There was a time when there was one shilling as the currency
of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda; There was a time when after school you would as
likely work in Dar es Salaam as Nairobi or Entebbe; there was a time when
depositing money on your post office account in Mombasa and withdraw it within
hours in Kasese, using just your pass book.
This was true until about 40 years ago.
Over the last two weeks the East African Legislative
Assembly (EALA) has had a special seating in Kampala.
Every year EALA, which conducts its business in Arusha,
Tanzania, has a special seating in one of the four other countries as a way to
bring the assembly’s business closer to the people.
This is part of a 12 year effort to revive the East African
Community, which interestingly the European Union took some pointers from.
The truth of the matter though is that for the border
communities of these five nations the political boundaries are a line on
someone else’s map, with their everyday reality having transcended the se
colonially imposed borders.
It cannot get any better than the case of former Kenyan Vice
President Moody Awori and his younger brother Aggrey, former Ugandan ICT
minister. By some quirk of fate their father who was a Ugandan missionary
settled in Kenya but many of his children still attended school in eastern
Uganda. They have risen to prominence in
their respective countries and one can bet they hope across the border every so
often without recourse to the official immigration procedures.
A classic case of the citizens being a head of their
leaders.
It is commendable that EAC, sees the wisdom of having EALA
seatings in regional capital every so often, the logic being that if the
everyday man can see it in action they can better embrace the endeavour. After
all the generation that saw a fully functioning community are in the minority.
The quickest way to encourage the organic uptake of this
project is to improve the transport and communication infrastructure in the
region.
Already the telecommunication companies are way ahead on
this one. It has been for some time now that you can use your phone number in
any of the east African nations bar Burundi. They still need to do something
about the charges.
There has been an almost uninterrupted bus transport service
for years, but the consistency of road quality across borders leaves a lot to
be desired. The passenger rail transport across the region is non-existent and
the cargo services continue to lurch along but not fast enough for our liking.
The air travel is probably the worst. To visit Kisumu from Entebbe one would have
to fly first to Nairobi and the track back to Kisumu in western Kenya. The same
for Mwanza on Lake Victoria in Tanzania.
The better the communications the more the region’s citizens
can move around and be in touch. The more his happens the more interdependence
will be created and the more sustainable the project will be.
It is not by accident that political events in Kenya are
monitored keenly in Uganda. Kenya’s importance to us lies in that 1200 km
ribbon of patchy tarmac between Kampala and Mombasa. Similar intensity of
sentiment is not felt for Tanzania.
Sentimentality is all very nice but the regional block will
be cemented by commercial self interest.
We have come a long way from 12 years ago when the current
attempt to revive the community was launched. We travel around the region we
greater ease to work, to visit, to study to do business but we are at the tip
of the iceberg.
Imagine the explosion in movement if the passenger railway
was not only reopened between Mombasa and Kasese, but this was also extended to
Dar es salaam, Kigali and Bujumbura for starters? Of that our water transport
on Lake victoria can make a non stop trip from Lugazi to Kisumu possible? Or
that I wouldn’t have to indulge in complex vectors in flying from Entebbe to
Eldoret or Nairobi to Tororo?
Interestingly because of the cross boundary investments
required to bring these investments to fruition, it is inevitable that a
political federation will be an inevitable necessity.
The truth be told the barrier to an east african union be it
economic, political otherwise are not the citizens of the region -- you are preaching to the converted, it is our
elite in our capitals, after all they are the ones who shut down the original
east african community in 1976!
