Series of hybrid meetings have been underway on the status of partner states' contributions to the East African Community (EAC) budget.
Senior officials and permanent secretaries scrutinized the degree with which countries are meeting their budgetary obligations.
The meeting, which started on Monday, climaxed with a ministerial segment for ministers responsible for EAC Affairs and Planning on Friday.
A dispatch to newsrooms said the partner states' contributions to the EAC annual budget will come under scrutiny given hardships the bloc faced when remittances are delayed.
Other key matters for discussion were the draft EAC Scorecard 2020, priority areas for 2022/23 financial year and matters related to elimination of non-tariff barriers (NTBs).
EAC deputy secretary general currently in charge of the Finance docket in acting capacity Steven Mlote said the meeting was crucial.
"As the integration process deepens and widens, senior officials will be heavily relied upon to provide rotational strategies on the integration", he said.
He added that recommendations and guidance from the meeting will assist in addressing the issue of budget contributions, in particular.
Substantively, Mr. Mlote is the deputy SG for Planning and Infrastructure but has been acting for the Finance docket since 2019.
The meeting comes at a time when the EAC had withered the worst storms in its cash crisis which were worsened by the outbreak of Covid-19 last year.
The expenditure for the 2020/21 financial year, for instance, sailed through the regional House in February this year, over six months behind the calendar.
Although cash woes due to the pandemic were mentioned as the cause,the crunch was largely because of delayed remittances of funds to the Arusha coffers by the partner states.
EAC has also seen declining budget support from the development partners as well as falling total amount of expenditure estimates.
For the past five fiscal years; 2016/2017 to 2020/2021,annual budget estimates have ranged between $110million to $97million per year.
However, tabling of the 2021/22 budget before the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) could not be delayed and was read and approved in June this year.
Out of $91.7million estimates for expenditure for the 2021/22 fiscal year, some $37.6million (41 percent) were to be raised by the development partners and the rest by the six member countries of the bloc.
The six partner states will each have to raise about $ 9million to the kitty to finance routine activities and implementation of development projects.
However,there had been complaints that some countries were not remitting their contributions in time or not at all,stalling the operations of the regional organization.
These include the implementation of a host of projects and programmes being coordinated by the EAC organs or institutions spread across the region.
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