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 The private sector and civil society have supported retired President Benjamin Mkapa’s advice that the East African Community should be careful in its Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations with the European Union.
They described Mr Mkapa’s concern as “genuine”, adding that it reflected the position they had been holding for the past five years, saying governments of the EAC member countries should take the former President’s advice seriously.
“Mr Mkapa’s remarks have come as a consolation to us... this is what we have been advocating for the past five years,” a member of the Tanzania Civil Society Trade Coalition (TCSTC), Mr Abubakar Mohammed Ali, told The Citizen.
The statement Mr Mkapa made in Nairobi recently has also drawn the support of members of the private sector, who said there were many issues that should be considered before the region entered into an agreement with the developed nations.
Speaking in Nairobi during the Pan-Africa Media Conference, Mr Mkapa warned the EAC partner states that the EPA, which is being championed by the EU, could be another “scramble for Africa”, and was likely to weaken the regional bloc economically.
The retired President said during the Golden Jubilee of the Nation Media Group (NMG) that even if East Africa was cajoled into an EPA, it should not expect economic wellbeing because there was no fair trade between developed and developing nations.
In a rejoinder, Mr Gerald Ajumbo, a senior official of the EAC Directorate of Customs and Trade, told The Citizen that the former Head of State was entitled his views, but added that the regional body saw nothing wrong in continuing with its negotiations with the EU.
He said abandoning the negotiations, which have dragged on for years, could put the EAC at a disadvantage on a number of international commitments such as trade rules under the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
But TCSTC members said it would be counterproductive for the EAC to go on with an arrangement that had been discredited by people of Mr Mkapa’s stature.
“In principle, the WTO has virtually nothing to offer to poor nations... Mr Mkapa is experienced and well educated. He is conversant with macro and microeconomics, and understands EPAs better than many of us do. We will be making a serious mistake if we take his advice lightly,” said Mr Moses Kulaba, the executive secretary of Agenda Participation 2000.
Another TCSTC member, Mr Musa Bilegeya, said most leaders of developing countries lacked consistency in their development initiatives.
“I was first astonished when I heard former Industries, Trade and Marketing minister Basil Mramba saying EPAs were a bad thing... Mr Mkapa is the second prominent person to say so, and this tells me that senior government officials do understand issues that affect the people. They lack consistency in their own development initiatives and also when dealing with issues in which donors seek to safeguard their interests,” he explained.
He said negotiators may have overlooked the fact that the country had its own Vision 2025 and Mkukuta goals to meet. “I would have expected our negotiators to say to what extent will EPAs help or not help in the realisation of these development initiatives,” he said.
According to an Oxfam International Briefing Paper on the impact of EPAs to African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, released soon after the EAC and EU signed an interim EPA in Uganda in 2007, the EAC stands to lose due to the reciprocating approach to opening up in the EPA deals.
Under the initialled agreements that are not yet legally binding, the EU has given the EAC a 100 per cent duty and quota-free market access.
But the EU reciprocates in that the EAC is also required to start a gradual reduction of tariffs on EU products in 2010. The reduction will be implemented over 25 years culmination in 82 per cent of EU goods entering EAC member countries duty-free by 2035.
And in another development, Mr Mkapa told The Citizen last week that his comments in Nairobi were mot meant to initiate a debate with anyone.
He presented this newspaper with a document from the South Centre titled Trade for Development Programme, which explains how EPAs are “toxic” to Africa’s collective economy.
According to the 13-page document, EPAs provide a wrong development model for Africa, and will jeopardise the continent’s integration prospects.
The South Centre further says that EPAs discourage African countries from having appropriate trade policies to support increasing production capacities in agriculture and industries.
It estimates that Africa will lose nearly $2 billion (Sh2.6 trillion) under the EPA arrangement through a decline in exports, export tariff cuts, undermining of agriculture and deindustrialisation, among other factors.
“Relinquishing the ability to craft appropriate trade policies will lock African countries into their current patterns of production such as low levels of manufacturing capacity and ‘mono-exportation’,” the document says in part.
A common position on EPAs adopted by members of the private sector indicates that the sector is still sceptical about the negotiations, and frustrated by their inability to access the EU market due to tough sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) rules.
Their concerns are based on the fact that EAC businesses usually find it hard to enter the EU markets due to their level of compliance with SPS and technical measures set by the EU and retailers in EU member countries.
“For EAC Partner States to effectively use the EU duty-free and quota-free access will depend, among other things, on the capacity to continuously comply with the requirements made by the EU as well as by its retailers, since a few but huge retail chains dominate the EU market,” says a statement on the common position as outlined in the EAC-EABC Private Sector EPA Negotiations handbook discussed in Arusha on March 12 and 13.
The Citizen will from tomorrow serialise the Trade for Development Programme document. Don’t miss your copy
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