Writes Leo Odera Omolo
The East African Community {EAC] has proposed a new funding model for its activities in the member states amid growing budgetary constraints.
Presently, partner states make equal contributions to the regional bloc, but the new system proposes that such money be based on percentage of either a country’s GDP or revenue collection.
The judicial and legal sectoral committee sitting in Bujumbura last week with the aim of amending the EAC Treaty proposed the changes.
If amended bigger economies like Kenya with close to USD 30 billion GDP will contribute much more than smaller ones like Burundi at USD2.33 billion
Benard Mulengani, a member of the East African Legislative Assembly said the amendments will boost the resources available to the regional bloc,that is largest dependant on donor funds.
Mulangeni said partner states can contribute up to 10 per cent of their total budget to the EAC as determined by the Council of Ministers, compared with the present practice where countries give less than 3 per cent.
The member said this had forced the bloc to rely on donors for up to 72 per cent of the USD 138 million EAC budget.
However Safina Tsungu Kweke, a former general propose committee chairperson at EALA said most donor funds don’t benefit the region. He added the money was gong to workshops, travel and consultations while infrastructure projects remained stuck at the feasibility study stage.
The department of infrastructure has the disease of getting large amounts of money which doesn’t seem to do any work,”She said. Infrastructure and energy projects of the EAC have been on paper for the past 10 years.
Critics say money that goes into workshops and studies revert back to the donors since they employ their own experts.
According to EALA members of the general purpose committee, the Lake Victoria basin Commission LVBC} is another great beneficiary of unbalanced funding.
The LVBC had been criticized especially in Uganda for putting up projects that don’t create any real impact on the lies of the people in the region. LVBC has a total budget of USD 40 million in the current financial year- the second biggest appropriation after that of the EAC secretariat.
Veronic Bathirye a member of Uganda parliament’s committee on East African Affairs pointed out the Mt Elgon regional ecosystem conservation programme that has been running since 2006, as among those that had not made any real impact in peoples lives.
The Mayuge water project also funded in Uganda by LVBC is also among hose leaders in Uganda including those officials at the Ministry of East African Affairs who believes is ineffective. Money from donors for the LVBC cannot be reallocated to projects leaders consider as more worthwhile.
Several EALA representatives said full funding of the community by partner states would weed out some of these irregularities.
But the proposal to have contributions based o the GDP or revenue collection has its problems like creating inequality among member states, critics warns.
Prof Fredrick Sempabwa, a constitutional law expert in Kampala said the EAC is an equality based arrangement and countries contributing higher quotas would cause them to feel as though they had bigger stake in the community.
Ends