Despite its success, the East African Community collapsed in 1977 due to a number of reasons discussed below:

1. Personal differences between the East African leaders led to the collapse of the community. Nyerere and Amin for example had personal conflicts, which made the functioning of the East African Community very difficult. Throughout Amin's regime in Uganda, East Africa Authority, which was the supreme body of the organization, never met because Nyerere had refused to recognize Amin as Uganda's leader. He had also sworn never to sit on a round table with Amin.

2. All ministers whom Amin appointed were refused to take offices in Tanzania by Nyerere's government. Likewise, Amin responded by chasing away the Tanzania East African Community officials in Uganda. The East African Development Bank governor, Idi Simba was also dismissed by Amin.

3. Ideological differences: The collapse of the East African Community was also due to ideological reasons. All the three East African countries were following different ideologies. Tanzania was pursuing socialism, Kenya was a capitalist and Uganda was following a policy of mixed economy. Due to this difference, planning became greatly difficult.

4. All the three East African countries were at different levels of economic development. Uganda and Tanzania were forced to depend on Kenya for manufactured goods because it had more industries than her counterparts. As a result, Kenya benefited more from the wide market. This situation left Uganda and Tanzania to think of establishing industries of their own. Because of this weakness, the community collapsed in 1977.

5. Due to the already bad relations between Amin and Nyerere, trade between Uganda and Tanzania became extremely difficult. The poor trade between Uganda and Tanzania was also prompted by the lack of good communication network between the two countries.

6. When Kenya started to use all the customs money belonging to the community, the union lost meaning. Uganda and Tanzania accused Kenya of this malpractice but there was no improvement, instead, conditions worsened so that by 1976, Uganda pulled out of the union and in 1977, the community collapsed.

7. Foreign influence during its time of existence, The East African Community was the best economic integration in almost the whole world. As a result, foreign countries especially USA and Britain worked for its collapse because they knew it would result into a higher development of East African countries. By the way, this would cut off dependence of these countries. USA and Britain also feared that the East African Community would act as an example to the rest of the world, thus leading to the integration of economies though Kenya, USA and Britain worked in collaboration with Charles Njonjo to ensure the collapse of the East African Community.

8. Selfish political interests between the partner states also led to the collapse of the community for example Uganda went to war with Tanzania, Kenya was always threatening to go to war with Uganda.

9. Failure to indicate to the people the real benefits of the union meant that people cared little for the union. Community interests lagged behind individual national economic interests.

10. Absence of specialization but duplication of enterprises for example cement industries in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

Note: The East African Community was revived in the 2000 with the effort of the three presidents: Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania and Arap Moi of Kenya. The secretariat of the community is in Arusha, Tanzania.

Mr. Amanya Mushega, former Member of Parliament for Igara West was appointed Secretary General. The East African parliament was opened on November 30 2001 by the three heads of states. The revived East African community works to promote: