There are reports of advanced developments in the East African economic and political integration. It appears the process is in the fifth gear yet the populace seems to be oblivious of the unfolding event.

It is now reported that East Africa will have attained the monetary union by December 2013 and the fast-tracking of the political integration, according to the roadmap, shall be attained by the year 2023 with rotational presidency.

I have serious reservations on this whole process and I am sure Ugandans will regret the full economic and political integration.

With the opening of borders and having one verification point of imports at Mombasa, Kenya, the implication is that businesses at border points like Malaba and Busia will be lost as there will no longer be serious activities there; clearing firms will shift to Mombasa hence those who have been supplying them with food, renting spaces for their offices and accommodation, etc., shall lose business; almost all factories that are dependent on imported raw materials like Roofings Limited, manufacturers of plastics, etc., will most likely shift to Kenya.

It will also follow that many staff of the Uganda Revenue Authority, Uganda National Bureau of Standards, among others, will shift to Mombasa hence renting houses thus providing market for the Kenyan economy.

There will be no justification for investors that use major imported components from outside setting up factories in Uganda because it will obviously be more meaningful to invest in Kenya and transport finished products to Uganda.

Moreover, available figures show that in intra-regional trade, Uganda exports 1 per cent and 3 per cent to Kenya and Tanzania respectively yet Kenya exports 60 per cent to Uganda. What we need is to produce what is needed elsewhere.

Today, even without any special trade arrangement, Uganda’s exports to South Sudan are at $425 million, which is more than our combined exports to Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi.

Note that although we integrate into one state, we shall not shift our communities to Kenya yet they will have lost their businesses and employment.

The argument that the big population will provide a bigger market is erroneous because population is of relevance only if it has effective purchasing power. Having a sea of impoverished, diseased, hungry, stunted people cannot be an economic solution.

Malaysia’s population is less than that of Uganda but the GDP of Malaysia is more than triple that of the five East African member states whose population is more than five times that of Malaysia.

The same contrast applies to Korea were the turnover of just one company, Samsung, is half the entire GDP of East Africa yet the Korean population is almost equal to that of Tanzania.

Even without the integration, we can develop into a modern economy if we put serious focus on the quality of our population, the quality of our education, the morals of our society, the levels of innovation/research, control population growth and mature democratically.

The World Bank report of February 2013 indicates that at the current investment in education, Uganda’s human capital in 2030 will be worse off than how Malaysia and Korea were in 1970.

It is a strategic error to fast-track political integration when our democracies are still fragile. Rwanda and Uganda have not yet passed the critical test of a mature democracy; Kenyans are still nursing their wounds and the graves which arose from attempts to change political leadership are still wet; Burundi is a feotus of a democracy but Tanzania, the democratic giant in the region, is falling for the folly of the integration.

Africans have demonstrated that we cannot govern ourselves in huge geographical territories under a unitary government as evidenced by Sudan, Congo and Algeria. The Bible says in 1 Tim 3:5 that if a man cannot govern his own house well, how then will he govern a bigger congregation?

Let us first nurture our individual states and let them grow before we go into full economic and political integration.

Author Mr Lubogo is a Member of Parliament in Uganda representing Bulamogi County

{first published in the Daily Monitor}