The Republic of South Sudan has joined the East African Community (EAC), a group of nations that cooperates in the areas of trade, travel, tourism and harmonization of tax regimes and other regulations.
EAC includes Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda.
Leaders of the EAC nations, meeting at a summit in Arusha, Tanzania on Wednesday, decided to approve South Sudan’s membership application.
“South Sudan is a new member of the EAC,” said the EAC secretariat on its social media site on Wednesday, during the summit.
According to the summit joint communique, the chairperson of the summit was designated to sign a treaty of accession with the Republic of South Sudan.
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has hailed the move as a sign of progress for the East African economic bloc, Uganda’s New Vision newspaper reported.
“On this day when South Sudan joins the East African Community, we need to remind ourselves of the main purpose of our integration in three words; How to survive in a competitive world; How can we guarantee our prosperity. We are prosperous by buying from each other and; How to be secure in this modern world,” said the Ugandan leader.
South Sudan’s Presidential Press Secretary Ateny Wek has also welcomed the move. He told Voice of America, “We don’t have restrictions of movement and services between the East African Community [members] and South Sudan. So it is good that South Sudan has been admitted now officially.”
The decision to accept South Sudan reverses an earlier EAC decision to admit South Sudan with observer status only.
According to the treaty establishing the EAC, new members are admitted only if they respect certain principles of democracy, rule of law, transparency and social justice. This had prompted some East African diplomats to oppose South Sudan’s application.
As reported by the East African last month, “Juba will stay as an observer until concerns over instability, bad governance, democracy and its human-rights record are addressed.
Nonetheless, yesterday’s decision was welcomed by the Kenyan Daily Nation newspaper, which published an editorial saying that the admission of South Sudan as the sixth member of the East African Community is a “welcome expansion of the market of what has been touted as perhaps Africa’s best economic bloc.”
Daily Nation cautioned, however, “The country is grappling with internal conflicts and must endeavour to put its house in order as it joins its neighbours in forging integration for mutual benefit.”
The EAC summit was held under the theme “Advancing Market-Driven Integration.”