Reports Leo Odra Omolo
More than 20 new professional staff will be hired by the East African Community at its Arusha-based secretariat after the East African Legislative Assembly {EALA} relaxed its decision not to recruit any more workers issued a year ago.
The freeze on recruitment followed a request by Rwanda and Burundi to be integrated fully by filling employment positions as the other partner states.
The matter has been pending for review by the Council of Ministers, according to a Kenyan Assistant Minister to the EAC Peter Munya, there have been divergent views among the partner states on the way the EAC staff should be appointed.
“Some member states feel it should be on the merit system while other feels we should use the quota system so that each member state is equally represented,” said Munya says both the quota and merit system should be applied for Rwanda and Burundi.
At the same time plans by the EAC partner states to harmonize their environment laws have suffered a setback after Ministers disagreed over a new bill.
The EAC Council of Ministers last week asked the EALA to adjourn debate on the EAC Trans-boundary Ecosystems Management Bill, 2010 to November this year.
On the staff recruitment, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania dominate staff members at EAC since they are the original members of the community.
However, EAC Deputy Secretary General {Finance} Dr Julius Rotich, said of the 21 vacant positions advertised to be filled by Burundi and Rwanda in 2007/2008, only one-principal transport economist-was not filled as there was no specialist from the two countries.
“This was the Council of Ministers decision as a way of integrating them into the EAC as both countries were still new in the bloc,” said Dr Rotich.
Rwanda’s East African Community Minister Monique Mukaruliza said that the adoption of a quota system to recruit staff for the bloc is crucial and beneficial to all member states.”We have not had an appropriate mechanism of recruiting people to work at the EAC, if the quota system is adopted, the recruitment of staff will be fair to all partner states as part the EAC treaty, she said.
Under the quota system, recruitment of staff is based on the principle of equity and gender balance without compromising merit.
The EAC secretariat, according to reports, recently undertook a comparative survey of staff recruitment including the Common Market for Eastern Africa and Southern African Development Community and the Economic Community of West African States to assess the use of the quota system and identify what is applicable in the region.
The coordinating Committee of Permanent Secretary recommended that the quota system be adopted.
As far as the environmental bill is concerned, EAC nations are in the league of countries that are headed for an environmental implosion caused by pollution, environmentalists and policy makers said.
The take-up of electronic gadgetry, for example, is rising quickly among the EAC population without proper mechanism to dispose of obsolete devices, posing a challenge for policymakers to devise a common environmental law.
The chairperson of the Council of Ministers Hafsa Mossi said placing transboundary ecosystems under the management of the EAC the Bill goes against the Common Market Protocol that has placed land as a resource under individual partner states control.
“There are mixed composition in the Bill that are likely to give rise to conflicts of interests and lack of consensus in decision making, much as the Community is people centered and private sector driven,” noted Ms Mossi The minister feels they need at least a month to review the Bill and analyze critical issues that arose from it.
Kenya’s Assistant Minister to the EAC Peter Munya, the Bills fail to define a clear mandate between the existing institutions notably the Lake Victoria Basin Commission, and the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization and the new commission – East African Trans – Boundary Economic Commission-reflected in the Bill.
Munya said that the proposed Bill, which would include the private sector and civil society, was designed to be in a public domain institutions that would be accountable to the Council of Ministers.
The Bill, does not cater for transnational issues that arise when one partner state seeks to engage in a development project on a transboundary project ecosystem which may be considered a threat to the environment by a neighboring partner,” he said., Hafsa Mossi of the EAC Council of Minister said.
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