President Ruto pledges US$1 million to support the process of  Drafting the Constitution for the EAC Political Confederation

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The President of the Republic of Kenya H.E William Ruto pledged one million USD and tasked with drafting the Constitution for the proposed EAC Political Confederation to fast-track the process and have the first draft of constitution latest by the end of June 2024.The President said that 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.

President Ruto said that East Africans wanted to live together and do business regardless of national boundaries and urged EAC Partner States should therefore endeavour to catch up with them and actualise the Political Confederation as fast as possible,” said President Ruto. The Head of State said 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.

President Ruto was speaking at the State House in Nairobi, Kenya when he received the Committee of Experts tasked with drafting the Constitution for the proposed EAC Political Confederation. The committee, which is chaired by Uganda’s retired Chief Justice Benjamin Odoki, is currently collecting views from stakeholders and opinion leaders in Kenya through national consultative forums.

President Ruto pledged that the Government of Kenya would give US$1 million to the EAC Secretariat to support national consultations on Political Confederation being conducted by committee.The President also pledged to convince the other Partner States to also contribute so that the process of drafting the constitution is finished in time as directed by the Summit.

The president said that Partner States should not entertain the barriers occasioned by the boundaries created by the former colonial powers for their own imperial interests, instead urging Partner States to work together and collapse all the boundaries for the sake of integration in the region and beyond. Dr. Ruto cited prosperity for the region, strategic economy and security and the fact that East Africans were peoples of the same origins as the major reasons why the region needs to integrate and embrace the unity of the region.

President Ruto said that a 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. On his part, Justice Benjamin Odoki Chairperson of the Committee informed the President that the committee concluded stakeholders’ consultations in Republic of Burundi and the Republic of Uganda.