EAC 'RECOVERY' BUDGET FOR TABLING THURSDAY

The East African Community (EAC) budget for  the 2022/23 financial year is set for tabling before the regional Parliament on Thursday June 2nd.. 

Tentative statistics did not indicate any increase from the last fiscal year's (2021/22) estimates during which some $ 91.7million was passed. 

However, the expenditure budget will be tabled at a time signs are clear that the region is slowly recovering from the severe impact of Covid-19.

A source close to the Secretariat said the budget will be tabled before the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) on June 2nd.

The Eala Commission, which oversees the affairs of the Assembly, was expected to meet yesterday here to approve the budget session programme.

The House has been holding meetings of its  Committees for the past two weeks, ahead of the plenary session starting this week.

The proposed estimates of $ 91.6million for 2022/23 was recently approved by the Council of Ministers, slightly less than $91.7million passed in 2021/22.

Like the case in recent years, the monies proposed for the EAC in the next fiscal year continue to show a downward trend.

Out of the total amount, some $37.5 million will be sourced from the development partners compared to $ 37.6million for 2021/22.  

But the ministers from the seven partner states who met in Mombasa recently defended the  estimates on ground of Covid-19 impact.

Tourism, a key economic sector in the EAC, was the hardest hit by the pandemic as the region lost 90 percent of the tourism revenues in 2020.

During the period, tourist arrivals to the region fell from 6.9 million before the pandemic to 2.2 million arrivals causing the huge losses.

The Finance and Planning ministry permanent secretary Emmanuel Tutuba said the budget is not likely to increase compared to last year's

"Owing to the challenge which the EAC went through during Covid-19 pandemic, the budget kitty is not likely to increase", he said. 

He said this time around, a significant amount of funds will be channeled to the development projects directly financed by the EAC.

These include, among others, completion of construction of the headquarters of some EAC institutions scattered around the region. 

They are the Kampala-based Inter University Council of East Africa (IUCEA) and the Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC) in Kisumu.

Others are for the research vessels in Lake Victoria and sending of observer teams to the Kenya General Election with one team already there. 

After being approved by the EAC Council of Ministers, the estimates had been under scrutiny of the Eala General Purpose Committee (GPC) since early this month. 

The EAC's financial year begins each July 1st to June the following year as is the case for the majority of its seven partner states. 

An overview of the EAC budgets since 2016/2017 to 2021/2022 indicate a  downward trend, a sign of declining donor support.

The difference between the estimates tabled in 2016/17 and those of last fiscal year (2021/22) is a whopping $ 20million!

In between, the annual expenditure estimates fell by about $10million from $110.1million in 2017/2018 to $99.7milion in 2018/2019. 

There was a slight increase to $111.4million in 2019/2020 but the estimates tumbled by another $10million to $90.5million in 2020/21 fiscal year.

During the 2020/2021 at the height of Covid-19 which battered the region, the regional body estimated to spend $ 97.6million. 

At the time, the estimates for 2021/22 fiscal were tabled before the House in June last year,the figure hadr dropped to $91.7 million.