In the previous articles, I have argued that East Africa should examine its refineries, ports, pipelines and petrochemical industries as parts of one regional economic system.
But there is a final question: Who has the authority to plan them that way? Economists can identify efficiencies. Engineers can design infrastructure. Investors can calculate returns. But regional planning ultimately requires political will and political authority.
From common services to sovereign states
Regional cooperation long predates the present EAC. Under British colonial administration, Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika shared arrangements covering railways, harbours, customs, communications and other services.
There is nothing to romanticise about colonialism; those institutions served colonial objectives. But common planning was administratively easier because ultimate authority lay within one imperial system.
Independence rightly restored sovereignty. It also meant that regional decisions now had to reconcile separate governments, budgets and national interests.
The first post-independence EAC nevertheless maintained substantial common services, but collapsed in 1977. Among the lessons subsequently acknowledged were inadequate political will and disagreement over the distribution of benefits. Those lessons remain relevant.
Regional integration cannot survive without political commitment. Neither can it endure if citizens believe that efficiency simply concentrates industries, jobs and revenues in somebody else’s country.
The stakes are much greater today
The demographic transformation alone illustrates how much has changed.
When the first post-independence EAC was established in 1967, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda together had only about 30 million people. Today the expanded Community comprises eight Partner States-Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania-with a combined population exceeding 340 million. That is more than eleven times the market of the original Community.
By 2050, according to the UN’s medium population projections, these same eight countries could have about 619 million people-nearly twice today’s population and more than twenty times the population of the original Community.
A market of this scale can support refineries, petrochemical industries, transport corridors and other investments that the three relatively small economies of 1967 could scarcely contemplate.
The politics of coordination have become more complicated, but the economic rewards have become correspondingly larger.
This strengthens President Museveni’s long-standing argument for faster integration. In 2004 he warned against Partner States pursuing parallel efforts instead of coordinated ones. Twenty-two years later, the economic imperative is much clearer.
Think of the ports as a regional system
The same logic applies to maritime infrastructure. East Africa’s choices extend far beyond Tanga versus Mombasa. Kenya has Mombasa and Lamu. Tanzania has Dar es Salaam, Tanga and Mtwara, with longer-term possibilities including Bagamoyo, Mwambani and Lindi. Zanzibar is developing Mangapwani.
These ports need not all do the same thing. One may specialise in containers, another petroleum and petrochemicals, another LNG, bulk cargo, transshipment or tourism-related activities.
Specialisation is not defeat. It is one of the gains from integration.
This is particularly important because several EAC Partner States are landlocked.
Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan depend upon their neighbours for access to the sea. International law recognises the right of landlocked states to access the sea and freedom of transit, subject to arrangements with transit states.
The ports therefore remain sovereign national assets but can simultaneously perform vital regional economic functions.
Museveni made essentially this point years ago when he stressed that the prosperity of landlocked East African countries depends upon efficient railway and harbour services through their coastal neighbours.
The Heads of State must confront the question
Who decides whether proposed refineries are complementary or duplicative? Who decides whether one port should specialise while another expands?
And who assures a Partner State that accepting an investment across the border does not mean surrendering its fair share of the benefits?
Consultants cannot settle such questions. The EAC Heads of State ultimately must. As proposed earlier in this series, they could mandate a regional optimisation study covering refineries, petrochemicals, pipelines and ports to 2050.
First establish what East Africa would build if it were planning as one economic space. Then negotiate how industries, revenues, ownership, employment and other benefits should be fairly shared. That is where economic integration becomes political.
From integration to federation?
President Museveni has long argued that East African integration cannot stop permanently at a Customs Union and Common Market but must eventually confront the question of political federation.
The refinery and port debate helps explain why. As our economies become physically interconnected through pipelines, railways, electricity grids, ports and common industries, decisions taken in one country increasingly affect prosperity in another. Political federation should not be presented as a simple solution.
It requires public consent, trust among Partner States, accountable institutions and agreement on how sovereignty, responsibilities and benefits would be shared.
But deeper economic integration makes the underlying political question increasingly difficult to avoid.
The colonial administrations could plan common services because authority was concentrated in one political system. We neither can nor should reproduce that arrangement.
Our challenge is more demanding: eight sovereign African states must voluntarily create enough common authority to plan effectively those things that are better done together.
The refinery debate leaves us with a much larger question: Can East Africa move from sharing a market to planning an economic future together-and eventually build the political institutions capable of sustaining that shared future?
That may be the deeper meaning of the journey towards 2050: not merely integrating our economies, but deciding how far East Africans are prepared to plan both their economic and political future together.