{{South Sudan\u2019s bid to join the East African Community (EAC) got a notch closer as a delegation from the regional bloc paid a courtesy visit to the capital, Juba, this week.}}<\/p>\n
Richard Sezibera, the EAC secretary-general, said the \u201cengagement\u201d trip aimed at enlightening South Sudanese leaders on the criteria and obligations involved for joining the five-member bloc, which currently comprises Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.<\/p>\n
\u201c[It] is a dialogue which we are happy to continue. South Sudan in many ways is East African. Our people have long history together,\u201d he told reporters in Juba on Monday.<\/p>\n
The EAC official, however, declined to divulge more details on the meeting to he held with South Sudanese ministers, among others.<\/p>\n
South Sudan applied to join the regional bloc soon after it gained its independence in July 2011. Its membership approval was, however, put on hold in 2013 after the EAC member states raised concerns over poor governance, market structure and weak justice systems.<\/p>\n
South Sudan\u2019s foreign minister said time was ripe for his country to gain admission in to the regional body.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been talking to each other [for] long time now. The idea is how South Sudan, through the legal processes, can become a member of the EAC,\u201d said Barnaba Marial Benjamin.<\/p>\n
He further said South Sudan was still acquainting itself with the status of being a member state, having been an observer since it gained independence three years ago.<\/p>\n
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{{South Sudan\u2019s bid to join the East African Community (EAC) got a notch closer as a delegation from the regional bloc paid a courtesy visit to the capital, Juba, this week.}} Richard Sezibera, the EAC secretary-general, said the \u201cengagement\u201d trip aimed at enlightening South Sudanese leaders on the criteria and obligations involved for joining the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000053077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-15379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000053077,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15379.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15379.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15379.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15379.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15379.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15379.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000053077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15379"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=15379"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=15379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}