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EAC cuts down travel expenditure by 28 pct in one year

Xinhua, January 15, 2017 Adjust font size:

The East African Community (EAC) said on Saturday it managed to reduce its travel expenditure by 28 percent between May and November last year.

Liberat Mfumukeko, the EAC Secretary General, said in his New Year message to staff of the regional bloc that his office will continue to strengthen the financial controls and undertake further critical measures.

Mfumukeko urged the EAC staff to be ready for more financial reforms within the bloc.

The ECA travel expenditure between May and November 2015 stood at 9.9 million US dollars, the same expenditure during May-November 2016 was shelved down to 7.1 million US dollars.

The secretariat had already reduced its budget by 23 percent in the 2016/2017 financial year.

The EAC boss said: "When I was appointed in March last year, the Chair of the EAC Summit gave me clear directive to institute reforms that would contain our expenditures and improve our way of doing business."

Mfumukeko added: "I can tell you that I know some of the measures will be stringent and painful but we shall all celebrate the end results."

Last October, Mfumukeko revealed that the EAC secretariat had saved 588,768 US dollars in travel expenditure alone.

According to Mfumukeko, the reforms focused on cutting any wastage, containing and reducing travel where all EAC staff must spend 50 percent of their time in Arusha and also hold 25 percent of their meetings via video conference facilities.

"Dear friends, it is no longer business as usual, we have now reduced the number of days for our meetings to a maximum of four," he said.

Chairing the EAC Heads of State Summit in March last year in Arusha, President John Magufuli urged the Arusha-based EAC secretariat to institute stringent cost cutting measures.

The President lashed out at the EAC secretariat on its lavish spending on meetings and travels, accusing it of reaping off the region's poor instead of working for them. Endit