EAC Heads of State to decide fate of trade deal

By John Oyuke

The East Africa Community (EAC) Heads of State Summit which opens in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania today holds the key to the resumption of negotiations on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU), which stalled after EAC experienced financial constraints.

The 9th Extra-Ordinary Summit is expected give directives to enable the two parties resume the negotiations.

The talks have not been able to start even after the EAC secretariat reported that it had secured $3.48 million from Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) to facilitate negotiations by EAC experts.

The EAC Council of Ministers has directed the Secretariat to ensure this issue is brought to the attention of the Summit after East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) blocked the use of the grant to fund talks that were to be completed in November last year. EALA once again declined to approve the request by the Secretariat to utilise the EAC-EPA-SIDA Grant during its Fourth Meeting of the 4th Session held in Kigali, Rwanda last month.

COMPROMISE NEGOTIATIONS

EALA argues that receipt of funding from a party EAC was negotiating with would not only compromise negotiations to the Partner States’ detriment, it would also prejudice and weaken any stronger stance the latter might adopt on the negotiations.

To address the funding challenges associated with the EPA negotiations, the regional legislators recommended to the Council directly allocate funding from their national budgets.

The EAC Council of Ministers, which concluded a meeting in Arusha on Friday, however said EPA negotiation is a policy issue, and EALA has no mandate to block the grant for funding the negotiations. They have directed the Secretariat to ensure that in the event that no success is registered, Ministers of Finance are requested to allocate and earmark funds for EPA negotiations when the Ministers meet in May 2011 during their pre-budget consultations.

"This would enable Partner States resume the EPA negotiations, and stay within the deadline of December 2011," said an EAC Secretariat statement.

The Council also directed that in the event it that the grant is not approved for use by EALA, the Secretariat should engage and renegotiate with SIDA to establish the feasibility of using the grant for other priority activities of the Secretariat.

ITEMS ON THE AGENDA

Among items on the agenda for the 9th Extra-Ordinary Summit are the appointment of a new Secretary General and a new Deputy Secretary General, and a new Judge of the East African Court of Justice.

Others are consideration of the Council of Ministers’ reports on the proposed EAC Single Customs Territory, execution of the EAC Food Security Action Plan (2010-2015) and East African Development Bank.