EAC summit endorses projects authority

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta (L) and his Ugandan counterpart Museveni (C) after the closing of 7th Northern Corridor Integration Summit in Kampala on Saturday. PHOTO BY STEPHEN WANDERA

MUNYONYO. East African heads of state under the Northern Corridor cluster on Saturday expressed frustration at the slow realisation of projects agreed on during their summits, and agreed to establish a joint authority to fast track project implementation.
President Museveni, the chair of the 10th Northern Corridor Summit held at Common Wealth Resort Munyonyo, disclosed that the Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA) will also help to improve discussions for further meetings.
“Discussions are supposed to report on implementation but we think that should be done in a more organised way. Ever since we started, we have done so much but more could have been done. The problem has been ‘part-timeism’ of people involved in implementing the decisions we take,” he said.
The President explained that they have tended to rely on bureaucrats to oversee the realisation of their resolutions, who are in part engaged elsewhere on respective duties. “What we agree on here, for them they come to look at them during the last minute to our next meetings,” he said.

The authority
The authority will comprise members from all the Northern Corridor states who will have full-time jobs. Kenya has already appointed its representative to the corridor, former Cabinet minister Joseph Nyaga.
The summit was also attended by Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame. Burundi was represented by the International Cooperation minister Aime Nyamitwe while South Sudan’s Defence minister Kuol Manyang Juuk represented President Salva Kirr.
Other representatives included EAC Secretary General Richard Sezibera and Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus for Ethiopia. DR Congo and Tanzania also sent senior officials.
President Kenyatta said: “We have really made good progress. On the areas that we have not, I think with this new arrangement we should now be able to fast-track them.”
The Northern Corridor cluster of Uganda, Burundi, South Sudan, Kenya, and Rwanda, commonly known as “Coalition of the willing”, is a network that comes together to realise infrastructural projects, including building standard gauge railway, East African single visa and removal of non-tariff barriers and setting up oil refinery.
President Kagame said: “This authority will help us to be better organised and have more things getting done.”