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{
    "id": 496656,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/496656/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 163,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. (Dr.) Oginga",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 194,
        "legal_name": "Oburu Ngona Odinga",
        "slug": "oburu-odinga"
    },
    "content": "Our countries have historical bonds which bound them together as one during the colonial exploitation. The struggle for Independence by these countries was united. In fact, those who were there that time will recall that Tanzania even wanted to delay their Independence to wait for all the other East African countries to be independent from the colonial rule. The move for the EAC was supposed to be people-driven, which means that it ought to have been driven by this Parliament. Over the years, since negotiations for the EAC started, the drive for the Community has been done exclusively by the Executive to the exclusion of Parliament. Parliament normally comes in at the very tail-end, like now, when the protocols have already been signed and you are only coming to ratify. When it comes to ratification, it is very difficult to oppose or to correct anything because it is coming for you to only do ratification. If this matter, as has been conceptualised, was a truly people-driven process then the people of East Africa should have been directly involved in the negotiations through their elected representatives, which to date has not happened. The implementation of the Monetary Union for the East African countries is preconditioned on the implementation of the other protocols which have been adopted or signed before. One of the protocols is the Customs Union. The Customs Union Protocol must be implemented in full before the Monetary Union comes into being. There is also the Common Markets Protocol which has also been signed. It must be implemented in full before we come to the implementation of the Monetary Union. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, there are problems which are on the way in implementation. Signing is one thing, but implementing the protocols which have been signed is a different thing altogether. Just to mention a few hurdles in the implementation of the Customs Union, we have issues like, for instance, the non-tariff barriers. The delimitation of these non-tariff barriers is taking overly long and the countries should be urged to hurry up the removal of these non-tariff barriers in order to fully implement the Customs Union Protocol. There is also something called Ugandalist. I do not want to bore you with that. But that is one list which is creeping in all the time because Uganda feels very strongly that Kenya is advantaged because it has more industries and therefore when tariffs are introduced on certain goods and they do not produce those goods, they unfairly suffer higher prices from Kenya. Therefore, the free movement of goods will access their market without duty. There are also issues because for implementation of the Monetary Union we also need to fully implement the Common Market Protocol. The Common Market Protocol entails four very fundamental movements: 1. Free movement of people; 2. Free movement of goods; 3. Free movement of services; 4. Free movement of capital. With regard to free movement of people, there are two components. One of it is the free movement of labour. On this element, there are a lot of hurdles because countries like Tanzania fear that the implementation of this particular aspect will affect their people. They feel that Kenya has too many professionals who will take up all the jobs that require skilled manpower in their country. The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}