By Adonis Byemelwa
The mood inside the halls of the Arusha International Conference Centre this month was polite but uneasy. Delegations arrived with the usual speeches about unity and regional integration, yet everyone in the room knew the East African Community was confronting a problem far less ceremonial: it is running short of money.
At the summit, Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, assumed the rotating chairmanship of the East African Community, taking over from Kenya’s leader, William Ruto. The handover carried symbolic weight. It also placed Museveni at the helm of a regional bloc whose institutions are quietly struggling to keep the lights on.
The EAC was designed as one of Africa’s most ambitious integration projects, a market of more than 300 million people stretching from the Indian Ocean to the heart of Central Africa. Its goals are bold: a customs union, a common market, eventually a monetary union and political federation. Those ideas sound grand in communiqués. They sound far less certain when the organisation’s members fail to pay their annual dues.
Behind closed doors in Arusha, officials spoke openly about the arrears piling up across partner states. Only a small number of governments have consistently paid their full contributions to the community’s budget. Others have fallen behind by months or years, leaving a growing financial gap that now threatens the daily functioning of the organisation.
That gap has begun to show up in the most visible places. Sessions of the East African Legislative Assembly have faced delays linked to budget shortages. Legal work at the East African Court of Justice moves slowly when funds to support its activities arrive late. These are not symbolic institutions; they are the legal and legislative backbone of the regional project. When they stall, integration stalls with them.
It is easy to blame bureaucracy or poor management in Arusha, but the deeper issue sits in national capitals. East African governments today face financial pressures that look very different from the optimism that surrounded the community’s revival in 2000. Public debt has climbed, currencies have weakened, and the demands on national budgets have multiplied.
In ministries of finance from Bujumbura to Juba, officials must choose between funding schools, stabilising fuel prices, paying civil servants, or wiring money to a regional secretariat hundreds of kilometres away. In those moments, regional obligations often slip down the priority list. The arrears that frustrate EAC administrators are, in many cases, the by-product of governments trying to balance fragile economies.
However, the pattern has created a troubling contradiction. The same leaders who speak enthusiastically about regional integration are the ones who hold back the financial support needed to make it real. A customs union, a common market, and shared legal systems cannot run on declarations alone. They require steady financing, something the community has struggled to secure.
At the Arusha summit, leaders tried to confront that contradiction with a practical reform. They approved a new formula for funding the organisation’s budget, splitting contributions between equal shares and a portion tied to each country’s economic capacity. Wealthier economies are expected to shoulder more of the financial burden, while smaller states contribute less.
The change reflects a quiet recognition that the old system had become unrealistic. When the EAC consisted only of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, equal contributions were manageable. The community now counts eight members, including economies that vary dramatically in size and fiscal strength. Treating them as identical contributors was never going to last.
Another decision from the summit carried a sharper edge. Governments that fall behind on their contributions may lose the privilege of nominating candidates for senior positions within the organisation. It is a diplomatic way of saying that influence within the community will increasingly depend on financial discipline.
Museveni, never one to soften his words, framed the challenge in strategic terms. East Africa, he argued, risks marginalising itself in a rapidly shifting global economy if regional cooperation weakens. Large trading blocs are forming across the world, and smaller markets struggle to compete alone. For East African states, the choice is not between integration and independence; it is between integration and irrelevance.
His warning lands at a delicate moment for the community. The EAC has expanded quickly in recent years, bringing in new members such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia. Expansion strengthens the bloc’s geopolitical reach, but it also increases administrative costs and political complexity. A larger community demands stronger institutions, not weaker ones.
The political landscape surrounding the bloc has also grown more complicated. Tensions in eastern Congo, disputes between neighbouring states, and domestic political pressures all influence how leaders approach regional commitments. At the Arusha meeting, the absence of some heads of state hinted at these unresolved frictions. Diplomats were careful not to dramatise the issue, but the gaps in attendance spoke quietly for themselves.
For observers who have followed East African integration for decades, the moment carries echoes of history. The first East African Community, established in 1967, collapsed ten years later after disagreements over finances, governance, and political direction. Railways stopped operating jointly, shared institutions shut down, and the dream of regional unity dissolved into national rivalries.
The modern EAC, reborn at the turn of the millennium, has travelled much further than its predecessor. Cross-border trade has grown significantly, infrastructure corridors link ports and inland markets, and citizens move more easily between neighbouring countries. For many East Africans, the community is not an abstract diplomatic project but a practical reality shaping daily life.
Truck drivers carrying goods from Mombasa to Kampala, students studying across borders, and small traders navigating regional markets all depend on the institutions the EAC maintains. When funding shortages disrupt those institutions, the consequences ripple far beyond conference rooms and official communiqués.
This is why the debate over membership contributions matters more than it first appears. A missed payment to the community’s budget may seem like a technical accounting issue. In practice, it can slow the machinery that keeps regional trade predictable and disputes manageable. Over time, those slowdowns accumulate.
Museveni’s new role as chair, therefore, comes with expectations that extend beyond ceremony. His long tenure in regional politics gives him influence among neighbouring leaders, but influence alone will not close the funding gap. What the community needs is a culture of accountability that makes financial commitments as routine as summit speeches.
That change will require something deeper than revised formulas or polite diplomatic reminders. It will require governments to treat regional obligations not as optional contributions but as investments in their own economic future. The roads, markets, and legal frameworks the community supports are not abstract benefits; they are tools that help national economies grow.
For East Africa, the stakes reach beyond balance sheets. The region’s population is expanding rapidly, its cities are growing, and its economies are seeking a place in global supply chains. A functioning regional bloc could amplify those opportunities. A weakened one would leave each country navigating those challenges largely alone.
As the summit in Arusha drew to a close, the speeches returned to familiar language about solidarity and shared destiny. Those words have long been part of the EAC’s political vocabulary. What matters now is whether they are matched by the quieter but more decisive act of paying the bills that keep the community alive.
