The President of Kenya, Williams Ruto wants the draft Constitution for the proposed East African Community’s Political Confederation to be ready by June 2024.
To achieve that, President Ruto tasked the Experts responsible for drafting to speed up the process.
The Head of State said the Government of Kenya is dishing out USD 1 million to the East African Community Secretariat in Arusha, Tanzania to support national consultations on Political Confederation. process.
President Ruto also used the occasion to appeal to other Partner States to also contribute so that the process of drafting the constitution is finished in time as directed by the Summit.
The Committee of Experts tasked with drafting the Constitution for the proposed EAC Political Confederation, chaired by Uganda’s retired Chief Justice Benjamin Odoki, is currently collecting views from stakeholders and opinion leaders in Kenya through national consultative forums.
The team paid a visit at the Kenyan State House in Nairobi.
“East Africans have always lived together and would not wait for the Partner States to establish the confederation in order to continue with their lives, adding that the citizens were well ahead of their national governments in as far as the integration process was concerned,” he said.
The Head of State pointed out that the idea of a federation was conceived after independence in the early 1960s by the founding fathers of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, adding that the ongoing expansion of the Community would be an asset for the people of East Africa and Africa as a whole.
He insisted that Partner States will not entertain the barriers occasioned by the boundaries created by the former colonial powers for their own imperial interests.
He is instead urging Partner States to work together and collapse all the boundaries for the sake of integration in the region and beyond.
“Borderless Africa would benefit from the prosperity that comes with integration, noting that integration would provide for a bigger market for the goods and services produced by the people of the region,” stated President Ruto.
The Chairperson of the Committee Justice Benjamin Odoki revealed that they have so far concluded stakeholders’ consultations in the Republic of Burundi and Uganda.
At the Moment, the East African Community is made up of seven member states including the founding three, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Other EAC partner states are Rwanda, Burundi, South-Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It is being anticipated that by the time the political federation materializes, the community will also have Somalia on board.