In this file photo, trucks queue up at Malaba one stop border entry point in Eastern Uganda in 2023. PHOTO/DAVID AWORI
In the eastern belt of Africa, from the shores of the Indian Ocean to the green canopy of the Congo Basin, the economic integration of East African Community (EAC) is taking shape. A Customs Union has been in place since 2005, a Common Market followed in 2010, and a Monetary Union is on the horizon, targeted for 2031. Whereas these milestones suggest a region steadily working toward integration, partner states know that achieving economic transformation involves more than treaties on paper—it requires consistent execution, strong coordination, and shared political will. However, the road is anything but simple. Economists often point to five pillars behind any country or region’s economic takeoff: investment, productivity, innovation, trade, and effective institutions.
But for these to materialise, countries must invest in infrastructure, upgrade the skills of their populations, commercialise new ideas, and unlock trade—anchored by stable governance and predictable rules. Consequently, the region has introduced a revised external tariff to shield local industries, launched a Single Customs Territory to ease the clearance of goods, and established One-Stop Border Posts to reduce crossing delays from hours to minutes. It has also rolled out digital platforms like the Authorised Economic Operator programme to fast-track compliant traders, and a regional Customs Bond system to simplify cargo transit.
Deadlock
Yet, despite these efforts, Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs)—in the shape of extra paperwork, sudden fees, repeated inspections, or shifting rules—remain more than just bureaucratic irritants. For instance, Kenya has on several occasions blocked Ugandan products—including milk, poultry, sugar, beef, and maize—from entering its market. Uganda has responded by using Excise Duty to make some Kenyan goods less competitive on its domestic market—a quiet but strategic form of protectionism. The most glaring dispute, however, lies in the sugar trade. Ugandan sugar millers, working through the Trade ministry, are lobbying the EAC Secretariat to block Kenya from accessing duty-free sugar imports from outside the region.
This as Kenya imposes Excise Duty on imported sugar—including that from Uganda—effectively pricing it out of the Kenyan market. Kenya justifies the duty-free import window as a stopgap measure to address its domestic sugar deficit. But sugar millers in Uganda argue that unscrupulous traders in Nairobi are taking advantage of the arrangement to re-export cheap sugar to neighbouring countries—undermining regional producers and distorting competition. The EAC has granted Rwanda, Tanzania, and Kenya special waivers to import tax-free sugar from outside the bloc to meet local shortages. However, as Jim Mwine Kabeho, the chairperson of the Uganda Sugar Manufacturers Association, has previously warned, the move has sharply eroded Uganda’s regional market share.
And that’s a problem under the Customs Union, which is supposed to ensure fair and open access across partner states. Worse still, imported sugar from global producers like Brazil is flooding the EAC market. This has crowded out local millers, not just in Uganda but across the region, exposing a major policy contradiction. As a key figure in negotiating the Customs Union, the Common Market, and the Monetary Union, Moses Kaggwa, Uganda’s director of Economic Affairs at the Finance ministry, acknowledges that NTBs keep creeping back. This and other self-inflicted wounds have kept the 300 million-strong EAC’s GDP at around $240b. For context, Norway, with a population of just 5.5 million, boasts a GDP of $501.7b.
Frustrated
Uganda’s First Deputy Prime Minister and EAC Affairs minister Rebecca Kadaga expresses the frustration many officials share: “It’s incredibly annoying when you sit in a summit with heads of state, everyone agrees, signs documents, takes pictures—and then two days later, a minister introduces new restrictions. Then you have to call and ask, ‘we were just together in the meeting—what happened?’ They respond, ‘That’s the agriculture minister, not me.’ So what are you supposed to do?” A clear example is Tanzania’s move to introduce a new industry levy of 10 percent—a kind of tax—on goods imported from other EAC countries. The levy applies to a range of products, including household plastic items like kitchenware and tableware, among others. Tanzania defends the move as a response to Kenya’s failure to remove certain discriminatory taxes.
Meanwhile, Ugandan milk exports continue to face unpredictable treatment in Kenya, with access alternating between permitted and blocked, the kind of unresolved frictions that jeopardise the full benefits of integration. Further complicating matters is the practice of partner states signing international trade agreements individually, rather than as a bloc. On external trade, the EAC had once considered taking issue with Kenya for entering into bilateral trade deals with countries outside the bloc—agreements seen to contravene the spirit of a united external tariff policy. But that stance has softened, partly due to shifting economic classifications.
As Kadaga explains, Kenya’s graduation from Least Developed Country status changes the calculus. “They’ve left us behind,” she concedes. “So we can no longer hold them to the same constraints, otherwise we would be disadvantaging them.” For some, the larger concern is that barriers—both tariff and non-tariff—are proving stubborn. Article 75 of the EAC Treaty explicitly mandates their removal, and the 2017 NTB Elimination Act reinforces this position. But enforcement is uneven, and many barriers persist in new forms.
According to EAC Secretariat data, NTBs have cost the region up to $10.3 billion in lost trade value, especially in agriculture and manufacturing. Among the most damaging barriers are inconsistent sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) rules, disputes over rules of origin, road charges, duplicated inspections, and administrative delays. These not only inflate costs but undermine investor confidence and disrupt regional supply chains. To support integration, the EAC is working on a Common Public Data Management Framework—meant to boost transparency and prepare for convergence. Despite policy delays, infrastructure is improving.
Infrastructure imperative
Infrastructure development has emerged as a critical pillar for advancing the EAC integration agenda. While protocols and treaties lay the foundation for cooperation, it is the region’s physical connectivity that ultimately determines how effectively trade and economic interaction can occur. “One of the challenges we’re facing is infrastructure. But if we implement projects as East Africans, then we can access financing more easily. Take the standard gauge railway, for example—some people thought it was just a Kenyan project, but it’s actually being discussed among three partner states,” says Kaggwa. Electricity is another area of integration with major implications. Countries with surplus electricity, such as Uganda, are now exploring frameworks to sell power to countries with deficits.
The solution?
Though 247 NTBs have been resolved through the regional monitoring mechanism, many reappear due to weak enforcement. “We don’t need new laws,” Annette Ssemuwemba Mutaawe, the deputy secretary general in-charge of Customs Trade and Monetary Affairs at the EAC Secretariat, notes. “We need to implement the ones we already have.” Ratification of Article 24 on trade remedies, critical for dispute resolution, remains incomplete. Without enforceable mechanisms, partner states face limited consequences for breaching agreed protocols. Differing excise and VAT laws continue to hinder free movement of goods, with Ssemuwemba holding that when investors “see discriminatory taxes, unclear rules of origin, or ad-hoc charges, they hesitate.” “Without mutual trust, no law—however well-written—can function. And without a predictable environment, citizens and businesses alike will not reap the full benefits of integration,” Ssemuwemba argues.
