Ugandans will soon enjoy a better East African Community (EAC) experience when we operationalise the Ministry of East African Community (MEACA) outpost/ support centre at the Busia border post in a few months’ time.

The MEACA support centre, which shall be referred to as the Busia Regional Integration Centre (RIC), is a facility we are creating for the dissemination and sharing of information on EAC as well to provide support to cross-border traders, majority of whom are women engaged in informal trade.

The establishment of the RIC is in line with the decision of the EAC Council of Ministers that requires every partner State to set up such a facility, the main function of which includes regularly updating stakeholders on developments in the regional integration, as well as receive feedback on the opportunities and challenges in the process.

The elimination of non-tariff barriers, being the biggest constraints to the free movement of goods, services and people, will command a special focus under this arrangement. RICs are also expected to create harmony and foster close working relations among different players at the border.

The operationalisation of RICs will be a major achievement for MEACA and mark another milestone in reaching out to the grassroots, and in particular the communities who cross our national border in pursuit of trade and other worthy activities.

The centre will also offer capacity building to all border agencies and personnel, facilitate joint border committee meetings as well as monitor performance of regional programmes. For regular travellers, the RIC officer will assist them when they face challenges.

It is important to point out that Kenya has already benefited from RICs, having established three offices as early as 2011 at the Busia, Namanga and Lunga Lunga border posts. A delegation from MEACA visited Kenya’s Namanga and Busia RICs in October 2013, and picked several lessons to help Uganda in establishing similar facilities.

RICs have been instrumental to the Kenyan government as a conduit for information flow, and dispelling misinformation within and across communities. Admittedly, any visitor to the border area will encounter a crowded place with many mechanisms already addressing issues to do with the movement of goods and persons.

The rationale for the establishment of the RIC is, therefore, to build synergies and create a better understanding of the costs and benefits of providing seamless services through building trust and ultimately a sense of ownership of the integration process by all Ugandans.

This means the RIC will support the various trade facilitation agencies by creating a “bridge” for the engagement between the agencies and cross-border traders and transit operations, as well as private sector operators such as importers, exporters, freight forwarders and customs brokers to dialogue on how best to galvanise the benefits from the trade facilitation measures that have been put in place at Busia.

Similar centres have been tried and tested in other regional integration arrangements such as the European Union.

Therefore, while we continue to lobby for increased funding to, among others, address challenges at the macro and operational levels, we are committed to doing whatever is functionally possible to extend the scope and coverage of awareness on EAC integration throughout the country, because we believe EAC integration is for all Ugandans.

In all our endeavours, the Ministry of East African Community Affairs operates an open door policy and we welcome feedback on issues pertaining to EAC integration.

Ms Mwanje is the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of East African Community Affairs.