THE letter which North Sudan wrote to the East African Community, bidding to join the now six-state regional bloc, may soon see Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and South-Sudan linked to the Red Sea.
Khartoum, apparently, had appealed to
become member of the East African Community through an official
application sent to Arusha back in November 2011, but the country was
asked to hold on a bit, until South Sudan joined first, so that North
Sudan could also have a common borderline with EAC member states.
“North Sudan’s application was turned
down because among the requirements for a country to become an affiliate
state of the community, is for it to share a common border with any of
the already existing members,” explained Mr Simon Owaka, the EAC Senior
Public Relations Officer.
“The Summit of EAC Heads of State
rejected Sudan’s application because it failed largely to meet one
criterion for the admission of a new partner state into the Community,
namely, geographical proximity to and interdependence between the
aspiring country and the partner states,” added Mr Owaka.
He was responding to this paper’s
question regarding what was next for Khartoum now that it was legible to
join the East African Community. According to the official, since
Khartoum now shares a border with the Republic of South Sudan (RSS), it
qualifies to join the East African Community but North Sudan needs to
apply afresh since the situation has just changed.
But Mr Owaka remarked: “The requirement
for geographical prox imity and other criteria notwithstanding,
admission of a new country into the EAC is the prerogative of the Summit
of Heads of State. It is also up to any country that wants to join the
Community to make its own decision on the matter.
It is not the policy of the Community go
out soliciting would-be members to join bloc,” he said. Should Khartoum
be allowed to join the EAC fold, the Republic of Sudan will not only
bring 40 million more people to the existing 170 million residents of
East Africa spread across the six member states, but also link the
Arusha based community to the Red Sea.
Once materialised, the ‘anticipated’
seven-member EA community is going to be separated by the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) with a length of just 355 kilometres across the Red Sea.
The proposed seven-member East African Community will also have both the
white and blue Nile rivers.
Mapped onto 1.9 million square
kilometres of real estate, North Sudan is the third largest country on
the continent after Algeria and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The six countries making up the EAC have
been stitched together to form 2.5 million square kilometres and should
the seventh one join the bloc, it will be the largest community in the
world with 4.4 million square kilometres of land between them.
Meanwhile the East African Community and
the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have
just reviewed the five-year Regional Development Objectives Grant
Agreement to the tune of 436 billion/- which commences next year, 2018.
“The five-year US $ 194 million grant to
EAC will support health, energy and environment sectors from 2018, with
Dr Karen Freeman, the USAID Mission Director for Kenya and East
Africa,” stated Ambassador Liberat Mfumukeko the EAC Secretary General.
Late last year, the US Government
through USAID and the East African Community (EAC) launched a Regional
Development Objectives Grant Agreement at the EAC headquarters here
worth 436 billion/-.
Through the agreement, the USAID will
contribute approximately $194 million over a five year period to shared
development goals, deepening the partnership between the two
organisations. About US $30 million will fund institutional
strengthening within the EAC Secretariat, while the remainder will
support other development and social projects.
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