Comesa member states urged to pay up

comesaOliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
THE Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), which has so far raised $8,8 million, has called on member states to pay their contributions to the bloc’s regular budget.

Comesa, which comprises 19 countries including Zimbabwe, informed the member states recently that it had mobilised $8,821 million from member states by the end of November.

“The first meeting of the Comesa Policy Organs kicked off in Lusaka with a call to member states to pay their due contributions to the regular budget of the regional organisation.

“Country delegates have been informed that by the end of November 2014, the Secretariat had mobilised a total of $8,821 million from member states,” said Comesa on its website.

It said its secretariat has proposed a consolidated budget of $64,40 million for next year.

“The funds will be raised from contributions by Member States and Development Partners.”

The proposed budget has slightly increased from $64,20 million for this year.

The bloc’s next year budget was guided by the 2015 Work Programme whose main thrust was the consolidation of the Intra-Comesa Trade through Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Development.

“This is planned to be achieved through the six pillars which are market integration, cross-border economic infrastructure, industrialisation, institutional and regulatory policies, capacity building and support services and resource mobilization,” it said.

A proposal has also been made to introduce a Comesa Machine Readable Travel (CMRT) document in compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Standards deadline of 2015.

The new electronic machine readable travel document will replace the present Comesa Laissez-Passer that the staff use when travelling on official business which was however not universally accepted in many countries.

It is hoped that new document will have enhanced security features in keeping with new technologies and new security techniques in producing and processing travel documents.

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