Burundi’s Ndayishimiye elected new East African Community chairman
Burundian President, Evariste Ndayishimiye has taken over the chairmanship of the East African Community (EAC) from Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta .
Ndayishimiye was elected on Friday by East African heads of state during the 22nd Ordinary Summit of EAC Heads of State held in Arusha,Tanzania.
Keep Reading
Uganda’s President Museveni was part of the meeting.
The new EAC leader was announced by the outgoing chairman during the closure of the two-day summit on Friday.
In his inaugural speech, Ndayishimiye applauded his fellow East African Community leaders for entrusting him with such a responsibility noting that he would build on the legacy of his predecessor.
"During my tenure, I will work towards improving the quality of life of the people of East Africa through increased competitiveness, value added production, trade and investments. I am keen on ensuring that the ministries established to coordinate regional matters in the partner states strengthen communication, collaboration and cooperation thereby enhancing integration,"Ndayishimiye said.
He noted that he will also help speed up the procedure to have Somalia officially join the bloc.
"I look forward to ensuring that in the next one year, we shall make significant progress in using French and Kiswahili in addition to English, as official languages of the community. With this I believe more citizens in our region will be able to better appreciate and actively participate in the EAC integration agenda."
The outgoing chairperson who was attending the summit for the last time as he will step down from power in August as Kenya goes into polls applauded his fellow leaders for the support accorded to him.
Kenyatta mentioned the establishment of the common market protocol which has stimulated the economy of the member states, implementation of several infrastructure projects and admission of DRC into EAC as some of the achievements during his tenure as chairman.
He noted that these will further help connect the people of East Africa for a common good.
"Today is my last EAC meeting with Heads of State and I would like to say that we have been very successful and there are things to accomplish and one of them being the establishment of the East African Confederation and to officially admit Somalia as the bloc’s new member,” Kenyatta said.
At the summit, Kenyatta was appointed as a facilitator to oversee the implementation of the Nairobi Process on the DRC.
As a special envoy or representative, Kenyatta will be the summit's representative in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) peace process.
The summit was attended by Presidents Museveni, Samia Suluhu(Tanzania),Uhuru Kenyatta and Burundi’s Evariste Ndayishimiye whereas other countries including Rwanda, South Sudan and DRC sent representatives.
Somalia's Hassan Sheikh Mohamud attended the summit as a special guest.
