The East African Community (EAC) is an intergovernmental organization composed of seven countries in the East African Great Lakes region: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Uganda. Uhuru Kenyatta, the president of Kenya, is the current EAC chairman. The organization was founded in 1967, collapsed in 1977, and was revived on 7 July 2000.
In 2010, Tanzanian officials expressed interest in inviting the DRC to join the EAC. DRC applied for admission to the EAC in June 2019. If approved, the DRC would give the EAC its first port on the African west coast. In June 2021, the EAC Summit launched a verification mission to assess the suitability of the DRC for admission to the Community, which was drafted and submitted to the EAC Council of Ministers.
In February 2022, the EAC Council of Ministers recommended that the DRC be admitted as a new member state of the EAC. On 18 March 2022, the EAC Secretary-General Dr Peter Mathuki confirmed that the Heads of States would approve the admission on 29 March 2022. The Democratic Republic of the Congo became a member of the EAC on 29 March 2022, at a virtual Head of State summit chaired by Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya becoming its 7th Partner State.
The Chairperson of the Summit, H.E Uhuru Kenyatta, informed the meeting that DRC had met all the set criteria for admission as provided for in the Treaty for the establishment of the EAC. And DRC was expected to sign the Treaty of Accession before 14th April, 2022.
DRC President Felix Tshishekedi termed it a historical day for DRC, stating that it paved way for the harmonization of the country’s policies with those of the EAC. Meanwhile,In his remarks, Uganda’s President, Hon. Yoweri Museveni said that DRC joining the Community was an event of great significance, adding that he had personally been waiting for the last 60 years for DRC to reconnect with EAC.
DRC is expected as a requirement to deposit her instrument of ratification with the Secretary-General of the EAC before 29 September 2022. President Samia of Tanzania expressed hope that DRC would eventually ratify the Treaty of Accession to ensure full integration of her people into the bloc and reaffirmed Tanzania’s commitment to the integration process.
Addressing the Summit, EAC Secretary General Hon. (Dr.) Peter Mathuki, said that the admission of DRC into the EAC came with increased GDP and expanded market size making EAC a home to about 300 million people, which would be mutually beneficial to the people of both EAC and DRC by providing employment and investment opportunities that would come along with this new development.
Implication on the region’s economic potential
DRC shares borders with five of the EAC Partner States including, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan and is therefore geographically suitable for intra trade within the regional bloc.
DRC’s penultimate steps to be formally admitted into the East African Community have signaled an additional market of over 90 million people for the bloc. The country’s population has the potential to contribute to an expanded market and investment opportunities to achieve a Common Market. There is hope that the cost of living in DRC will change drastically, in regard to the new trade arrangements the country is yet to ratify.
President Kenyatta welcomed DRC to the Customs Union and Common Market which are the signature pillars of the EAC and the foundation upon which social, political, trade, investment and economic interests stand. In addition, the EAC is one of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) recognized by the African Union (AU).
At the signing ceremony the EAC Secretary General Peter Matuku Mathuki expressed the view that the EAC could now more easily access the African Continental Free Trade (AfCFTA) Agreement, emphasizing that the EAC can now span from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean making the region competitive and easy to access the larger African Continental Free Trade Area. The RECs that have advanced to deeper levels of integration as AfCFTA building blocks, have advantages in form of experience, institutions, infrastructural linkages, and proximity considerations. Which puts EAC in a position of achieving opportunities and being able to handle challenges as a group.
The EAC is one of the most advanced in terms of integration arrangements with commitments to form a Common Market. In principle, all trade in goods as well as services must therefore be liberalized among the members within a reasonable period of time. This is in sync with DRC which embraces a free market economy with liberalized trade, financial sector, and investment regime that is compatible with the EAC Treaty requirements.
To focus clearly on the benefits: given Franz Fanon’s acclamations on the continent, Africa is shaped like a gun with Congo as the trigger, which trigger if it bursts would make the whole of Africa explode. The expectation is that this explosion be a positive one bringing about great economic achievements and higher levels of development for EAC. Equally, the older states of EAC need to set good examples for the new states for instance, trade bickering between Kenya and Tanzania has to be set aside permanently and replaced with mature negotiation if DRC is to sustain her stay within the EAC family.
It is significant to note that President Tshisekedi recapitulated his earlier call to the EAC Summit for the establishment of a new EAC institution that would ensure the sustainable exploitation of the region’s vast natural resources in addition to mitigating the effects of climate change. Lensing through this, integration would make harnessing of some idle resources viable with benefits for the entire region. For example, a power dam at Inga would supply 60,000 MW of clean, renewable energy and hopefully closing off debates and hassles of where or not to build hydro-electric dams in East Africa. Equally, mineral resources of DRC and the wider EAC market are estimated to make rapid industrialization of the region possible due to the already available support from the local market and as well as revenue earned from international exports.
There is hope that the EAC could gain access to West Africa and the Atlantic Ocean through DR Congo, but the country’s road and rail networks would need to be massively upgraded first. The only way of getting across this vast country, at the moment is by air. This potential expansion of trade links from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic would help expand the region’s economic potential.
However, access to other states within the regional bloc is currently not straightforward for Congolese business people. For example, for a Congolese to get travel documents to visit Uganda, they need to pay $45 at the DR Congo side of the border. Then when they reach the Ugandan side, they need to pay $50 for a visa and additional charges for a Covid-19 test, so in total one ends up paying about $120. Congolese citizens wishing to visit the EAC member countries without a visa may need to wait a little longer until full integration.
Conclusively, the geopolitical, legal, and economic implications of this development are vast and challenging. It could bring massive developmental benefits to the region or form political instability and military interventions from neighboring countries. The fact that recently there has been an attack in DRC after the summit to enable DRC join the EAC is a clear indication that the bloc has a lot of work ahead in regard to creating a free and fair-trade atmosphere and development. It won’t be easy to integrate such a huge, chaotic country into the rest of the EAC but we hope for the best.
