Speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) Daniel Kidega has called for more tangible benefits of the regional integration.
“East Africans want to see more tangible benefits from the EAC integration,” he said at the onset of the EALA’s third meeting of the fourth session of the 3rd Assembly yesterday in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
“With regards to the Customs Union, we are glad the Summit is pushing for the operationalisation of the Single Customs Territory to streamline and enhance clearance of goods,” he said calling it one of the tangible results of the integration.
“The improvement of the Dar es Salaam and Mombasa ports will make both the Central and Northern Corridors attractive and facilitate more trade,” Kidega went on to say.
Moving from trade to regional security, the Speaker said the Assembly is very concerned with the situation in Burundi.
“Many lives have been lost, others maimed, peace disrupted, property damaged and the economy destabilised following the rapid escalation of violence and instability over the last few months,” he said.
“The situation is worrying and could be dire and grave,” he warned.“I have recently had the opportunity of meeting with the President of the Senate of Burundi and called upon him to rally the country’s legislators to go above and beyond the call of duty in restoring stability,” he said.
“As an Assembly, we have also debated on and passed the Report of the Goodwill Mission of EALA to the Burundi Refugees in Eastern Province of Rwanda and in Kigoma in the United Republic of Tanzania,” he went on to note.
Addressing the regional lawmakers, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame called on the region to concert its integration efforts and to address challenging issues notably insecurity, bad governance and corruption as it garners to realise the regional economic bloc’s Vision 2050.
He reiterated that all East Africans must eradicate the “business as usual” mindset and strive towards progress of strengthening integration.
“As legislators, we must ask questions and keep searching for solutions for and on behalf of our people,” he urged.
“We must identify and address whatever may divert the progress of the Community and ensure that there are no obstacles to our co-operation for integration and to start with, procedures and processes governing Organs of the Community should not themselves be an obstacle to the growth of the Community,” he cautioned.
Further, he tasked the EAC to involve all people in the integration process for the tangible benefits to be realised; “it is indeed common sense that our people must be consulted and involved in each step of integration programmes as much as possible,” he said.
“The fact of the matter is that, the cost of failing to involve people widely enough, ultimately is much higher than what is required to invest, for people’s participation in the decision-making processes,” he told the House.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
No comments :
Post a Comment