East Africa: EAC - East African Community

Contact

Secretariat of the Commission for East African Community

Secretary General: Honorable Nuwe Amanya-Mushega

• Address: P.O. Box 1096, Arusha, Tanzania
• Telephone: 255 27 2504253/ 4 / 6 / 7 / 8
• Fax: 255 27 2504255/2504481
• Internet Address: http://www.eac.int

General Background

The present East African Community (EAC) is a revival of the previous East African Cooperation between Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda which collapsed in 1977, largely owing to political frictions among the three countries. East African Cooperation was re-established in the 1990s; in 1999 the three countries signed a new Treaty for the creation of the EAC which entered into force in July 2000. It is now receiving more prominence as a result of the strong personal interest of all three Presidents in revitalising the Community, and Rwanda is expected to join next year.

EAC’s main objective, as set out in its Treaty, is to enhance the region’s competitiveness through ever deeper integration – starting by a Customs Union, followed by a Common Market, a Monetary Union and ultimately a Political Federation of East African States . The EAC’s three main organs are the Secretariat, the Legislative Assembly (EALA) and the Court of Justice (EACJ), all of them based in Arusha ( Tanzania). In practice they have played a very limited role in advancing EAC integration, which has relied primarily on trilateral negotiations, while the supranational organizations have remained weak and under funded.

Since the re-establishment of the East African Community in 1997, the overall performance of the revitalized EAC has been uneven, slow in some areas, but there have been some significant achievements, such as the convertibility of East African currencies; enhanced coordination in macro and budgetary policies; establishment of Customs Union, share management of Lake Victoria; and revival of regional co-operation in a number of fields.

Implementation of the Customs Union: after years of negotiations, on January 1 st , 2005 the EAC Customs Union came was launched. The CU is underpinned by a common EAC Customs Management Act and a Common External Tariff. The CET has three tariffs bands of 0, 10 and 25 percent. Intra-regional tariff liberalization will be achieved after a 5-year transition period during which Uganda and Tanzania will gradually phase-out tariffs on a selected list of Kenyan imports. Kenya has removed all tariffs on Uganda and Tanzania imports from the start. Recently, there have been disputes among the three countries on the implementation of the CET for some products, and the elimination of all duty exceptions, which has exposed the clout of some national lobbies over the regional agenda.