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Three sue EAC over losing jobs

What you need to know:

  • Benoit Bihamiriza, a Burundi national, Didacus Kaguta from Uganda and Patrice Mulama (Rwanda) have filed a case before the regional court, challenging the reasons given by the EAC Secretary General for disbanding the unit and rendering them jobless.

Arusha. The Secretary General of the East African Community (EAC) will be arraigned in court by former employees of the regional organisation for disbanding a peace and security unit over an alleged cash crunch.

Benoit Bihamiriza, a Burundi national, Didacus Kaguta from Uganda and Patrice Mulama (Rwanda) have filed a case before the regional court, challenging the reasons given by the EAC Secretary General for disbanding the unit and rendering them jobless.

The applicants claim that on July 7, this year, they received a notice from the EAC registry to terminate their employment contracts signed by the Secretary General.  They were asked to leave the organisation as EAC had no funds to support the Africa Peace and Security Architecture (Apsa) project. The secretary general requested the claimants to hand over all activities under them to the deputy Secretary General in charge of political federation.

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Bihamiriza, Kaguta and Mulama claim the Treaty under Article 4 (2) gives the powers to the Secretary General “to do all things”, including borrowing,  to keep the functions of the Community and its institutions. They further contend that the Secretary General did not provide any evidence that the Apsa support programme has ended.

Instead, they argued, there was a communication from the European Union (EU) and African Union (AU) informing EAC that funds were in the process of being disbursed to support the programme and requested that the staff under Apsa support programme to be retained to ensure that the capacities that had been developed over the years by the programme are sustained.

In addition, that the EU and AU had pointed out that the new Apsa support programme would run between January 2016 and December 31, 2018 and that the budget allocation had been approved at Euros 2,850,000.

Bihamiriza is a conflict early warning expert while Kaguta and Mulama are peace and security officer and senior analyst for early warnings, respectively. The application has been filed before the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) and is set for hearing on September 14.

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