Members of the East Africa Legislative Assembly (EALA) have now embarked on sensitizing locals about the integration.
While addressing journalists at Uganda Media Centre on Monday, George Stephen Odongo, the chairperson Uganda Chapter East African Legislative Assembly, said the move is aimed at having residents of the six EAC countries learn about the implementations of other laws and other changes take place. This followed a Heads of State Summit in Arusha at the weekend where many resolutions were made but specifically all member states agreed to focus on trade, and free movement of labor.
“We are currently meeting population in all the partner states as part of our awareness creation and sensitisation programme. We are shall meet different stakeholders in country to share information on our mandate of; Oversight, Legislation and representation,” said Odongo.
Paul Musamali, a member of EALA, however said many traders are facing hardships since there are still laws that don’t allow free movements in countries like Tanzania.
“Countries like Tanzania, Burundi still have hard laws making it very hard for traders from different areas to carry out trade. That is why we need EALA members from these countries to present these challenges in their Parliaments to amend these laws in fovour of this integration,” said Musamali.
Odongo added that one of the core issues why EAC was formed is to promote trade from smaller markets. However on the issue of trade many challenges are still arising which required the assembly to call for the single currency which will help to ease trade in all the member states.
