East African Legislative Assembly, Arusha, Tanzania: 15 June, 2022: The Assembly has approved the EAC Budget estimates for the Financial Year 2022/23.
The EAC Budget presented to the House last week by the Chairperson of the Council of Ministers and Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for EAC and Regional Development, Hon. Betty C. Maina, amounts to USD 91,579,215.
The EAC Budget is to be appropriated as follows: East African Community Secretariat ($45,137,041), East African Legislative Assembly ($15,086,640) and the East African Court of Justice ($3,803,836).
The Inter-University Council for East Africa shall receive ($10,566,869), Lake Victoria Basin Commission ($8,289,474) while $ 2,807,083 is earmarked for the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization. On their part, the East African Science and Technology Commission shall receive ($1,725,256), East African Kiswahili Commission ($1,284,219) and the East African Health Research Commission ($1,867,665).
The East African Competition Authority is to benefit from an amount of $1,011,132 in the Financial Year 2022/23.Prior to the passage of the EAC Appropriation Bill, 2022, the Assembly had resolved itself in to a Committee of Ways and Supplies to consider and approve the Financial Statement for the new Financial Year 2022/2023. It further reconstituted in to a Committee of Supply to approve the Estimates of Expenditure for the same.
The EAC Budget is anchored under the theme: “Accelerating Economic Recovery and Enhancing Productive Sectors for Improved Livelihoods.’ According to the Chair of the Council of Ministers, the priority interventions for FY 2022/2023, include Peace and Security; Private Sector Development and Participation; Economic Integration; Improvement of productivity, Value addition and promotion of regional supply chains; EAC Digitalization Agenda; Health; Implementation of the roadmap of the EAC Monetary Union, Infrastructure Development, and; Institutional strengthening and transformation.
Other areas include the re-engineering of production and logistics arrangements in line with digitalized frameworks; and the promotion of awareness creation and dissemination of information on the Community.
Yesterday, the Committee on General Purpose as part of its mandate, presented the report of the EAC 2022/23 Budget to the Assembly containing a raft of recommendations. The Committee considered the annual estimates of revenue and expenditure for 2022/2023 Budget and scrutinized related annexure to the budget, the MTEF framework and the EAC Secretary General’s policy statement.
The Committee further interacted with the Council of Ministers as well as the Executive Heads of the Institutions and Organs.
Key among the recommendations is the need for the Council of Ministers to finalize the modalities on Alternative Sustainable funding mechanism for the Community in a bid to enhance the disbursement of funds and address the increasing financial challenges the Community is facing. In addition, the Committee is recommending the imposition of sanctions against Partner States which have failed to meet their financial obligations as per the provisions of Article 143 of the EAC Treaty. According to the Chairperson of the Committee, a number of activities planned by the Community did not take place due to late remittances of funds.
The House adjourned indefinitely until the next Financial Year.
-Ends-
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