Kampala — The East African Legislative Assembly will on December 5, converge in Arusha, Tanzania to debate the East African Community (EAC) membership with other trading blocs. Both Uganda and Kenya are members of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). Tanzania, the other EAC partner state, also belongs to Southern African Development Community (SADC).

According to the East African Assembly timetable, the legislators will report to Arusha on November 26, and subsequently debate and review the East African Customs Management Act, which states that a country should not belong to more than one Customs Union.

The Act demands that the three partner states pull out of any other trading bloc apart from the EAC by the end of December this year.

An East African legislator, Lydia Wanyoto, in an interview with The New Times on Tuesday November 7, expressed concern that none of the members had shown willingness to withdraw, Tanzania from SADC, and Uganda and Kenya from COMESA.

"The major issue is how to deal with SADC since it is yet to be a Customs Union and the law is very clear that none of the East African states should belong to more than one Customs Union. But according to the agenda on December 5, we shall review and attempt to amend the Customs Management Act.

We shall try to build a consensus. Either we shall agree to amend it or not," Wanyoto said at parliamentary offices in Kampala.

And Wanyoto suggested that should need arise, then the EAC should join COMESA or SADC 'as one'.

This, she said, "would ease trade negotiations and the legal implications we are presently encountering."

COMESA is a preferential trading area comprising over twenty member states that was formed in December 1994, replacing the Preferential Trade Area (PTA), which had existed since 1981.

Nine of the member states formed a free trade area in 2000, with Rwanda and Burundi joining the Free Trade Area (FTA) in 2004 and the Comoros and Libya in 2006. However, Tanzania quit COMESA in 2000.

SADC, with a membership of 14, aims to promote Southern Africa regional cooperation in economic development.

The Southern Africa Development Coordination Conference (SADCC), which was the forerunner of SADC, was formed in Lusaka, Zambia, on April 1, 1980, following the adoption of the Lusaka Declaration by the nine founding members.

SADC has a market of 233 million people, EAC 97 million and COMESA 406 million.

A number of SADC members have since benefited emerging as continental in terms of macroeconomic policies, poverty reduction strategies as well as institution building these are; Botswana, Mauritius, Namibia and South Africa .

Angola leads in terms of the economic performance within the region with a 13.8% growth rate, followed by Mozambique at 8% and Tanzania with 6.2%. Improvements in growth rates have also been witnessed in Lesotho, Namibia and South Africa.

Meanwhile, analysts have reportedly argued that the December debate on the withdrawal of EAC members from the other trading groups would affect the pace of the political federation whose awareness campaigns were simultaneously launched last month in the capitals of three countries.

"None of the partner states has shown the political will to consolidate their efforts into a concrete EA integration, with Uganda spearheading the campaign to achieve a political federation by 2010, while Kenya seems more emphatic on an economic integration whereas Tanzania is still unsure which road to pursue," another source conversant with the EAC procedures, who sought anonymity, said.