be and what needs to be done to put implementation back on track”.

The Permanent Secretary underscored the importance of the Common Market to ordinary citizens who want to move, study, work, reside and generally do business within the true spirit of East African integration and its centrality in trade facilitation.

She urged the experts to provide proposals to unlock any impediments towards realizing the cherished goal and aspiration for a prosperous, competitive, secure and politically united East Africa.

The Permanent Secretary urged the experts to critically examine the role and functions of the National Implementation Committees and the reporting structures for the Protocol and examine the indicators and milestones for tracking the status of implementation as well as how best to deal with the commitments under the Protocol whose timelines for implementation may have been overtaken by events.

She stressed the need to examine the recurring problem of Non Tariff Barriers (NTBs) on the free movement of goods, and urged the experts to propose effective measures to ensure that what had been agreed upon at the regional level is not derailed.

The meeting reviewed the overall status of the implementation of the Protocol and noted that generally all the Partner States were still lagging behind in implementing the Protocol, albeit at different levels.

Some of the key challenges and observations made were in regard to the slow pace at which Partner States were harmonising their national laws to conform to the EAC Common Market Protocol. In regard to monitoring and evaluation framework, the Experts noted the lack of standardised reporting period; lack of a common understanding and interpretation of the indicators, including guidelines on data collection and the need to design a specific monitoring and evaluation tools for particular areas of the Common Market Protocol such as Free Movement of Services, Free Movement of Goods, Free Movement of Capital, and SQMT Act (Standardisation, Quality Assurance, Metrology & Testing); among others.

Limited funding at national and regional level is also an impediment to the implementation of the Protocol.

One of the major pending items is the need to resolve contentious issues of linking/delinking the schedules on free movement of workers and services. Some Partner States had not submitted to the Secretariat their comments on this issue hence delaying finalization of the negotiations of trade in services. There is also the need for Partner States to establish Statutory Regulatory Bodies to handle issues related to professional service areas.

The slow pace in the harmonization of social security legislations in the Partner States and the delay to finalise the actuarial study in line with the Council directive is also impacting the implementation of the Common Market Protocol.

The experts considered the Terms of Reference to guide Partner States when constituting the National Implementation Committees on Common Market Protocol and recommended the same to the Sectoral Council of Ministers Responsible for EAC Affairs and Planning for consideration.

The 15^th meeting of the Sectoral Council of Ministers responsible for EAC Affairs and Planning, among others; directed Partner States to establish National Implementation Committees (NIC) by 29 February 2012 composed of high level officials under the chairmanship of the Ministries responsible for EAC Affairs.

The Sectoral Council also directed the Secretariat to convene bi-annual meetings of Partner States experts to review the status of implementation of the Common Market Protocol, share best practices at the regional level, review the framework and the status of implementation, and propose policy interventions for its consideration.