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EA fast tracking report soon out
2007-07-04 09:20:34
By Grace Tinda, IJMC
The Secretary General of the East African Community, Ambassador Juma Mwapachu, has said the report on public views about fast tracking the East Africa political federation will be released soon after the meeting of heads of state, expected to be held next month.
Officiating at a conference on the state of politics in Tanzania, held in Dar es Salaam yesterday, Mwapachu said the people should be patient, because their views would still be respected when deciding either to fast track the EA political federation or not.
`There is no need to suspect that public views will be ignored because the idea was generated from various stakeholders of the three member states,` he said.
He said the East African political federation was stated in the Treaty signed by the heads of state, so the point was how to go about in realizing the resolve.
`This is not the time to discuss whether the political federation should be established or not, but how should we go about in order to achieve it,` Mwapachu said.
He said people should learn from the series of events which had occurred since colonial era to the present time as to ways of achieving success in economic integration, hence political federation.
Mwapachu said if the formation of East Africa Political Federation had to be accelerated, the people were the ones to determine how the process would be implemented
He, however, said there were various stages before the achievement of political federation as stipulated in the EA Treaty.
The stages include having a free trade area, Custom Union, Common Market, Monetary Union and finally, a political federation.
He said the Treaty clearly specified that if one step was successfully achieved, the other step would follow.
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Dar es Salaam, Prof. Rwekaza Mkandala, said the people of East Africa should not fear the formation of political federation but should instead prepare to overcome the arising challenges.
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