Speaker Ndugai wants common EAC currency fast-tracked now

Arusha. The Speaker of the National Assembly Job Ndugai wants the process to have a common currency in East Africa fast-tracked.

The single currency, he said, will not only boost intra-regional trade but he believes will bring some form of stability in the exchange rate.

“We would like to go back to the situation in the past when we had one currency for the East African Community (EAC) region,” he said here yesterday.

Mr Ndugai made the appeal during his visit to the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala), his first ever to the key organ of the Community based in Arusha.

He recalled during the old days when the partner states in the former EAC used to have one currency for the entire region, then comprising of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

“Movement of people was easier as were the purchases. Is it not possible to return to the old golden days”, he asked when he conferred with the Eala Speaker Martin K. Ngoga.

The National Assembly Speaker affirmed the country’s support for the EAC integration agenda, saying laws from Eala were often tabled for scrutiny. He added that the ease of doing business in the region was considerably impeded by each of the six countries in the bloc having its own currency.

“Here is a situation, where if you enter Burundi, you have to change money, entering Rwanda, doing the same and then Uganda and Kenya”, this is cumbersome.