Declining EAC budget bothers regional Parliament

Members of the East African Legislative Assembly are ‘disturbed’ that the annual budget of the East African Community (EAC) continues to reduce by the years, despite the fact that the region’s economies have maintained an upward trend. This was noted as the Chairperson of the EAC Council of Ministers, Betty Maina, on Thursday, June 2, presented the Community’s budget for the financial year 2022/2023 to the regional parliament in Arusha, Tanzania. Maina who is also Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for EAC and Regional Development submitted to the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), in Arusha, Tanzania, a budget amounting to $91,579, 215 noting that budget estimates for the next financial year was being presented during tough times considering the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian - Ukrainian conflict. The previous financial year’s budget was $91,784,295. The bloc’s new budget, Maina said, was prepared in line with the sixth EAC development strategy and global sector-specific priority areas as adopted by the regional Ministers in November 2021, and various Summit directives, among others. Priority interventions for the new budget, she said, will include peace a security; private sector development and participation; economic integration; improvement of productivity, value addition, promotion of regional value chains, and local content; health; infrastructure development; and the region’s digitisation agenda. Economic growth in the EAC region averaged 5.9 per cent in 2021, compared to an average of 2.3 per cent in 2020. Commenting on the “declining budget and a zero budget increase principle despite the fact that the community continues to grow in terms of membership, institutions and programs,” MP Amb Fatuma Ndangiza (Rwanda) told The New Times that partner states need to act. MP Amb Fatuma Ndangiza (Rwanda) told The New Times that partner states need to act. She said: “All the partner states should ensure timely disbursement of committed statutory annual contributions. There is also need to establish a sustainable financing mechanism to fund Community programs and projects.” Still unresolved are matters regarding the bloc’s alternative financing mechanism and the perpetual delays in partner states remittances. Last December, the Council announced that the proposal on a hybrid model for financing the bloc’s budget needs some more consultations. No resources to activate big ambitions Regarding what lawmakers called the Minister’s “powerful budget speech”, MP George Stephen Odongo (Uganda) said “we are thinking big and have very good ambitions but we are putting almost no resources to activate our ambitions.” All lawmakers agree that the Ministers statement as regards the fact that regional economies are still recovering from the pandemic is not far fetched. But, as a member of the Assembly’s standing budget committee, Odongo noted that when scrutinised, the latest budget has a problem because, for example, a huge chunck goes into recurrent expenditure. Odongo said: “There are (important) areas where this budget is supposed to be targeting. For example, the productive sectors like agriculture, health, education and others. There is very little, or nothing that has been appropriated to those sectors. So, we are largely maintaining the infrastructure of the Community in terms of the people and institutions but in terms of their ultimate functions, they are nonfunctional because the budget is very neutral.” Blame is being put on partner states’ technocrats in the Finance and Administration (FA) subcommittee of the Council. The regional Assembly has been pushing for reforms in the budgeting processes to no avail. “The Minister gave a very powerful statement of intent but when you look at the budget, because a budget is the tool used to achieve the ambitions of the Community, you can see that we are thinking big and have very good ambitions but we are putting almost no resources to activate our ambitions.” EAC needs a reality check Odongo believes the EAC needs a reality check. He said: “And it starts with conversations around: what is our strategic interest in our integration agenda?” He said the mentality that “we have seen” from the officers that come to Arusha to prepare budgets as the FA committee is that they come already set that there has to be zero percent budget increase and then they say that due to declining economic conditions in partner states they also have got to reduce on the EAC budget. According to MP Dennis Namara (Uganda), Finance and Administration technocrats from EAC countries have a wrong mindset and this will only serve to derail the integration agenda. Namara said: “We have been tough with the Ministers responsible and told them they must sort out the membership of FA. When you are sending people to Arusha, you must send senior people. Dont send junior people who do not even know the budgeting process of EAC. The Secretary General comes up with estimates, institutions come up with estimates, and you find they (FA) have chopped everything. For example if you go for health; you are talking about Covid-19, but the budget for health has been slashed. He added: “The office of the Speaker is for coordination of the Assembly’s and the community but $30,000 is the budget for the whole year. Why? Because some people have come with premeditated minds and some emotions. But also, I would like to inform the public that there is bad blood especially towards the Assembly, by people who come from partner states but they dont understand EALAs role. They come with a mindset that they must cripple the powers of this Parliament and this is very bad situation.” The rising commodity prices, Maina said, especially fuel and food prices, are impacting negatively on the welfare of people in the EAC region, just like many parts of the world.

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Declining EAC budget bothers regional Parliament