Tanzania committed to welcoming East African Common market
At last Tanzania has agreed to review and amend its domestic laws and regulations that impede smooth implementation of the EAC Common Market Protocol.
The country’s move comes while almost all EAC member states are yet to fully liberalise their cross-border movement with Tanzania still lagging behind in removing all barriers for the implementation of the protocol.
Speaking during the dissemination of the East African Common Market Scorecard (CMS) 2014 in Dar es Salaam yesterday, Dr Abdallah Makame, Assistant Director of Productive Sectors in the Ministry of East African Cooperation said those barriers are related to migration and capital.
Makame said although Tanzania has been lagging behind in some areas of compliance, however, the country is on the right track in eliminating the impediments for an efficient common market.
“Tanzania has several legislations that pose challenges to the EAC Member states in implementing the Common Market Protocol. Indeed, I can assure you that we will work on the matter within this year.” he noted.
The director said the government would take urgent measures to address the legislative hurdles even as it works on the new constitution making process.
The government will also upgrade the central railway line into a standard gauge to ease trading through the Central Corridor.
He said for some time now the corridor has been dependent on the country’s highways for transporting more than 90 percent of cargo, and when expanded, it will boost business in the region.
He said the government was in discussion with development partners to see how to implement the plan. The country’s efforts prove its intention to ensure that the East African Common Market is fully attained among the partner states.
He however, confessed that full implementation of the Common Market was a challenging task. It calls for strong implementation by all parties, particularly the Partner States, so as to deliver the rights and freedoms enshrined in the EAC Common Market Protocol. This requires a robust implementation cycle: including planning, implementation and monitoring of progress.
Speaking during the launch, EAC CMS delivery team coordinator, Alfred K’Ombudo, said the report aims at assessing progress toward the development of a common market in capital, services and goods across Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
“The East African Common Market Scorecard contributes to monitoring the implementation of the Common Market by tracking progress of Partner States in fulfilling their commitments as provided in the Protocol.
The scorecard examines selected commitments made by the Partner States, outlines progress in removing legislative and regulatory restrictions to the Protocol, and recommends reform measures,’’ he said
The scorecard is expected to contribute to better compliance of commitments under the Protocol, through fostering peer learning and facilitating adoption of best practice in the EAC region, said K’Ombudo.
“East Africans look forward to a better - not just larger - market that will achieve global competitiveness…however, at the Secretariat we don’t point fingers at Member states, but rather we want them to learn from each other and find time to discuss issues concerning the common market,” he said.
According to the East African Common Market Scorecard (CMS) 2014, the laws and regulations of the EAC member states are posing barriers to increased cross-border trade and foreign direct investment into the region.
K’Ombudo said progress to eliminate restrictions has been relatively sluggish, and some partner states have introduced new measures despite the obligations under the EAC Common Market Protocol.
“Since the protocol came into force in 2010 Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda have introduced at least 10 restrictions on the movement of capital,” he said.
Commenting on free of movement of services, he said Tanzania is the only partner state that did not include legal services in its schedule of commitment.
On road transport more than a fifth of the overall identified Non Conforming Measures (NCMs) involve road transport. Tanzania has seven NCMs followed by Kenya (5), Rwanda (2) and Uganda (1) while Burundi has none.
On ensuring the free movement of goods across the EAC, the report recommended that partner states strengthen efforts to ensure complete elimination of tariffs and equivalent measures affecting intraregional trade and to ensure elimination of non-tariff barriers (NTBs).
Others include to ensuring greater effective implementation of the common external tariff and continue the process of harmonization and mutual recognition of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards (SPS) and standards preventing technical barriers to trade (TBT).
Why monitor compliance to the protocol?
According to K’Ombudo, the purpose of monitoring the implementation of regional integration arrangements is to ensure that the member countries comply with the assumed obligations. It touches on various policy areas, and can take place at different stages of integration and with various degrees of institutionalization.
“Monitoring helps address some of these constraints and thus contributes to good regional governance practices, such as openness, transparency, participation, accountability, effectiveness, and appropriateness,’’ he said.
What the scorecard does not measure
K’Ombudo noted that the EAC Common Market Scorecard 2014 has key limitations that should be kept in mind by the readers.
“First, it does not measure de facto compliance. The scorecard measures de jure compliance, that is, whether a Partner State’s laws and regulations comply with its commitments under the protocol. It does not measure de facto compliance, referring to how these commitments are implemented in practice.
In some instances, for example in the goods scorecard, de facto information is reviewed only as a means to give effect to or enquire on the implementation of a de jure obligation,’’ he said.
He added that the scorecard does not test the impact or severity of the restrictions, barriers and non-conforming measures.
“The scorecard lists the number and types of implementation constraints to the protocol, but does not establish their impact or severity. In limited cases within the scorecard where severity is considered, such as in the capital scorecard, this is limited to indicating which restrictions to the movement of capital affect several operations at once, and not the economic impact of the restrictions,’’ he said
It focuses only on national laws. According to him the scorecard only measures compliance of national laws to commitments under the protocol. It does not measure compliance of bi-lateral and multi-lateral agreements entered into by the Partner States to the protocol.
East African Common Market Scorecard (CMS) 2014, a first in Africa and the third globally - measures EAC Partner States' compliance with the EAC Common Market Protocol in the areas of free movement of capital, services and goods.
The report was prepared by five closely associated institutions: the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA), which together form the World Bank; the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
Tanzania hailed for steps towards green revolution
AGRA Country Head Tanzania Chapter, Dr Mary Mgonja
Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) has commended the government of Tanzania for being in the frontline in making green revolution a reality.
According to AGRA, Tanzania is doing well in consolidating the green revolution drive and the future of agriculture is rosy reflected inTanzania Mainland’s surplus maize for export while Zanzibar produced surplus cassava.
The remarks were made by a delegation of AGRA officials who visited Zanzibar from February 24 to 27, this year. They were from East and West Africa and led by Joseph De Vries, AGRA Programme for Africa's Seed Systems (PASS) Director.
AGRA Country Head Tanzania Chapter, Dr Mary Mgonja thanked the government for lifting grain export bans and enabling farmers so as to make agriculture profitable.
“Our farmers need to be linked up with output markets both within and outside the country,” she said, calling for introduction of policies that will help farmers market their produce in producers’ marketing groups to maximize export benefits.
For his part, AGRA Pass Programme Associate Director, George Bigirwa informed the media that PASS’s main beneficiaries are small-holder farmers as they have access to affordable seeds which they are able to share.
Bigirwa said by the end of last year, PASS had invested USD13.5 million in Tanzania.
“About USD 0.9 million went to train scientists, USD4.1 million to finance research, USD 2.9 million to support seed enterprises and USD 5.6 million for agro dealers development,” he said.
The Associate Director noted that in Tanzania, several crop varieties mainly maize, cassava, beans and soya beans have been released with the support of AGRA, “we are still looking forward to releasing more crop varieties.”
De Vries said his institution has invested strongly in development of Tanzania based seed industry through financial and technical support in establishing seed enterprises. So far AGRA has supported 13 different seed companies to produce various seeds to be sold to small scale farmers.
“Our mission is to promote as many as possible so that African smallholder farmers can benefit from using improved adopted seeds. We consider that the best basis for farmers to increase yields for consumption and surplus. In Tanzania we have been funding a lot of crop breeding for a number of staple food crops including maize, cassava, rice, beans and sweet potatoes,” he said.
PASS Director assured that AGRA is supporting development of new crop varieties in Tanzania through research conducted by breeders in the Ministry of Agriculture in order to develop a number of Tanzanian seed companies.
“In terms of developing improved crop varieties for farmers in Tanzania, AGRA supports local breeders who are supported by research stations within Tanzania by Tanzanian scientists. We support local breeding systems as opposed to getting varieties from international companies,” added Dr Jane Ininda, AGRA Programme Officer, Crop Improvement and Farmer Variety Adoption.
Richard Jones, PASS Chief of Party, Scaling Seeds and Technologies Partnerships in Africa said Tanzania is one of the countries that have signed up to the G8’s new alliance on food security, “that project started in July last year, we have already had a national consultation in Tanzania and we will be issuing our first course of proposal next month.”
During the field trip, cassava farmers were happy with surplus production but complained about unreliable market.
A farmer, Said Issa Ismael said because a good number of farmers have adopted improved seeds, production is overwhelming, “we are happy, but we have to look for market beyond Zanzibar.”
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN
Comments
Post a Comment