Lecturer wants court to stop Kenya from closing EPA deal

 
A law lecturer with Iringa University has lodged a civil suit in East African Court of Justice seeking to stop Kenya and other EAC member states from signing Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union.

The lecturer, Mr Castro Pius Shirima, wants the regional court in Arusha to stop the remaining signatories of the pact from penning the agreement. Kenya and Rwanda signed the contentious deal in September. 

 

Mr Shirima argues in the case, which comes up for hearing next week, that the remaining members of the EAC— Tanzania, Burundi, Uganda and South Sudan —should be prevented from signing the EPA because of the many risks it poses to the region’s economy.

Fortnight ago, Tanzania’s Members of Parliament voted to reject EPA deal saying, among other things, will dwarf the ambition to industrialise the country. According to a Kenyan paper, the Arusha-based EAC Secretariat confirmed that its top officials had been served with the court papers.

Mr Shirima says that “signing such an agreement by the second and third respondents (Kenya and Rwanda) has violated the letter and spirit of the EAC Treaty.”

The case commences barely one month before the region’s leadership meets again in Arusha at the start of next year to decide the fate of the EPA.

Mr Shirima has also asked the regional court to order EAC Secretary-General Liberat Mfumukeko to suspend trade negotiations with the EU until his case is determined.