Africa-Press – Tanzania. WHILE the East African Community (EAC) partner states will largely retain their sovereignty, the proposed Political Confederation is meant to strengthen the integration process.
With consultations already underway at national level in some of the six partner states it has been established that the states will remain with their supreme power to manage their affairs.
In other words, the Confederation that is the route to a fully political federation will mostly deal with EAC governments of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan rather than directly with their people.
Chairperson of the Committee of Experts tasked with drafting a model construction for the Confederation, Justice Benjamin Odoki said in Uganda on Saturday that the Confederation will be vertical.
The constituent states would have the freedom to join or withdraw from the arrangement as they so wished, being and remaining sovereign.
“The Confederation authority will, however, have the right to suspend or expel a member state that violates the Confederation Constitution,” noted the retired Ugandan Chief Justice (CJ).
The judge who is tasked with drafting a model Constitution for the proposed Political Confederation further said that the Treaty for the Establishment of the EAC was not selfsufficient thus the need for the confederation.
Justice Odoki said that the idea was to strengthen the Community through a Confederation that he pointed out was a transitional model to the full Political Federation enshrined in the Treaty as the fourth and ultimate stage of the integration process.
He disclosed that under a confederal system, some kind of central authority would be put in place to guide policies and activities in the partner states.
“We would like you as leaders to suggest areas of cooperation within the Political Confederation, the governing structure, modes of decision making, governance principles, the relationship between the partner states and the Confederal Authority and the funding mechanisms. “We would also like to hear your views on the mode of adoption of the Constitution establishing the Political Federation and any other issues that you feel ought to be addressed in the Constitution of the EAC Political Confederation,” said Justice Odoki.
The EAC Summit adopted in May 2017, a Political Federation as the transitional model for the Federation that is the ultimate pillar of the EAC integration process.
It is being preceded by the Customs Union, Common Market and Monetary Union respectively. The team of experts was formed in 2018 with Senator Amos Wako of Busia, Kenya as deputy chairman.
Outlining the features of a political confederation as opposed to a political federation, Justice Odoki said that the operations of the confederation would be highly dependent on the good will of member states.
Justice Odoki was addressing participants in Mbarara, western Uganda during the ongoing national consultations for the drafting of the Constitution for the proposed EAC Political Confederation.
He urged the participants to tell the committee of experts how much sovereignty they would prefer the national governments to have.
“Under a confederal system, the decision-making process is based on consensus or unanimity. The member states do not lose their sovereignty, that is, the supreme power of states to manage their affairs,” said the retired CJ, adding that there would be no creation of a new state or some centralized authority.
The Confederation is a slight change of policy by the Community that had been occasioned by many factors among them fears of constitutional differences among partner states, varied levels of economic development and mixed progress in the implementation of the Customs Union, Common Market and Monetary Union.
