EAC NEEDS TO DO MORE ON NON-TARIFF BARRIERS

A recent dialogue between major business stakeholders from both the public and private sectors of the economy established that trade barriers are still a major challenge within the East African Community (EAC).

The event, which was conducted at the Mutukula border crossing between Tanzania and Uganda, was jointly organised by the East African Business Council (EABC) and Trade Mark East Africa (TMEA), and brought together some 50 participants.

What with one thing leading to another, the dialogue definitively concluded that both tariff and non-tariff trade barriers (TTBs and NTBs) continue to be a real barrier not only to cross-border trade, but also to intra-regional investment flows within the six EAC member countries of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.

Apparently, these negative developments are continuing in the regional economic integration bloc despite recent efforts by national governments – acting either singly or jointly in some cases – to alleviate the adverse situation, doing so mainly through policy and regulatory interventions.

Generally speaking, trade barriers come in the forms of tariff or non-tariff measures that are imposed by national governments with the major purpose of restraining trade with other countries.

More often than not, the barriers are imposed with be objective of protecting the imposing country’s producers of the traded goods, mostly for the domestic market. Non-tariff barriers include – but are not limited to – import quotas/bans, subsidies for domestic producers, protectionism and other technical barriers.

In nothing else, this makes international trade in all its forms more difficult – and, therefore, more costly – and, sometimes, resulting in trade wars.

In noble efforts to avoid all these unpleasantries in national economies that are caused by trade barriers, stakeholders and other well-wishers are once again pleading with the EAC member governments to revisit their tariff and non-tariff barrier regimes soonest.

This is with a view to further toning the regimes down in the best interests of regional economic integration.

PROJECT DELAYS UNACCEPTABLE

Recently, President Samia Suluhu Hassan was in Mara Region to commemorate 45 years of the formation of the ruling CCM. The President took that opportunity to voice grave concerns regarding development projects whose implementation takes overly-long to complete.

Two such projects are the construction of the Makutano-Sanzate road, and the Musoma-Makoja road that began in 2013, but were yet to be completed nine years down the road – no pun intended. The reason(s) for this is/are not quite clear, although there was no doubt that project funds were released by the government as and when due.

In any case, the President directed the Mara Regional Commissioner, Mr Ally Hapi, to take appropriate action immediately. This includes establishing the cause(s) of inordinately long project implementation delays: whether or not the project funds are misappropriated; or the delays are due to incompetency on the part of the contractors/implementers.

Project implementation shortcomings are a countrywide challenge, and we must come up with stern, deterrent measures to nip the problem in the bud, rather than wait for action from government headquarters when and where the problem surfaces.