Saturday 27th February marked the end of Rwanda’s two years tenure at the helm of EAC Chairmanship that culminated into the 21st Ordinary Summit of the East African Community Heads of State held virtually in which President Paul Kagame handed over the mantle to his Kenyan counterpart, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Burundi’s Evariste Ndayishimiye took over as Rapporteur of the regional bloc.

During the same meeting, the Summit of EAC Heads of State appointed Kenya’s Dr. Peter Mathuki as the new Secretary General replacing Amb. Liberat Mfumukeko from Burundi whose five-year term will come to an end on 26th April 2021.  

The Summit further appointed a couple of judges in the East African Court of Justice and also designated Burundi’s Nestor Kayobera and Tanzania’s Yohane Bakobora Masara as Judge President and Principal Judge, respectively, replacing Rwanda’s Dr. Emmanuel Ugirashebuja and Justice Monica Mugenyi from Uganda whose 7-year terms came to an end in November, 2020.

During his key note address, President Kagame expressed his gratitude to fellow Heads of State as well as the East African Community Secretariat, for the cooperation and support rendered during Rwanda’s chairmanship. 

He further implored EAC Partner States to augment cooperation in building resilience in face of the Covid-19 pandemic and its consequent economic challenges.
 
“Our health systems have been challenged like never before and the disruption to travel and trade has been significant. This situation had real impacts on the wellbeing and livelihoods of our people. 

However, the positive examples of cooperation we have seen through our East African Community institutions, have played a role in mitigating the effects of the pandemic,” emphasized President Kagame.
In other considerations, the same Virtual Meeting of the Summit of EAC Heads of State directed the Council of Ministers to expedite the process of admitting DRC and Somalia into the regional bloc.
The Summit also adopted French as an official language of the Community, in addition to English and Kiswahili and directed the Council of Ministers to expedite the implementation modalities of the directive.

In a separate development, the Heads of State recalled their previous discussion on the EU-EAC Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and recognised that not all Partner State are in a position to sign, ratify and implement the agreement.

The Heads of State gave the greenlight  to those that wish to do so to go ahead and commence talks with the EU, with a view to starting the EU-EAC EPA implementation under the principle of variable geometry which allows Partner States to implement integration projects at different paces.