Kampala — The World Bank has earmarked $2.3 billion to help the East African Community (EAC) cope with the looming power crisis triggered by a three-year drought.According to Mark Tomlinson, the World Bank's Country Representative for Regional Integration the power shortages facing the Ugandan, Kenya and Tanzanian governments would hurt the region's competitiveness unless the situation was addressed.

"An estimated $2.3 billion is needed for the East African Community energy sector, $1.3 billion in new investment for additional power generation and an extra $1 billion for transmission over the next five years," Tomlinson told a joint EAC and World Bank Forum in Arusha, recently.

In an appeal by the EAC Secretary General, Jumah Mwapachu, said Tanzania and Uganda had been worst hit by the energy crisis, forcing many industrialists and capital investors to withdraw active investments from the region.

Mwapachu further said the East African Community was working towards developing a power grid in which the three countries would share storage capacities.

The energy sector project will also benefit Rwanda once the Central African country joins the East African Community, a development expected later this year.

Ten years after Rwanda applied to join the East African Community, talks for the country's integration are already underway, led by Ambassador Richard Sezibera, the Presidential Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region, who heads an eleven-man team negotiating for entry.

And, according to Mwapachu, the outcome of the negotiations would be presented to the Twelfth EAC Council of Ministers Meeting scheduled for August 21st-25th. The EAC Secretary General also noted that the admission of Rwanda and Burundi would bolster sub-regional economic competitiveness at all levels.

"The enlarged economic bloc would constitute a viable regional economic power house able to muster the challenges posed by globalization," he said in the release by the East African Community Secretariat.

After the integration of Rwanda and Burundi, the East African Community initiative is set to benefit up to 115 million people with in the economic bloc.

Meanwhile, in an earlier development the World Bank extended a credit grant of $259.02 million to improve trade and transport services with in the East African community further set to benefit Rwanda which is expected to become a member this year.

According to the World Bank, the project would enhance the efficiency of transport and logistics services with in the East African Community and Rwanda along key transport corridors by reducing non tariff barriers and uncertainty of the transportation timeframe.