The late Kategaya was consumate diplomat and East African

By Luke Anami

When Kenyans were preparing to go to the polls on March 4, Uganda lost its first Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Community. 

The late Eriya Kategeya, passed on at the Nairobi Hospital on March 2. He was reportedly suffering from thrombosis. He was buried at his rural home in western Uganda, two days before the IEBC announced presidential results in Kenya.

Kategeya, who died aged 69, had a modest political career in a span of three decades. He was not a household name in Kenya, but many knew him as he was a household name in the East African Community.

He was vocal and instrumental at ensuring important EAC protocols were passed by all the EAC partner states of Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and his country, Uganda, which he represented.

I first met Kategeya while reporting on EAC matters in Nairobi in 2010.  But it was during the EAC Heads of State Summit in November 2011 in Bujumbura where I had a close encounter with the man described by many as the Uganda President Yoweri  Museveni’s ‘Number Two’.

He was referred to as ‘Uganda’s No  Two” because of his former role in the liberation of Uganda where he fought in the bush alongside Museveni. 

What most Kenyans do not know is that as a minister for EAC, Kategeya was instrumental in the EAC integration to a point of owning the Ugandan process. He fought and insisted that EAC was the only way that East Africa countries could liberate themselves from poor trade practices by the richer trading blocs of Asia and Europe. He missed the Nairobi EAC Heads of State summit in November, last year, largely due to ill health.

He played an instrumental role in enacticnc the EAC Common Market Protocol in 2010,  which calls for free movement of goods, labour, capital and services. He was eagerly waiting for an EAC political federation, which he believed would allow Uganda to flourish.

But he will be remembered for fighting those who slowed down the EAC process during crucial meetings, which the Press hardly captured. At one point, he admonished Tanzania’s behaviour at an EAC Heads of State Summit in Bujumbura in 2011, where President Kibaki took over EAC chairmanship.

Tanzania had just boycotted the signing of the protocol on Defence. The protocol was one of the many articles  lined up for approval by the EAC Council of Ministers to which Kenya’s EAC Minister Musa Sirma was the chairman. (The Protocol was signed last year by EAC Heads of Sates Summit in Nairobi).

 As a matter of procedure and practice, the EAC Council of ministers is responsible with submitting annual progress reports to the Summit and prepare the agenda for the meetings of the EAC Heads of State Summit. It also Implements the decisions and directives of the Summit as may be addressed to it.

But in Bujumbura, the Minister for EAC for Tanzania Samuel Sita declined to sign the annual report, which was to be submitted to the EAC Heads of State for final deliberations.

“There is a clause in the protocol our government is not happy with,” Sita explained later to the Press.

But it was Kategeya’s admonishing of Tanzania that caught the media attention. “When you go to both Dar-es-Salaam and Arusha there is a lot of construction going on. This is because of the EAC Integration. Tanzania has benefitted from the EAC more than Uganda and it should be the last country to delay the EAC integration process,” Kategeya said.

Sense of shame

“Where is the EAC headquarters? It’s in Tanzania yet they don’t want to co-operate. We should have had the EAC headquarters in Uganda or even in Kenya if Tanzania do not like the EAC idea.”

Tired and waiting for the Tanzania delegation to sign the Council of Ministers report, Kenya’s EAC Minister Musa Sirma who had taken over the reins of chairman EAC Council of Ministers decided to sign the documents with Kategeya’s support.

The other EAC ministers from Rwanda and Burundi followed suit. In Sirma, Kategeya had found an ally!

He closely admired the way Kenyans debated issues and at times he would turn to the media and inquire how Kenya’s politics was fairing on.

He followed Kenya’s election presidential debate from his hospital bed in Nairobi a few days before he died.

Many of his colleagues agree his humility, brutal candor and a lifestyle that depicted revolutionary ideals. Though he was clearly second only to Museveni in status during the war, Kategeya never attempted to show off his power and influence, although he was a few among many Ugandan Ministers to ever opposed President Museveni and got away with it!

In May 2003, he was dropped from his ministerial position during a reshuffle, along with other ministers who opposed the removal of term limits. Kategaya continued to speak out against amending the term limits provision until eventually the heavily pro-Museveni Parliament pushed the amendment through.

In his book, Impassioned for Freedom’, which was launched in 2004 by former EAC Secretary General Amanya Mushega, he Kategeya explained why he was against the removal of term limits. “In Africa, but particularly in Uganda, we seem to be cursed with having leaders who cannot be taken on their word. Of late I have been told that politicians are people without a sense of shame,” he said.

Following Museveni and NRM’s win in the 2006 general elections, Kategeya was in reconciliation talks with Museveni.

Museveni nominated his old ally for approval by the Parliament as a Cabinet Minister. Subsequently, he was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Community Affairs, posts he held till his passing.

Anami is a Senior writer with The Standard.