EAC set to get replacement of its "disastrous" Secretary General

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.