Arusha — The East African Community now expects to move into own premises in 2012, the year that construction work of its Arusha based headquarters are scheduled for completion.

The construction, however has not yet started and according to the EAC Secretary General, Ambassador Juma Mwapachu, it will take 30 months (that is two-and-a-half years) from the laying of the first brick to completion.

The Foundation Stone for this ambitious project was scheduled to be laid by the five heads of states from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda on Friday, November 20 shortly before the leaders addressed the regional citizens from Sheikh Amri Abeid Stadium.

The project would cost 14 million Euros equivalent to 30.2/- billion and the four storey building will be built on Plot number 12 Block 111 in Sekei area, adjacent to the Arusha International Conference Center which coincidentally used to be headquarters of the former EAC.

The plot also hosts three buildings, one with a legendary history of the former EAC which collapsed in 1977. In this house former EA heads of state used to meet.

The good news is that those two historical buildings, including the one which used to house former EAC founders, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and Milton Obote will be preserved. According to the EAC Estate Officer Mr Phil Makini Kleruu, one of them is going to be turned into a special historical museum.

As a tenant to the Arusha International Conference Center, the community secretariat pays an annual rent of US $450,000 which is slightly over half a billion Tanzanian shillings. The EAC is also paying additional rents to the Safari Hotel Building and Diamond Trust complex where it has outsourced tenancy due to limited space at the AICC.

The proposed three-winged EAC complex will sprout on the 9.8 acres of land which contrary to speculations that it was 'small' is in reality much larger than the area currently occupied by the mammoth AICC complex whose plot measures up to 8.8 acres.

Germany has granted the community funds for the construction. The project was to start in 2006 but had to be shelved after it became apparent that the initial funding was inadequate and the EAC had to apply for more grants.

From then, the start dates kept shifting from 2007 then 2008 and early this year the EAC estate officer Dr Makini Kleruu announced that the construction would begin in September 2009 but it is now November and the plot hasn't even been cleared.