An expert blamed the African Union (AU) secretariat on Sunday for delay in realisation of a United States of Africa dream, as others questioned the driving force behind the integration agenda.
East African Community (EAC) secretary general, ambassador Juma Mwapachu, said at a two-day event to promote good governance in Africa, organized in Dar es Salaam by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, that OU's delay have seen the continental body lag behind some of regional blocs in the integration process.
"The problem I see here is that some regional integration blocs are moving faster than the AU," he told a gathering attended by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation chairman, Mo Ibrahim and a number of high-profile African current and former leaders.
Citing the EAC, Mr Mwapachu said several overlapping regional groupings throughout the continent are trying to knit their economies closer together, but the pace of integration is much slower at AU level.
"We are currently in the EAC Customs Union and just next week, our heads of state will be signing a Common Market Protocol and we are going ahead with other integration stages," he said.
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Trade between Kenya and Tanzania has grown by 119 per cent, while that between Kenya and Uganda has grown by 140 per cent since the EAC-Custom Union came into force.
"There have also been a lot of cross-border investments and stock market cross-listings EAC citizens are being encouraged to take part in IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) floated in each of the member countries the union has surely proved helpful to all but we're being let down by the continental body," he intoned.
In his remarks, Dr Mo Ibrahim advised members of the business community to spearhead the integration process, noting that the integration agenda is mostly not in the interests of politicians.
"It is not in the interest of politicians to go into a union the business community should lead the way; they have to feel bad about the ills that they go through when trading across borders of several disunited countries and that feeling should force them to force their governments to take action," he said.
He said political leaders hate union because some of them will have to sacrifice their positions when the union comes into force.
"Having a United State of Africa means that only one out of 53 presidents will retain the position of president we will have only one central bank governor, signaling that 52 central bank governors will lose their jobs the same goes to the numerous ministers and so there is no way these politicians can be interested in the integration process they are required to be forced into it by businesspeople businesses should say, 'give us space or else we will die," said Dr Mo Ibrahim.
He warned that failure by African states to immediately integrate may have devastating impacts on some of the countries in Africa.
"Remember, we are in the era of globalisation the economy of Germany alone is stronger than the economies of all the 53 African states; now can Africa survive when each country goes competing independently?" he wondered.
In his view, European politicians were acting in the same way as their African counterparts but members of the business community forced them into the now famous, 27-member European Union (EU).
The head of the EU delegation in the country, ambassador Tim Clarke, said the dream of a United States of Africa will only become meaningful if a system to integrate the continent's economies is worked out.
"If the integration agenda contains nothing regarding Africa's economic integration, then the continent is dead," he said emphasising on the need to start with integration of infrastructure.
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), secretary general, Mr Sindiso Ngwenya, told the gathering that EAC, Comesa and Southern African Development Community (Sadc), foresaw the need to knit their blocs closer together some time back and are currently working on how to integrate the blocs' infrastructure.
He acknowledged the commitments by 26 heads of states of the three regional blocs to unite the three blocs into a single trading bloc.
"When we met in Kampala last year, it were not technical people, but rather, heads of states who proposed to have the three blocs undergo several of the integration processes while technical people proposed just the formation of a Free Trade Zone, heads of states asked them to see ways by which the zone can go into other regional integration processes like Customs Union and further," he stressed.
In 1980 the then OAU (Organisation of African Unity) adopted a plan of action in Lagos, that called for a far-reaching regional approach to the socio-economic problems of the continent, with the ultimate creation of an African Common Market as a major step towards the continent's union.
The commitments in the Lagos Plan of Action were translated into concrete form in Abuja, Nigeria, in June 1991, when the OAU heads of state and government signed the treaty establishing the African Economic Community.
It provided a framework to achieve regional integration on the continent by consolidating the over fifty-odd national economies into a single continental market through a gradual process of coordination, harmonisation and progressive integration of regional economic communities.
Since then however, experts urge that travelling from one African country to the another still remains a nightmare, characterised by several bottlenecks from infrastructural to manmade.
"It's now over 19 years since I retired from active participation in regional integration issues and I think time is ripe for experts gave us a report on what has so far been done in my view, it is still very difficult for one to travel from one African country to the next," said former OAU secretary general, Dr Salim Ahmed Salim.
The Mo Ibrahim Foundation was launched by the mobile communications entrepreneur, Dr Mo Ibrahim, who is also a member of the board along with Lalla Ben Barka, Lord Cairns, Dr Mamphela Ramphele, Nathalie Delapalme, Sir Ketumile Masire, Mary Robinson, Dr Salim Ahmed Salim, and Nicholas Ulanov.
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