Kagame chairs EAC regional meeting on coronavirus fight

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame on Tuesday asked the leaders the East African Community (EAC) to continue working together towards addressing the spread of COVID-19.

Kagame made the call during a consultative meeting held virtually which he chaired and brought together Presidents of Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan.

“We are very much interested in working with the region to see how to effectively manage the problem,” he said.

It would be recalled that recent COVID-19 cases that have been registered in the country are linked to truck drivers.

To address this, the government proposed a solution, setting up temporary customs facilities in Kirehe District, from which goods can be cleared and drivers would drive back to Tanzania.

“This is undoubtedly a difficult period for our region, and the entire world. We are working to minimise the economic hardship on our citizens, while protecting their health,” Kagame said. “But this will be more effective, as has been stated by Your Excellencies, if we act in concert with one another.”

President Kagame stated that it is critically important to maintain the flow of trade within the region, working hand in hand with the private sector.

“So long as any member of our community is vulnerable, we are all at risk. Therefore, we must work very closely together in the months ahead, to face this challenge as a community of partners,” he said.

 “We need to work for our people,” Kagame concluded. “If we can’t all work together, the six of us, and have things moving, it doesn’t mean that two, three, four shouldn’t work, in these circumstances, to deal with the problems that we have to deal with.”