President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has promised the newly elected President of the Federal Republic of Somalia H.E Hassan Sheikh Mohamud that he will support his country to join East African Community (EAC).
Speaking during the Uganda-Somalia Investment & Business Summit at Speke Resort Munyonyo on Wednesday, President Museveni revealed that Somalia as a nation already qualifies to become a member of EAC.
“Uganda will support the application by Somalia to join the East African Community….. I was telling the young leaders in Arusha that what some of you young people,you call history some of us call current affairs. I was telling them that in 1968 there was a very active Prime Minister of Somalia called Mohammed Egal. I remember him coming to East Africa and actually putting forward the need for Somalia to join the EAC when we were only three members. When were Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, Somalia was going to be number 4 and Zambia number 5 because Zambia had also applied,” he said.
Museveni added that because of the greed of some politicians, Somalia failed to join the community. He, however, noted that this time round everything is available for Somalia to join the community.
“Unfortunately the devil came in and we wasted a lot of time and all those wonderful leaders disappeared, some died, we lost good useful people with useless actors. So this time it’s good that Somalia has applied again and definitely support them because it has all the qualifications which are three, first of all, you should have a border with one of the countries of the members of the staff and community, and Somalia has got the border with Kenya then you should have the private sector led economy and then you should be a democratic country and I congratulate you for winning the recent elections, so definitely we should support Somalia to join the East African community.”
If Somalia’s application passes through it will make it the eighth member country of the East African Community, joining after the Democratic Republic of the Congo whose application has just been approved.
Currently, the EAC is made up of the United Republic of Tanzania, the Republic of Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda and DRC the latest member.
Meanwhile, The East African Community (EAC) is the regional intergovernmental organization whose aim is to widen and deepen cooperation among the Partner States in, among others, political, economic and social fields for their mutual benefit.
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