By Our
Reporter, ARUSHA Tanzania
Expectations are high ahead of the East African Community Heads of State Summit scheduled for February 27, when leaders will make a decision on the new Secretary General of the regional body.
The Secretary General runs daily affairs of the bloc's Secretariat, the executive organ of the
community.
The
Secretary General is the principal executive and accounting officer of the
Community as well as the Secretary of the Summit.
The
nominee for the top executive job will replace Burundian national, Liberat
Mfumukeko, who has held the position for the past five years.
Mfumukeko
assumed the office in 2016 replacing Rwanda’s Richard Sezibera.
Critics have described the tenure of the outgoing East
African Community Secretary General as a “disaster” and lacking in consensus
building.
Based
on the four pillars of the EAC – Customs Union, Common Market Protocol,
Monetary Union and Political Federation – critics aver that none of those
registered any meaningful development during Mfumukeko’s five-year tenure.
Instead,
they accuse him of having been at loggerheads with almost all the major organs
of EAC, including the Council of Ministers, East African Legislative Assembly
and the East African Court of Justice.
Mfumukeko responded to a number of allegations implicating
him in a corruption scandal saying, he has created enough enemies while doing
his job.
“In the process of implementing change one creates many
enemies because of the discomfort it causes to conform to internationally
accepted standards in future when they are,” Mfumukeko said.
Speaking
to reporters here, Aden Omar Abdikadir, a Kenyan member of the East African
Legislative Assembly said that "the new SG will have a big task
ahead."
It is
for the above reasons that Abdikadir believes whoever comes in now "will
inherit an organisation that is functionally on its knees," considering
low staff morale, conflict between organs and a community which is financially broke.
Abdikadir
said that there is also a lot of mistrust between partner states because of the
lack of a strong community organ to coordinate their cooperation.
"The
new SG needs to move with speed to build trust and relationships between organs
of the community and between partner states," Abdikadir noted.
"He
or she will also need to bring in charisma and a good working relationship with
employees of the community. He has to build the motivation of the team and
rejuvenate the community."
The
position of SG is held on a rotational basis and this is expected to be Kenya’s
turn, meaning that according to protocol, President Uhuru Kenyatta would
present the Kenyan candidate for the job for approval by the summit.
However,
reports from the bloc’s headquarters in Arusha says that there is an
application from South Sudan too.
South Sudan is the latest entrant into the regional body of six regional countries.
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