Why is APSA project too LOUD?

By Dr. Elie Nahimana

A section of employees at the East African Community Secretariat under the African Peace and Security Architecture programme (APSA) recently moved to the EAC Court of Justice to challenge termination of their contracts.

Burundian Messrs Benoit Bihamiriza and Patrice Mulama from Rwanda have behind the scenes claimed that they suffer ethnic discrimination, plainly because they are Tutsis. However, the other nine employees drawn from Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya are obviously not Tutsis.  So the explanations lie elsewhere.

Our investigations reveal that:

As of 30 June 2016, the APSA project incurred a deficit of $474,807; the project financier (the African Union drawing on the European Union funds) had not contributed any penny for almost one year.

On 27 June 2016, the donor provided $98,388, leaving a deficit of $376,419. In short, for a year the EAC has managed to pay, from its own resources, the salaries of its employees who no longer have any budget for the implementation of their activities.

Already five employees, whose contracts expired on 30 June 2016, have been dismissed, while the remaining six including those who have complained to the EAC Court of Justice, with whom a notice was given on 20 June 2016 will expire on 20 September 2016. But if the EAC Council of Ministers, slated for 5 September 2016 in Arusha, succeeds to find a solution in getting finances needed to continue paying the six remaining employees, so would their jobs be saved.

One of the complaints raised by the employees was that it was up to the EAC Council of Ministers to either or not decide on the termination of their employment but:

(I) Only 3 out of the 11 are known to the Council of Ministers as they had approved their recruitment in a report dated 13 September 2008;

(ii) The said Council had then specified that the employment of these individuals would be based on the terms and conditions of the AU/EU capacity-building project (which no longer has funds). The message here is that these were not permanent positions within the EAC.

This simply refers to the traditional pattern of projects and programs that are so dependent on donors that when the latter quit, everything collapses. And this has nothing to do with any delusions of anti-Tutsi discrimination.

However, we cannot exclude the fact that some people may try to use the ethnic issue to rally support against the “wicked Secretary General” and thereby preserve their jobs. Suffice to say that dishonesty does not kill.

The advice given in this Opinion Column do not reflect the views of the editor(s)

About the Author:
Elie NAHIMANA was born in the hills above Bujumbura, Burundi. He is married and has five children. For many years he worked as a builder of roads and bridges. Elie stayed in the country throughout the civil war that started in 1993.

In 1998 Elie was ordained as pastor within the Friends Church and was appointed to a church in his home community, Kibimba. He later completed a bachelor’s degree in Christian Leadership from the Great Lakes School of Theology.

Elie is a founding member of the Kibimba Peace Committee, President of the Board of the Great Lakes School of Theology, and Legal Representative (clerk) of the Friends Church of Burundi. In these different capacities, Elie works to foster peace and reconciliation among Burundian citizens as the country continues to recover from its devastating war.