East African Community partner states have been accused of fronting selfish interests to override the bigger picture of regional integration.
Speaking during regional dialogue targeting policymakers at national and EAC level on enhancement of domestic revenue mobilization through tax harmonization and prudent debt management, George Stephen Odongo, an EALA legislator for Uganda said many states front their “narrow” interests to override the bigger picture of integration.
“There is unprincipled competition among partner states that instead of looking at complementarity, we look at competitiveness. This can be seen when it comes to trade,”Odongo said.
He cited the recent impasse between Kenya and Uganda over the blocking of the latter’s agricultural produce including eggs, chicken, maize and milk into their market.
The EALA legislator explained that a number of countries use this similar trick to protect their own citizens other than looking at the bigger picture of the East African Community.
“Where the law is very clear and one party has built capacity to generate more trade volumes and another can just decide to look for something like high level aflatoxin levels. They hide behind aflatoxins because they know under the Common Market Protocol, they are wrong.”
“They look for some technical issue to say they are protecting the health and interest of their people because sovereignty gives them powers to protect the health and interests of partner states, they use that. Therefore, the weaponization of the provision of the East African Treaty is a very wrong practice and causes a lot of challenges.”
Odongo said some countries fear losing tax revenue and this way, they don’t commit to some provisions of the East African Treaty.
“We sponsored an amendment to the Customs Management Act and the process had been going on for many years. From time to time, our traders would petition for being treated badly at ports and problem was with Customs Management Act. It was unfair to landlocked countries like Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. When it was brought to the floor and reached the point of passing, members of Tanzania simply walked out and denied us quorum,” he said.
“When we had engagement with them, they told us there was fear of loss of tax revenue. Such failure by partner states to realise that when you facilitate trade and there are greater volumes in the region, you generate incomes which are even bigger are still a challenge.”
The EALA legislator noted that the differences in legal systems stemming from the political and colonial systems ensure countries look at laws and policies with different lenses which is a challenge to the community.
According to Sheema Municipality MP, Dicksons Kateshumbwa, for many years, the East African countries have failed to achieve tax harmonization because of their selfish interests.
“The problem we have had in the East African Community is that whereas we have big dreams and know their benefits, when we start discussing the minute details, we break apart. It is a give and take that the harmonization dictates there are some issues of sovereignty we have to lose but member states have not accepted this,”Kateshumbwa said.
“For example, we are ta different levels of industrialization but we failed to agree on common definitions of small and medium enterprises. We have failed to agree on a common rate and when it comes to industrialization, national interests have come in the way and that’s why we have things like Buy Uganda Build Uganda (BUBU) as opposed to Buy East Africa Build East Africa.”
According to Kateshumbwa, partner states ought to look at issues with a bigger lense rather than selfish individual interests or else the idea of having the East African Community will be lost along the way.
Speaking during the same dialogue, the Minister for East African Community Affairs, Rebecca Kadaga said such dialogues help countries and citizens think together about ways of ensuring proper resource mobilization and tax harmonization to make the community more vibrant.”
“We look forward to a single currency we expect by 2023 and this debate will inform policy on taxation to support the monetary union.”
She noted there are some loopholes which have hindered successful resource mobilization, an issue she said needs to be rectified.
SEATINI Executive Director, Jane Nalunga said whereas a number of commitments have been done, there are still many gaps.
“Our domestic resource mobilization has been reducing to due to a number of challenges forcing governments to look out for external sources like loans, grants, aid and sometimes imposing regressive taxes on citizens,” she said.
Nalunga however noted that as a region, the East African Community should explore extensively on how to mobilise more resources but equitably and fairly.
