Exclusive Interview with the East Africa Community Secretary-General [Part 2]

Thursday, February 13, 2020

RegionWeek Team receives the East Africa Community Secretary-General, Ambassador Liberat Mfumukeko, as our Guest. We recently did an Exclusive Interview with him in Bujumbura, Burundi. We share with you the discussion we had about issues that matter in the region.

RegionWeek: Young people are the majority of the population of the EAC block, what are the major programs that target this demographic growth and what is the impact so far?

Secretary-General: In the EAC, we are doing many things for the youth, we have felt the need of ensuring that their livelihoods are improved and sustained. We have worked to diversify education and job creation is really at the center of our attention.

We have been encouraging, tenants, entrepreneurs—we help them with the capacity building and sometimes with access to funds, and make sure that they can grow and improve.

We have the youth ambassadors, the EAC ambassadors in each country— who are actually meant to inform us as to what youth in that country expected from the EAC; who also inform population about what the EAC is doing.

Every single year, in the EAC, we have what we call the SG forum. The Secretary-General goes in each country and meets with the private centers and youth, women, civil society. It is a platform where we actually discussed many issues and tried to find solution together.

RegionWeek: There have been complaints that Burundians are losing out when it comes to getting the EAC jobs, what are the reasons?

Secretary-General: Well, there are two main reasons why it has been difficult to Burundians to access positions in the community. One of course is the language because the language of the community is English.

The second reason is the level of educational required. In the EAC, any professional position requires the candidates who have at least a Master's degree. So even the lowest professional positions generally required to have a Master's degree and for so many years up until very recently, Burundi did not have master's degree programs in its universities.So we have had candidates who unfortunately do not fulfill these requirements.

In 2014, the summit of Heads of states did accept that EAC conducts some studies to see how we can integrate French as language of the community, and these studies are ongoing, it will be completed certainly this year, 2020, and we are going to make a submission to the Senate. It will be good to have French in all the EAC programs and all EAC organs of decisions.

RegionWeek: Human Rights Organization are still saying that repatriation of Burundian refugees in Tanzania is not voluntary but forced repatriation; can you clarify about this point as the East African Secretary General?

Secretary General: Well, like many other organizations we generally rely on the most well known institutions, handling this issue of refugees.

We have been meeting with UNHCR, IOM every year to see exactly what is going on with Burundian refugees, Congolese refugees while in Tanzania but also in other countries such as South Sudan.

Concerning Burundian refugees who are being repatriated from Tanzania, I see a discrepancy between what the media had been saying, and what we have been told by both the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and by International Organization for Migration (IOM).

We met very recently with IOM, the international organization of migration. They told us that they are involved in repatriation of Burundian refugees and no refugee was being forced to enter the bus going from Tanzania to Burundi. It appeared to us that the refugees are coming back to Burundi, and they are not forced to come.

We are not on the ground so we don't know, maybe there were some incidents whereby people are put under pressure to come back. However, we are being told that Burundians are coming back without being forced.

RegionWeek: How can East Africans in the diaspora get involved within the block for the benefit of the community as a whole?

Secretary-General: Well, the East Africans in the diaspora can actually benefit a lot from the community. They can find jobs in the community. As you know, myself, I was member of the Diaspora for 23 years. I was in Europe and the US. So people can work in many places in the EAC.

They can work in international organizations such as EAC; they can work in the private sector and the kind of opportunities they can find in all the EAC job market are very interesting. The EAC at this point, we have been able to employ between 50 and 100 persons who live in Europe, Canada, and from other African countries.

There is a great potential for creating businesses and growing businesses. As the North America and Europe is saturated, it is harder to undertake something new on the sketches but the EAC region is still open to so many opportunities of offering services and creating companies. If they wish to make investments they should actually really consider it and know that if they are from Burundi and they want to do business in Tanzania and Kenya they are able to do that.

RegionWeek:What can East Africans expect from EAC in the next 20 years, what are the great milestones ahead?

Secretary-General: The 20th anniversary of the EAC has been really a time for self-examination. We know that a lot has been done in our community.

We know that most of our countries have experienced economic growth, but at the same time, we know that our people are still struggling with the basic needs. With education they have, they cannot find a job. Therefore, I think it is a time when we really have to accelerate the pace of our economic development.

It is a time when we have to put all our efforts together so that we can have stability that is more political and it is time when we have to focus on the better improvement of the lives of East Africans.

In 2018, the EAC had the fifth development strategy, which was adopted by the Heads of states. Moreover, when you look at it, the seven priorities we chose, really tackle, some of these areas, which are most helpful to our population. Education is part of it, job creation is part of it, political, peace and security is part of that.

Therefore, we have chosen to work over the next five years and actually want to put this in our next plan on really focusing on basic needs of our people and make sure that there can be a discipline, which can enable the EAC to become very strong economically and to be able to compete with other regions. Why not, to the countries of the international powerhouse.

RegionWeek :Thank you for your precious timed and this Interview

Secretary-General: You are all welcome.

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