East Africa: Mwencha to Leave Comesa After 25 Years
The East African (Nairobi), 3 December 2007
The secretary general of Comesa, Erustus Mwencha, is set to leave the organisation after being at the helm of Africa's largest trading grouping for 25 years.
He has seen Comesa evolve from a Preferential Trade Area to a fully-fledged trading bloc where 13 countries do business under a Free Trade Area.
Mr Mwencha is one of the candidates for a top position within the African Union Commission. Comesa exports increased by 32 per cent over the 2005 level to reach $79 billion in 2006 with intra-Comesa trade growing by 8 per cent over the same period to reach $6.8 billion.
The key Comesa institutions have also grown from strength to strength. The PTA Bank has only been recently restructured with its board resolving in June this year to increase its authorised capital from $544 million to $2 billion.
The board also approved a general capital increase to raise the bank's subscribed capital from $354 billion to 41.18 billion. Paid up capital is now $236 million.
Zep-Re, Comesa's re-insusrance company, made a profit of $1.3 million in the period ending September 2007.
A dividend of $500,000 was paid to shareholders out of the profits realised in 2006.
Premium income is now at $27.3 million and assets are worth $47 million. Zep-Re's two new regional offices in Lusaka, Zambia and Doula, Cameroon are now fully operational.
After a slow start, Comesa's political risk insurance agency, Africa Trade Insurance Agency (ATI), has picked up and is now big business, having issued insurance policies covering political and commercial risk in seven countries for a total transaction value of $400 million.
The sectors covered include telecommunications, manufacturing, agribusiness, export services, mining and real estate.
Next year, ATI will be establishing representative offices in Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
In a conversation with The EastAfrican, Mr Mwencha said one of his greatest challenges was the role he has played in negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements with the European Union.
At a meeting on November 12, the two parties agreed that it was not possible to conclude a comprehensive EPA by December this year as had been contemplated, the parties agreed to work towards an interim arrangement that will address the issue of trade disruption for some Comesa countries while at the same time spelling out the framework for continuation of EPA negotiations in 2008.