Tanzania and Kenya have set December this year as the deadline by which the two would have removed most of the non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to trade between them NTBs – also called non-tariff measures (NTMs) – are trade barriers that restrict imports and/or exports of goods and/or services through mechanisms other than the simple imposition of tariffs. The countries that ratified the Protocol on the Establishment of the East African Customs Union that came into force in 2005 agreed to “immediately remove all the-then existing non-tariff barriers to the importation into their respective territories of goods originating in the other Partner States”.

They also agreed NOT to impose any new NTBS. However, more than 15 years after the Protocol came into force, trade barriers still plague intra-trade in the regional integration bloc of neighbouring countries that are hell-bent on an East African Federation, complete with a single federal government. For example, JTC formed by the Tanzania and Kenya governments as part and parcel of the JCC – and which is jointly led by Tanzania Minister for Industry and Trade, Mr Kitila Mkumbo, and his Kenyan counterpart, Ms Betty Mauna – identified 64 major challenges which are unfriendly to bilateral relations between Tanzania and Kenya alone.

Some 60 of the challenges comprised tariff and NTBs to trade between the two countries. However, a month after the state visit of Kenya by Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan last June – and successfully dialoguing with her Kenyan counterpart, President Uhuru Kenyatta – 30 of the 64 challenges have been effectively addressed by the JTC.

“Kazi iendelee”

As the late President John Magufuli said: “Hapa kazi tu”, we are happy to note that “Kazi iendelee”. This is what with the Joint Committee feverishly working to eliminate – at best; or ameliorate, at least – the remaining 34 challenges to Tanzania/Kenya bilateral relations, including functional trade relations.

To that noble end, members of the two countries’ Joint Commission on Cooperation (JCC) conducted a five-day meeting in the Kenyan capital Nairobi – and which ended on Tuesday, August 24.

The meeting’s participants solemnly committed their governments in addressing and “resolving most of the non-tariff barriers (which are adversely) affecting cross-border trade” between the two EAC founder-nations.

To that end, a permanent joint committee would be formed and tasked with supervising implementation of decisions/measures taken on addressing the trade barriers.

The Nairobi meeting was co-chaired by the Tanzania Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Ms Liberata Mulamula, and Kenya’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ms Raychelle Omamo.

Only four months remain to the end of December this year, and we pray that the governments of Kenya and Tanzania will walk the talk on functionally addressing the remaining barriers to trade and other bilateral relations between the two countries. This is especially considering that Tanzanian exports to Kenya have been perking and picking up in the wake of President Hassan’s interaction with Kenya’s President Kenyatta last May.

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