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"id": 99336,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/99336/?format=api",
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"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Mr. Kingi",
"speaker_title": "The Minister for East African Community",
"speaker": {
"id": 27,
"legal_name": "Amason Jeffah Kingi",
"slug": "amason-kingi"
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"content": " Mr. Speaker, Sir, I rise to make a Ministerial Statement on the East African Community (EAC) Common Market. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the EAC Common Market Protocol was signed last November in Arusha. Each partner State was given six months within which to ratify and deposit the instruments of ratification with the Secretary General. I confirm to the House that Kenya has, indeed, ratified the EAC Common Market Protocol and already instruments of ratification have been deposited with the Secretary-General in Arusha. Mr. Speaker, Sir, the EAC Common Market Protocol is supposed to become effective from midnight tonight, hence the reason to inform hon. Members about its provisions and implications to this country. The Common Market Protocol comes with its freedoms and rights that ought to be enjoyed by the East Africans at large. The freedoms that come with the Common Market Protocol are as follows: With the Common Market, we are going to have free movement of persons within the region. We are going to have free movement of labour or workers, services and capital within the region. Again, we have two rights that flow from this Protocol; that is, the right of establishment and residence. There has been misinformation and misunderstanding that come 1st July, 2010, the borders of these five countries will collapse and people will start moving immediately and partake of these benefits almost at the fall of the hammer come midnight tonight. I want to put it correct and explain that whatever is going to happen on 1st July is that the formal commencement of the implementation of the provisions of the Common Market Protocol will actually start. Mr. Speaker, Sir, as I have already said, there are quite a number of freedoms, but for these freedoms to be enjoyed to the full, the East African, partner States are called upon to put legal framework within which they can anchor these freedoms for the benefit of the citizens. Therefore, the journey towards coming up with the legal instruments to cushion the smooth implementation of the provisions of the Common Market Protocol is going to start by midnight tonight. Mr. Speaker, Sir, all the five countries made commitments to the Protocol. If you read through the Protocol and the annexes to it, there are commitments that each individual country did make, committing to liberalize sectors which East Africans will be able to take advantage of. For instance, in our country, Kenya, we have committed to open up almost all the categories of workers within this year; 2010. The same applies to Burundi and Uganda. For Tanzania, there are categories of workers that they have opened up for 2010. However, there are other categories that may have to wait longer. For instance, if you are a medical doctor and you want to access the job market in Tanzania, you may have to wait until 2015 to access that job market. If, for example, you are secondary school teacher teaching Mathematics, you may have to wait until 2015 for you to access the job market of Tanzania. Therefore, the schedule gives a commitment on how each individual country is going to liberalize its job market and also the services that are willing to open up and remove the restrictions to enable all the East Africans to enjoy the benefits. Mr. Speaker, Sir, I have already said that, as a country, we have committed ourselves to open up our borders almost immediately. However, that has a challenge in that our legal system must be reviewed to conform to the provisions of the Common Market Protocol. Under the Protocol, there is the issue of non-discrimination of citizens of other partner States based on nationality. If you look at, for example, the right of establishment, a Kenyan can go to Tanzania and open a shop and become a self- employed person, or a company that has been registered using our national laws can go to Tanzania and actually start investment there. According to the Protocol, such a company must be given the same treatment as is given to the companies that are registered under the national laws of Tanzania. The issue of discrimination is actually prohibited under the Protocol, yet if you see our company laws and Registration of Business Act, these companies are deemed to be foreign companies. Therefore, we need to review these kinds of laws. We need to review our immigration laws and administrative procedures to make sure that we embrace Ugandans, Tanzanians, Rwandese and Burundians as our fellow brothers and sisters. We should no longer see them as foreigners in Kenya. Therefore, that requires some kind of review of our laws. Mr. Speaker, Sir, immediately the Common Market Protocol was ratified by our country, I, indeed, constituted a task force team that was supposed to audit the provisions of the Common Market Protocol and review all the Kenyan laws; to identify the areas that require to be amended, so that they can conform with the provisions of the Common Market Protocol. I am happy to state that the team is almost cleaning up their final report. Immediately, the report is handed over to us, we will transmit it to the Office of the Attorney-General for them to actually churn out Bills and Motions, so that we can begin to review our laws to enable them conform with the provisions of the Common Market Protocol. That way, East Africans will actually be able to benefit from the commitment that Kenya has made to the provisions of this particular Protocol. Mr. Speaker, Sir, as I end, I want to extend a warm invitation to all Members present here to join His Excellency the President at the official launch of the implementation of the Common Market Protocol at the KICC today beginning from 6.30 p.m."
}