Next EAC Sec.Gen from Rwanda- Mwapachu

ARUSHA- After months of speculation over who would be the next Secretary General of the East African Community (EAC) , Juma Mwapachu, the man currently holding the position, has disclosed that the post will go to Rwanda. ‘’Rwanda will nominate the next Secretary General of EAC. I won’t mention the name, but it is a man of stature and of the people,” East African News Agency (EANA) quotes Mwapachu as saying during the 17th commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi held in Arusha, Tanzania on Thursday. The EAC official who presided over the event as Guest of Honour, commended Rwanda, under the leadership of President Paul Kagame, for bringing hope and prosperity to its people after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. ‘’Never again shall Rwanda, and us all, cause Genocide to happen again… There is no revenge more complete than forgiveness,’’ he told the over 1,000 guests gathered at the Arusha International Conference Centre. The new Secretary General is expected to be sworn-in during the Summit of the EAC Heads of State to be held in Dar es Salam, Tanzania, on April 19. Once nominated, this will mean that Alloys Mutabingwa, a Rwandan currently holding the position of EAC Deputy Secretary General (Planning and Infrastructure) will relinquish the post. Meanwhile, Rwanda’s EAC Minister Monique Mukaruliza, has pointed out that she had not yet received the official announcement from the Secretariat. “Maybe they (Secretariat) communicated to the President’s Office, otherwise I have no information. But if Mwapachu made the statement, maybe it’s true,” she disclosed in a telephone interview, yesterday. .The next Secretary General will be tasked with overseeing the coming into effect of a Monetary Union in 2012 and an EAC Political Federation that is expected to be rolled out in 2015. Various media reports had claimed that some original EAC members, notably Kenya, were preparing to field a candidate for the job, which would have violated the treaty, since only Rwanda and Burundi are yet to hold the position.Mwapachu has been the Secretary General since 2006. Ends