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By Deodatus Kazinja
Mwanza. The East African Community (EAC) had Last month organized a special seminar in Bujumbura, Burundi, as part of the 10th anniversary of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA). Tanzania’s participation in the seminar raised questions among analysts over the country’s commitment in the regional bloc’s ultimate goal of political federation. National Assembly Speaker Anne Makinda was among prominent delegates invited to the crucial meeting, but neither attended nor did she bother to send a representative.
The EAC Council of Ministers deliberated on pertinent technical issues on defence cooperation and land aimed at expediting the federation. Tanzania powerful delegation led by East Africa Cooperation minister Samuel Sitta was present during the session. But the delegation stayed away from signing a ministerial report at du Nil Hotel in Bunjumbura ahead of the EAC Heads of State Summit on grounds that it was different from a report agreed the previous day.
Members of the delegation said on condition of anonymity that some partner states had conspired to bring back the land issue under the political federation framework despite being resolved in the past. Tanzania had successfully fought against incorporation of land issue in the regional integration during negotiations for the EAC Common Market Protocol in 2008/08 only to see it cropping up again.
Unhappy with the Tanzania’s stance, EAC ministers from Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi endorsed the report ready for heads of state to deliberate and endorse, as their Tanzania counterpart was still consulting on the matter. President Jakaya Kikwete also did not attend the EAC Heads of State Summit, assigning Vice President Mohamed Galib Bilal to represent him.
Dr Azaveli Lwaitama, a senior lecturer with the University of Dar es Salaam, does not only see Tanzania as a stumbling block to EAC integration, but also as a follower, who is uncertain of his role in the ambitious project. Another lawyer with St Augustine University of Tanzania (Saut) Patrobas Paschal concurs with Dr Lwaitama, saying Tanzania seemed insincere and ignorant of what exactly connects the country to the community. “Kenya is the second largest investor in Tanzania, Uganda is leading in agricultural products, Rwanda is business oriented with excellent economic and law enforcement performance and Burundi is also doing well business wise, but Tanzania, with all essential resources at its disposal, does not know what to do with them’,’ Patrobas regretted.
Many issues, however, surround the EAC integration. While Tanzania attempts to bring them in the open, other member states do not openly discuss them in the regional meetings apart from tactically incorporating them in the integration process as was the case with the recurrence of the land issue in the Bujumbura meeting. Patrobas admits that most of the EAC partner states were banking on Tanzania as strategic destination for investing their capital and labour.
Despite Tanzania being seen as a ‘square peg in the EAC round hole’, the secret scramble for power among heads of state is another stumbling bloc that could not be discussed openly. CCM cadre and Saut administrative officer Maurice Stephen is pessimistic that the EAC political federation could not be a dream come true as long as the incumbent heads of state are still in power. “Save for selfish ambitions of our politicians, we have every reason to achieve political federation. We share borders drawn by colonial regimes, cultures and Kiswahili and English language, let alone a number of vernaculars,” he said.
Sending Sitta with his unwavering dream to become the Tanzania’s fifth president to Bunjumbura to discuss fast tracking political federation amounts to comedy, he stressed. Political structure and stability of each of the EAC member states is another threat to the political federation, as some heads of state are changing their countries’ constitutions at will as long as they cling to power. Most of the heads of state are strengthening personalities instead of institutions to that effect. Another Saut lecturer argues that with the Land ownership system Tanzania pursues, EAC political federation would just not work. “The value of land has to be re-defined for the ultimate EAC goal to materialize,” he said. Unlike in other EAC partner state, the government and the President, in particular, owns the entire land.
Inferiority complex is another threat to Tanzanians joining the block whole heartedly, as they consider themselves incompetent enough to compete with their counterparts in neighbouring countries, particularly Kenyans and Ugandans, who have since independence been in pursuit of capitalism. But Stephen sees the inferiority complex as a political propaganda deliberately carried out by power hungry politicians. “The question of a single regional currency, for example, can easily be ironed out by central banks,” Stephen observed.
Deogratius Kazinja is a political analyst based in Mwanza -
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