80% consulted on EAC Federation

Rwanda has so far covered over 80 percent of its consultations among citizens on the proposed East African Community (EAC) political federation, National Consultative Committee (NCC) officials have revealed. According to a recent issue of the regional newspaper, the East African Business Week, the Vice Chairperson of the NCC Rwanda, Oda Gasinzigwa, told a recent meeting in Burundi that the Rwandan government had supported the process of fast-tracking the political federation and that the country’s NCC had covered over 80 percent of its work. “…NCC Rwanda received all the support from the government to carry out its mandate of educating the people of Rwanda on the East African integration and collecting views on fast tracking the political federation,” the newspaper quoted Gasinzigwa as having said during a two-day follow-up mid-term review workshop on national consultations in Burundi. The EAC Deputy Secretary General, Beatrice Kiraso at the workshop underscored that the outcome of the national consultations on the EAC political federation in the Republic of Rwanda and the Republic of Burundi are instrumental in paving the way for the bloc’s political integration. “The roadmap shall only be developed after the two national consultations of Rwanda and Burundi have presented their reports and findings of the national consultations,” Kiraso said. Moves to have people in the East African community express their views on a quick creation of the political federation were initiated in different member countries after the EAC Heads of State expressed concern about the slow pace of the integration process towards the community’s political federation. If the people in member countries of the EAC vote for a federal government, they will have to follow the same laws made by a common parliament, have the same government, use the same currency, same flag, and other things to be harmonized. Heads of State in the EAC member countries also directed that the bloc’s common market protocol be in place by early 2010 while the EAC monetary union by the year 2012. Consultative Committees on the EAC in Rwanda and Burundi are supposed to submit their reports of the findings to the EAC Secretariat before the end of November this year. The reports will then be submitted to the Summit of EAC Heads of State for consideration. Ends