Uhuru Kenyatta: Regional unity key to economic success

President Yoweri Museveni introduce President Uhuru Kenyatta to parliamentarians during a special session of the Uganda Parliament in Kampala Uganda on 10th August, 2015.

The road to the East African Community has assumed a new urgency with President Uhuru Kenyatta telling the Ugandan parliament that regional unity is the surest way to erase the last vestiges of colonialism on the continent.

During a historic visit, President Kenyatta joined his Ugandan counterpart, Yoweri Museveni, in making impassioned pleas to other regional states to embrace integration, citing recent regional infrastructural projects as evidence that the region has the capacity to rise form the ashes of colonialism to power.

"... we rejected and then defeated colonialism. Having done so, we did not go back to re-live the nations of the past. Instead, we forged new nation-states, expanded our sense of national identities, and adopted grander visions than had ever been known," he told MPs during his first address to a foreign Parliament, yesterday.

He added: "It is in the East African Community (EAC) where this great African dream is becoming realised most concretely. It is the fastest integrating region in Africa and one of the fastest in the world."

Kenya together with Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania form the core of the EAC that seeks to create a single trading block on the road to a political federation.

President Kenyatta has been on a three-day State visit to the neighbouring country, during which he also met Kenyan businessmen.

Among the projects currently being undertaken under the EAC is the standard gauge railway (SGR), the development of a regional pipeline and the expansion of energy projects.

These projects, when completed, are expected to spur economic growth in the region and increase its competitiveness.

There has also been significant progress in the realisation of a single customs union.

President Museveni lauded the Kenyan leader's commitment to regional integration, noting that doing business had become much easier since the Jubilee government ascended to power.

The SGR, when completed, is expected to reduce cargo transport costs by 60 per cent. The first phase of the railway line begins from Mombasa to Nairobi then to Malaba on its way to Uganda and eventually to Rwanda and South Sudan.

"Kenya is expanding the port of Mombasa and taking strong steps to rapidly improve its efficiency to global standards. We are also going ahead with the development of Lapsset (Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia transport corridor), which will offer the region yet another world-class outlet for its goods," said President Kenyatta.

 

"These infrastructure efforts are driven by the recognition that with Uganda as our neighbour and largest trading partner, we must prosper together," said the President.

The President drew parallels between the end of colonialism and the rise of the African continent, noting that the EAC holds the key to the progress of over 300 million people that make up the market.

"Africans say that 'if you want to go fast, go alone but if you want to go far, go together'," he said.

President Kenyatta's visit to Uganda and his address to Parliament is the clearest indication yet that the country's commitment to regional integration could be at an all-time high.

The visit came just two weeks after the country hosted the Global Entrepreneurship Summit that was co-hosted by US President Barack Obama.