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East African passports, labour movement and policy outlook
2006-03-04 09:46:07
By Ani Jozeni
Voice are starting to be raised at the border city of Arusha, or nearest to the most sensitive border, that of Kenya, as to the rising wave of immigrants from the other side.
A cardinal point raised in those complaints, mainly through well-publicized news stories, is that immigrants can obtain or purchase land on this side while hardly anyone can get land on the other side of the border.
Complaints were directed at the simplicity with which immigrants may renew their East African passports, just by one stamp at Namanga post.
Whether these aspects of complaint are new or unexpected in the spirit of East African cooperation, for which the passports were created in the first place, is one thing.
What is unquestionable though is how most people on this side of the border appear more than just uncomfortable with this kind of arrangement, that it works merely to the benefit of one side. And few Tanzanians or enterprises seem particularly on hurry to cross borders.
What is revealing about the complaints isn’t just the specific attitude, for this is normal or ordinary for anyone aware of the public posture of discussing anything relating to regional integration.
What isn’t so evident is that it was so unexpected, and indeed, what those who are making the complaints understand by the provision of East African travel documents, and how they are surprised that those documents are being used in this way. What they are hence suggesting is that East African cooperation has gone too far already.
When this situation is noticed, vividly as times and silently at other instances, it brings up a question as to the posture of the fourth phase administration on regional integration.
When assigning tasks to Mr Andrew Chenge as minister responsible for East African Community matters specifically, President Jakaya Kikwete notably said that the minister would help prepare an integration process that is ’beneficial to Tanzanians,’ in which case the minister should revisit the passports. That’s what the public comprehends by benefit.
Yet this idea was effected back in 2001, the first of a series of suggestions to bring about closer cooperation between the three countries, the other being a common market-cum-customs union, frozen discussion on monetary integration, and frosty discussion on an East African Federation.
Upon his election victory, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni reiterated that he would like to see an East African Federation in place by 2010, thus by the time his term is up, he will be happy. Whether the forebodings are right is in question.
What is evident in all these disputes and relative acrimony once a further step is taken into closer union with other East African countries is our allergy for competition.
We find it disloyal because we tend to face a disadvantage all the way, for instance as relates to land, since the Kenyan shilling is far stronger than the Tanzanian shilling.
Thus those with EA passports from Kenya may find land to be relatively cheap, while few Tanzanians, the passport notwithstanding would be expected to think of ’grabbing’ land in Kenya, etc.
It is thus a little difficult to find out, without perhaps having the advantage of an exclusive interview, and even if there was one, what precise orientation is likely to be taken by the new government.
Is it to slow down integration because Tanzanians are too worried about competition from the other side of the border, or to push with it because in the final analysis this is how Tanzania can go forward and sink its ’milky teeth’ in the regional and finally the global economy? For how long should Tanzania baby-sit our local enterprises?
Enterprises apart, there is also a problem of professionals, seeing in across the border counterparts people who are more conversant with English, more at home in speaking with clients, customers or students, and presenting a harsh and disloyal competition.
In that score as well the East African passport is being cancelled by local employment laws, which require a work permit to be obtained. Presenting a passport isn’t a replacement for qualifying to be employed because no locals can be found capable of filling that job slot.
Again on that score it is hard to tell not just what attitude the fourth phase government will take towards the matter, but really where its own interest lies.
Is it in pushing local institutions towards accepting competition from qualified people from across the border so as to raise the quality of services (for it isn’t products firstly), or in retaining the more popular method of curtailing such employment and protecting the local job market? How far is a market thrust visible that compels companies to hire - irrespective of nationality?
There is plenty of push in that direction, for the simple reason that all establishments of an academic character, as well as those engaged in training generally, are looking for tutors conversant in English, or find it easy to communicate in that language.
Whether a similar market may open up across the borders of EAC member states or along with Rwanda and Burundi, DR Congo etc to teach Kiswahili is a different matter. It may be a useful tool of communication across borders, but not one receiving major institutional drive or support.
So there is a stark choice that exists and the odds are as yet difficult to tell, as to whether a ’new zeal’ is being directed to bringing Tanzanians to comprehending, and participating in closer union, or in embracing isolation, protection, particularism.
What is popular is the latter, as the complaints from Arusha were underlining, that the government especially at the regional level, moves to ensure that the EA passport isn’t ’misused’ as giving one an automatic right of residence just by renewing it.
It is the same for the union between the isles of Pemba, Unguja and Tanganyika itself, that a Tanzanian passport is no residence permit.
And since we are doing it locally, in one country, why allow foreigners to settle?
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