EAC members in bid to harmonise governance rules

The East African Community states are working on common governance standards and practices aimed at harmonising political management systems in the region to ease cross border movement of goods and services.

The region’s council of ministers has already called for the development of a protocol on good governance, setting the stage for a new round of negotiations as the bloc builds momentum for a political federation by 2015.

“Improving good political governance in the region is cardinal. It underlines the basis of sustainable integration and development,” EAC deputy secretary-general in charge of political federation, Beatrice Kiraso, said in Nairobi on Thursday at the ongoing regional conference on good governance.

Institutions responsible for promoting good governance in the region are using the conference to identify common values to be applied in governance throughout the region.

Once crafted, the protocol on good governance is expected to promote rule of law through impartial legal systems as well as a high degree of transparency and accountability in the public and corporate sectors.

The push for a uniform governance system comes at a time when the private sector is increasingly encountering barriers in the search for business opportunities across national borders.

Diodorus Kamala, Tanzania’s EAC minister and the current council of ministers chairman, blames the slow pace of clinching regional pacts on a slow decision making processes in some member states.

“Soon the chair will be forced to write to member states to direct them to stop their endless consultations and start implementing the common market protocol immediately,” he said.

Participants at the Nairobi conference expressed optimism that a common governance protocol, once crafted, will eliminate delays in implementing regional pacts.

They attributed delays to differences in political governance systems applied by the member states.

“Peculiar domestic circumstances usually translate to different speed and procedure of implementing agreements made at regional levels,” said Prof Hellen Sambili, Kenya’s EAC minister.

Of late, however, the EAC secretariat has come up with a forum for national electoral bodies, a sectoral committee on combating corruption, a forum for national human rights bodies, a chief justices forum, and a committee on the rule of law.

In the last one month, the region has scored high marks in peaceful elections reducing political risk that some investors have cited as reason for cautious investment in the region.

Rwanda and Burundi successfully concluded their presidential elections last month, while Kenya and Zanzibar have also conclude their referendums peacefully.

Free and fair elections

“Going by the same standards of peaceful, free and fair elections, we are banking on successful general elections in Tanzania by October and Uganda by February next year in order to complete our picture of a politically stable region,” said Mutula Kilonzo, Kenya’s Justice minister.

Kenya’s botched 2007 election and the post election violence that followed it are remembered for heightening the region’s political risk among investors who had been attracted by the country’s strategic geographical location.

On Thursday, Mr Kilonzo said he was leading a government delegation to Brazil, India, and Philippine to study the electronic voting system for the purpose of duplicating it in the country in readiness for the 2012 general election.

The minister also promised to circulate the country’s new constitution to EAC member states to guide discussion on common governance values.

“Governance is the single largest segment of the new constitution, taking up to 40 articles and this makes our constitution a good starting point in the search for uniform governance values,” said Mr Kilonzo.