Understanding the EAC Common Market - Part I

I was involved in two major meetings about the EAC within 14 days, one in Kampala (Uganda) and one in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). The Kampala one seemed straight forward as it was a meeting for reviewing a draft livestock policy for the region. The second one was a little more 'interesting' and expectedly so because it brought together (rightfully) a wide cross section of business people, professionals and agencies that support the integration process. The subject of discussion was 'free movement of services' and inevitably the movement of persons (service providers and workers) across borders of partner states.

The private sector players shared lots of bad experiences they have so far gone through with reference to movement of service providers and workers across borders of partner states. Some of the issues the private sector players lamented about are: the difficulty of obtaining work permits timely; disparities in work permit fees; getting the right people for the right jobs on time (obtaining from across borders of the partner states); discriminatory tax treatment; etc. The more dicey one, to me, is the need to recognize the contribution of non-certified, non-accredited skilled persons and to allow them move freely across the borders of EAC partner states. I will dwell on this particular issue in one of the subsequent posts.

More later. Watch this space.

Ethics

Quite a common word it is on lips of many but the practice of it is very rare. As if to put emphasis to this statement, a prominent businessman in Uganda, Dr. William Kalema, while presenting a paper in honor of Dr. Martin Okech Aliker, lamented the lack of ethics in today's Ugandan graduates especially of a university I wouldn't name here. He challenged the trainers to do something to improve this bad name.

While I agree with him that university teachers probably have something to do with it, I do not take it wholesome. There is lots that shapes somebody's morality that may also have some impact on their ethical conduct. This post lists some examples of possibilities:

• Peer influence.
• Family upbringing.
• Influence from the media.
• Idiosyncratic tendencies unique to some individuals.
• Primary and secondary school discipline and practices.
• Community influence - perceived role models in the community.

If the above be some possible contributing factors to the development of habits that are characterised as unethical conduct, then I pity the university teacher who will be expected to, besides guiding the 'raw' young person to acquire specialised knowledge and skills and critical thinking (primary role of the teacher at that level), fully transform their students' ethical behaviour. Never mind that the behaviour was 'formed' over a period of time (outside/before the university) and that factors that contributed to the young person developing unethical behaviour could still exist and are possibly unknown to the teacher (leave alone being able to change them)! May God help us.

Lango Conference 2012

The Lango people from the Lango sub-region in Northern Uganda have taken time off to reflect on their past and present and design guiding strategies for the future. A three-day conference dubbed 'Lango Conference 2012' has been organized for this purpose. It started today 27 December 2012 and ends 29 December 2012. At the end of day three resolutions and recommendations will be presented, discussed and agreed to by representatives of the community. I will be one of them and I am excited about it because I am proud to be a member of this community. I will be twitting so please follow me @sgokech.

Two terms of service to the Veterinary Fraternity

I thank them heartily. They being the larger portion of the veterinary fraternity in Uganda, members of the veterinary profession's umbrella body in Uganda - Uganda Veterinary Association (UVA). It was on Friday 5th December 2008 that they first put trust in me and my team to lead them. They renewed the mandate on Friday 10th December 2010 for two years. That made it two terms for me in office as President Uganda Veterinary Association.

After a period of four straight years of faithful and dedicated service as some of my colleagues called it, last week I handed over the mantle of UVA leadership to one of my colleagues, Dr. Dominic Venture Lali Mundrugo-ogo. To work with him is a team that I know all too well so I rest assured that progress is all that will happen for the UVA; a process I prefer to refer to as "moving from glory to glory". What this means is that my team and I were able to move this organisation through positive strides and with the new team, the organisation should be able to take several other strides in the right direction.

The four years I did this voluntary work have been years of unlimited exposure, networking, servant leadership, great sacrifice, juggling strategy & operations, mentoring & empowering, innovations, venturing into unknowns, fighting oppression, team building & management, managing criticism, arbitration & conflict resolution, initiating & refining strategies, perfecting boardroom etiquette, productive negotiation, etc. All these could be summed up as a period of tremendous learning. I am definitely much wiser. I should be able to share the key areas of learning either in a series on this blog or maybe in a book. May God help me and may He bless Uganda Veterinary Association, its entire membership and the global vet fraternity.

EPL referees contemplate boycot? What a joke!

It is reported that referees in England are contemplating boycotting Chelsea FC games. Anybody who follows the Barclays English Premiership would predict that such an issue could only come up in association with the name of Chelsea FC. This is not because CFC deserves anything like this but simply because they are 'hated'. They cried foul over alleged referee's 'misconduct' (read inappropriate words) in addition to two game-changing blatant errors he made during the Chelsea vs Manchester United game last Sunday and that earns them such hatred and a possibility of such an extreme action!

What did CFC do to FA? I wrote before about the charges meted out to their managers, Jose Mourinho and Andre Villas-Boas. I bet that if it was any other club making such complaint this drastic action would not have even been thought of at all.

On the other hand, I think the EPL referees are doing a great job to distract people from their recent poor performances, the one by Clattenberg being so far the worst and most blatant this season! In the same weekend Liverpool FC was denied three points due to a poor decision by a match official. A few minutes ago I saw a West Ham goal disallowed erroneously!

Love them, hate them, CFC is still very much a factor not only in EPL but in Europe. Talk about Europe reminds of the injustice by a one Ovrebo, a UEFA referee. Guess against which club. CFC.

Komla Dumor on "right to roam"

Reading the Kenya Airways (KQ) inflight magazine for September-October 2012, I came across an article by Komla Dumor about visa-free entry into African countries and the benefits thereof. Interestingly, I was traveling to a meeting in Nairobi to discuss issues related to free movement of professional services (read professionals) across the borders of the 5-member countries of the East African Community (EAC).

Komla asserts that free movement of people has significant economic benefits for host countries as well. I need the source of evidence supporting this. I am not doubting Komla. I am actually inclined to agree entirely with him but providing such evidence would help us strengthen our push for the free movement of people (labour and services) in the EAC.

This article also reminded me of my related one earlier published in this blog. You might find the opinion interesting to read: http://samwiri.blogspot.com/2012/06/some-10-points-for-professionals-to.html

Jose Mourinho: the special one or the only one?

Jose Mourinho in the hot seat at CNN. Visit and listen to what he has to say HERE.