East African Community member states will have to wait longer for a monetary union.
A taskforce to look into the matter has proposed to delay the implementation of the East African Monetary Union (EAMU) until 2031 from initial date of 2024, saying it is too soon considering members have not attained all requirements.
The proposed delay is an indictment on the members’ commitment to achieve EAMU, a key pillar of integration.
The EAMU is the third pillar of the EAC, others being the Customs Union and the Common Markets Protocol. The region, under EAMU, is expected to adopt a single currency by 2024.
“We have a roadmap that was supposed to be implemented between 2013, when the Monetary Union protocol was signed, and 2024. But we did not manage to implement most of the activities in that roadmap,” said Dr Pantaleo Kessy, Principal Economist, EAC Secretariat.
“According to the roadmap, the EAC convergence criteria were to be attained by 2021 and be maintained for three years in the run-up to the establishment of the Monetary Union in 2024.”
However, going through each activity, shows that all the partner states – Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and South Sudan – are behind schedule.
According to the EAMU roadmap, four broad prerequisites need to be achieved ahead of the establishment of the Monetary Union and the first one includes the full implementation of the Customs Union and Common Market protocols.
However, both the Customs Union and Common Market Protocols are currently under implementation. Although much progress has been made, the protocols are not yet fully implemented.
“Partner states are at different levels of implementation and that partly slows the implementation of the EAC third pillar, the EAMU,” said Dr Kevit Desai, Principal Secretary at the EAC and Regional Ministry of Kenya.
Second, not all partner states have attained the four macroeconomic convergence criteria, for the implementation of the monetary union.
