Outgoing Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) Secretary-General Sindiso Ngwenya. FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) heads
of state summit Wednesday elected its first woman secretary-general.
Ms
Chileshe Kapwepwe, a former alternate director at the IMF, replaces Mr
Sindiso Ngwenya, who worked at the regional body for 34 years in various
capacities.
The 59-year-old Ms Kapwepwe is a Zambian.
At
the time of her appointment, Ms Kapwepwe was serving as chairperson of
the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) and she, at some point, served as
deputy Finance minister.
Zambia President Edgar Lungu issued a statement congratulating Ms Kapwepwe.
Leadership responsibility
"Ms Kapwwepwe is taking up leadership responsibility with COMESA
at the time when the regional body has made tremendous strides towards
market integration and harmonisation of programmes," read President
Lungu's statement.
Comesa is the largest regional
economic organisation in Africa with member states after the recent
admission of Tunisia and Somalia.
It has a population of about 390 million. The bloc has a free trade area and launched a customs union in 2009
Comesa closes its 20th Heads of State summit in Zambia's capital Lusaka on Thursday.
The
theme of the summit at the Mulungushi International Conference Centre
is: Comesa: Towards Digital Economic Integration, and is designed to
rally member states towards the full adoption of digital technologies.
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