The process of regional integration enters a crucial stage this month when heads of state meet in Arusha in the next three weeks to sign the common market protocol.

This will be a remarkable milestone and an enviable feat for a region that only revived its economic co-operation policy ten years ago.

By signing this protocol, the regional leaders will be sending a clear signal to the rest of the world that the region is ripe for a fully fledged custom union - literally, a market without custom borders.

It will also send strong signals that the region is on course towards the realisation of its long held ambition of becoming a political federation in the next few years.

However the stubborn questions however remain. Are we biting more than we can chew?

Are countries such as Rwanda and Burundi who just joined the EAC custom union two years ago ready for a common market?

A common market or a fully fledged custom union presupposes free movement of factors of production, but the regional trade is still replete with many non tariff barriers (NTBs).

Lack of an EAC visa, numerous police road blocks, cumbersome inspection procedures and varying trade regulations among the states are some of the NTBs that come to mind immediately one mentions intra regional trade.

Secondly, disbanding the internal custom borders means that the region must come up with a central regional authority to hold its custom charges.

Given the slow pace of implementation of regional programmes, can we be certain that such authority will be in place by January next year to discharge the function of collecting taxes and distributing it to the regional states?

Are national states ready to cede tax collection power to a semi-autonomous regional institution?

What about the formula for sharing out the common revenues given the different populations and GDPs of different states?

While we welcome the steps taken so far to give the region a common market, we take this early opportunity to warn our political leadership to tread carefully in implementing the regional integration programmes.

Regional projects of this magnitude require adequate time for thorough consultation and consensus building to avoid future fallouts the same way it happened with the defunct EAC which collapsed in 1977.

The EU whose model has been copied by the region took 11 years to agree on a custom union and 42 years to achieve a single currency compared to five and 12 years respectively for EAC.

Our leaders may justify the dizzying space of concluding regional matters by arguing that the EAC states have similar economic and political structures but the mutual suspicions that exist among the regions populations can be deciphered from the growing number of NTBs that each state has erected in the path of regional citizens seeking to explore opportunities beyond national borders.