JK’s caution on monetary union laudable

By Mobhare Matinyi, Washington DC     

The caution given by the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Dr Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, on the creation of the East African monetary union is praiseworthy. Tanzania’s leader issued the much-needed warning while addressing members of the East African Legislative Assembly in Arusha last week.

Considering the sensitivity of the matter and the hasty behaviour that other member states of the East African Community (EAC) have demonstrated so far, President Kikwete could not have said it better; he nailed it superbly.

The President, who served as Tanzania’s finance minister between 1994 and 1995, noted that the monetary union protocol team needs to be extremely careful as this is the most vital stage of the integration process. He said if the monetary union is not crafted carefully, it will put the region in trouble citing the example of the ongoing nuisance in the European Union.

Kikwete was not asking anybody to go slow or to halt anything, but to be judicious, meticulous, methodical, and realistic; in fact, he was asking for speedy domestication of key issues in the common market protocol. This is important to highlight as recent experience has shown that often when Tanzania cautions on something in the integration process, the messages gets totally distorted to the detriment of the community’s future.

It cannot be emphasized more, that frankly, Tanzania is more experienced in international cooperation matters than any other member, and that should serve as an advantage to the EAC rather than a wrongly-perceived inconvenience. If truly experience matters, then the EAC is blessed to have Tanzania as a member state.

Why Tanzania? Apart from the fact that it is the only existing united republic in Africa and the country that championed the creation of the East African federation on the eve of Africa’s independence, Tanzania also lost more when the former East Africa Community collapsed in 1977, and that was a unique lesson.

While Tanzania together with Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda were among the founding members of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963, it’s only Tanzania that became the headquarters and the leader of the OAU Liberation Committee. Later, from 1989 to 2001, Tanzania became the only EAC member to have led the OAU Secretariat through Dr Salim Ahmed Salim; furthermore, its citizen was the first Speaker of the Pan-African Parliament in 2004. Apparently, only Tanzania under President Kikwete has led the newly-established African Union.

Likewise, Tanzania together with Uganda and Kenya were members of the Commonwealth since their independences, but it is Tanzania that always played a leading role among African countries on key issues such as the liberation of South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Besides, Tanzania founded the Frontline States which functioned as the base for liberation struggles and defensive alliances against South African and Portuguese aggression. Tanzania then advocated the formation of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) in 1980, the forerunner of the current Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Moreover, Tanzania and other EAC member states as well became founding members of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) in 1994, but later quit the organization to focus more on the EAC and avoid too much overlapping of policy matters, a common syndrome in Africa.

Looking at United Nations participation, Tanzania scores higher than its counterparts in virtually every aspect; in fact four UN Secretary-Generals have appointed Tanzanians to higher responsibilities such as heads of several committees in the 1970s, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995, Under-Secretary-General for UN-Habitat in 2002, and Deputy Secretary-General in 2007.

Although all five countries were member states of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) only Tanzania’s contribution was exceptional. Consequently, when NAM formed the South Commission in 1986, Tanzania through Julius Nyerere became the leader of the team made up of distinguished individuals from 25 countries excluding other EAC members.

Tanzania has outshone her counterparts in other intercontinental groupings as well such as the Group of 77, which Tanzania presided over in 1997, the only EAC member to have done so. No wonder that the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region appointed a Tanzanian its first Executive Secretary in 2006.

This acquired experience and the unique opportunity of being the only united republic on the continent afford Tanzania a rare practical experience in both worlds, the one based on the realistic theory of international politics which ascertains the sanctity of the state, and the one based on the liberal theory which glorifies internationalism.

The calculus of the monetary union may need another discussion, but for the moment the truth is, Tanzania’s caution is a matter of pragmatism and therefore, should be heeded graciously. The negotiators of the EAC protocols ought to reap the benefits of having such an experienced and sober member state, which always ensures that sanity remains uncompromised.