The Budget Committee has rejected a Shs1.4 billion request from the East African Community Affairs (EAC) for sensitization and public awareness by the Ministry of East African Community Affairs in the 2023/2024 financial year.
This was during a meeting in which the EAC Committee Chairperson Ms. Noeline Kisembo highlighted on the main problems facing the Ministry of East African Affairs which is visibility. She stressed that many Ugandans hardly know the importance of the EAC integration and how to benefit from it.
Abdi Fadhir Chemaswet who deputizes Ms. Kisembo said that the use of billboards is intended to create a wider understanding of the EAC integration.
“We will agree that if we travel in many parts of Uganda, you will find that EAC is not well known. If you are to go to Karamoja, they will tell you that they do not understand EAC. It is only the border districts that do understand,” said Chemaswet.
However some MPs on the budget committee opposed the planned expenditure saying the focus should be put instead on mobilizing Ugandans to know the market opportunities within the East African Community as opposed to spending on billboards.
The East African Community (EAC) is a regional intergovernmental organisation of seven Partner States, comprising Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, with its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania.
