Members are today, Friday, May 3, concluding a week-long meeting in Juba, South Sudan, which brought together central bankers from the East African Community (EAC) to discuss how the region can fast-track plans aimed at adopting a common currency.
Such discussions have happened from the day the region adopted the Monetary Union protocol in 2013, which was a foundation upon which countries in the region would build on to converge their currencies.
However, there has been less progress towards converging the currencies of individual countries into the EAC single currency. The East African Monetary Institute, a precursor to the East African Central Bank that was supposed to be up by 2021 has not been established.
A single currency was to be adopted by 2024. Members resolved to extend the timeline by 10 more years to 2031. That is strange considering that, more than ever, currency convergence is a necessity to protect the region against external shocks such as growing depreciation of local currencies.
To be fair, it is not that members do not understand the benefits of currency convergence. Any one leader in the region you would ask will tell you that they are convinced a common currency would ease trade by bringing down the cost of doing business, boost the flow of investment, and increase remittances.
Members pretend to have similar priorities, but that is not the case. Burundi and DRC constantly struggle to stabilise the safety and security of their countries. It would be ironic to think that they will move at the level of, say, Kenya and Rwanda that want to transform their economies by investing in advanced manufacturing.
At the same time, it should be clear at the moment that countries have different priorities, therefore, political will to implement or advance plans that are agreed at regional level will depend on these priorities.
If Burundi can close its border with Rwanda and DRC threaten Rwandan traders, or if Kenya can ban Uganda maize imports into their market, how do you expect these to easily agree to converging their currencies if they can't agree on simple things.
The plans on paper are good, but they should translate into action.
