PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan at midweek hosted Kenyan President William Ruto and Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni in a meeting aimed to discuss East African economic and political integration.

The meeting held on Thursday evening at the Tunguu State Lodge in Zanzibar, saw the three leaders agreeing on the need to hasten public hearings on the structure and areas to be considered in a draft constitution for East African political federation. 

The State House said in a social media post that the leaders discussed the urgent need to accelerate the collection of citizens’ views on the structure and key areas of the draft constitution. 

This exercise has already been conducted in Burundi, Uganda and Kenya, it said, with the president saying in the X post that “apart from other things, we have also discussed measures to take to ensure that citizens in the EAC benefit from available economic opportunities.”

 The leaders also discussed the importance of heightening security and safety as a major pillar helping the various countries attain development goals. 

President Museveni similarly affirmed that the discussion was centred on the significance of the East African Community (EAC) attaining political federation, “which would most certainly guarantee the prosperity of our people.”

 On the other hand, Presi[1]dent Ruto said that the discussion was focused on the fast tracking of the federation. “Today, as leaders among the eight EAC partner states, we reaffirm our unwavering support for further regional integration and prosperity, focusing on fast-tracking the fed[1]eration,” the Kenyan leader wrote on X. 

The East African Community was formally reestablished on July 7, 2000, with President Museveni the only surviving Head of State who signed the treaty. He has consistently advocated for realizing the vision of the EAC’s founding fathers, the full integration of the region. 

The meeting came nearly two weeks after President Ruto, along with key opposition leader Raila Odinga, met with President Museveni, while the Zanzibar meeting brought Tanzania into the 2014 ‘coalition of the willing ‘which at that time brought the legislature to ask the government to withdraw from the EAC. While the EAC Community is much broader now with the addition of South Sudan, DRC and Somalia, the three founders, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania still hold much of the political and financial weight, observers say. 

It is expected that an agreement among them will catalyze momentum on any agenda they collectively endorse, with the big unknown being how the wider Tanzanian leadership will take up the views collection agenda it stopped in 2007. 

President Museveni said that the political federation will most certainly guarantee the prosperity of people through a larger market while also ensuring security more effectively. 

President Ruto recalled that the meeting bringing together Presidents Daniel arap Moi, Yoweri Museveni and Benjamin Mkapa on March 14, 1996 laid the foundation for East African Cooperation. 

“Reflecting on history, today as we gather in Zanzibar, it is remarkable that our meeting coincides with that of March 14, 1996,” he wrote. 

The vision of the meeting was to promote the unity of communities in the three member states, to harness the economic benefits of creating a larger market, and the imperative of security for stability within the expanded East African Community. 

The ultimate aim of the EAC’s regional integration process is political federation, in the wake of attaining the customs union, the common market and to facilitate an eventual monetary union to consolidate the federation, analysts noted