{UAH} Pojim/WBK: Sugar debate may be a storm in a teacup but it has left a sour taste - Comment
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Sugar debate may be a storm in a teacup but it has left a sour taste
We have heard a lot of words said about the sugar controversy between Kenya and Uganda. The angry, the clever, the outrageous, the sober and the reconciliatory, we have heard them all.
We have even heard the "verdict" by the EAC Secretariat in Arusha that there is no such thing as Ugandan sugar but only East African sugar. But have we heard the last word about trade disputes in the EA Community?
Not likely. The sugar matter was raised by leaders of a community in western Kenya that grows sugarcane either out of concern for the market of their people's main agricultural product or out of ignorance of the provisions of the EA Common Market.
The third possibility would be unfortunate — that is, that the leaders who kicked up the controversy are not ignorant but are seeking political mileage.
The fourth possibility is even more scary — that, as Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto said, the complainants are just profiteers from sugar imported from countries outside the EAC who are hoodwinking the people they purport to serve.
Then there are the Tanzania-based dumpers who pump Pakistani rice into the Ugandan market but have the gall to protest when the Uganda Revenue Authority subjects it to the taxation applied to imports from outside the Community.
What all this shows is the principles on which the EAC was founded have either not sunk in enough even among those who should know, or that people talk integration when it suits them and ignore it or oppose it outright if it requires them to shift out of a certain comfort zone, affects their local hero status or threatens their illegal profits.
If this EAC business is to be taken seriously, there may be a need to revisit some fundamentals, like the category of decisions that must be taken by consensus and not by majority vote, like decisions on new areas of co-operation. For how do you expect a member that benefits from the status quo to support change?
While we all like the EAC, it should be about substance rather than romantic ideals. The Community will only be advanced by men and women who mean what they say and say what they mean.
Those who knew about the frustration Uganda-based importers used to face at Mombasa port and inside Kenya until two years ago are still thanking God for the arrival of President Uhuru Kenyatta. Kenyatta took the bull by the horns and helped cut down the turn-around time for cargo from Mombasa to Kampala by 83 per cent.
But the East African Community needs to depend less on the goodwill of individual leaders and more on the observance of the rules by everybody. This will come about if member states, leaders and business people stop observing the EAC rules and protocols only when it suits them and treat them as inconveniences if they require them to be fair to others.
Then there is the little matter of EALA, the parliament of the EAC. In what spirit does this body operate? Do they go to Arusha like negotiators to fight for the interests of the country that sent them or do they hopefully become true East African legislators?
Joachim Buwembo is a Knight International Fellow for development journalism. E-mail: buwembo@gmail.com
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