Reports Leo Odera Omolo

The East African Community {EAC} secretariat based in the northern Tanzanian city at Arusha has singled out tourist visa and common passport as its top priority projects to be implemented this year as the bloc battles to reverse credibility crisis over failed projects.

The EAC Secretary General Dr Richard Sozibera was last week quoted as saying that the EAC passport, the single tourist visa and liberalization of the airspace will boost free movement of people across the region, a promise that the bloc has fallen behind in achieving three years after signing the Common Market convention on people movement across the region.

“Frustration is growing among business executives from the member states over delays in pushing through key projects like opening up the region’s airspace, rolling out a single passport and visa and the elimination of the non-tariff tariff barriers {NTBs}, saying this was slowing trade and business envisaged by the protocol.

The implementation of the monetary union is among the 77 articles needed for the creation.

Observers, however, say the EAC technocrats will be judged by how they handle the integration process in 2013 after the delays experienced last year.

“While the five EAC partner states of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi had in principle agreed to remove NtbS BY November 2012 in the absence of a legally binding framework, little action was taken. The latest report from the EAC secretariat shows that while 35 NTBs were reported as unresolved, ten new NTBs emerged in 2012 alone.” said Dr Sozibera.

A source at the Arusha based secretariat of the EAC said the bloc has set a deadline of between March and June 2013 for the commencement of printing the new EAC passport.

On the single tariff visa, the EAC Principal Tourist Officer Shedrqack Mshauri was recently quoted by the local media as saying the delay were being caused by lack of consensus over visa for collection and revenue sharing model among the EAX partner states.

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