{{Applications by South Sudan and other countries to join the East African Community (EAC) are conspicuously missing from the agenda of the EAC Heads of State Summit to take place in Tanzania this weekend.}}
However, officials of the regional body maintained that this does not mean the issue has been put aside.
“What will take place on Sunday is an extra-ordinary summit. Such meetings take place to discuss only specific issues and not all issues on the integration agenda for the Community,” a senior official of the Secretariat told local media.
He said the issue of South Sudan and other states which have applied to join the bloc remained valid, but the Summit slated for Ngurdoto Mountain Lodge outside Arusha would not discuss them.
They could, however, feature in the ordinary leaders’ summit which traditionally takes place in November.
“Extra-ordinary summits are convened when there are pressing issues that cannot await the ordinary meetings of the presidents which takes place once a year,” he explained.
South Sudan alongside Sudan and Somalia are the known states which have officially applied to join the EAC bloc with Juba, which became independent from Khartoum in July 2011, more likely to have its request accepted.
Last year, the EAC Secretariat dispatched a verification team there to assess the readiness of the continent’s newest nation to join the bloc, a development normally considered the applicant met the basic criteria.
The issue of new applications by the three states to join EAC have, however, dominated in several past Heads of State Summits, including the extra-ordinary summits one of which was held in Ngurdoto in April last year.
While South Sudan appeared to be likely to be accepted in the near future given its growing links with the bloc, Sudan could not meet one of the criteria of bordering the region amid concerns over its human rights record.
Somalia, the latest state to apply to join EAC, had its application also pending because of many years of instability in the Horn of Africa state which had had no proper government for 20 years until late last year.
Two key agendas for the leaders’ summit this weekend include extension of the jurisdiction of the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) and progress on the negotiations for the East African Monetary Union, according to a press release by the Arusha-based Secretariat.
The extra-ordinary summit would also appoint a new deputy secretary general of the East African Community (EAC) from Kenya to replace Dr.Julius Tangus Rotich whose two three-year tenure ends in June. He has been the deputy SG since June 2007.
{NMG}
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