Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame said on Wednesday that his country was no longer interested in joining the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in order to avoid ”overlapping” roles with other blocs.
”As a country we need to rationalise on which organisations to join in order to avoid overlaps, and of course we realised that there were duplications in the roles of most of these regional groupings,” he told journalists at the end of his three-day visit to Malawi.
Kagame said Rwanda, which had applied to join the 14-nation SADC two years ago, later changed its mind and decided against joining too many organisations that might not be economically beneficial to his country.
”Rwanda has since reconsidered its position and it is no longer interested in joining SADC. We will remain … in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa),” he said.
Rwanda’s neighbours — the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania — are SADC members.
At the end of the visit, Kagame, who arrived in Malawi on Monday, signed a communique with his Malawian counterpart, Bingu wa Mutharika, to strengthen bilateral ties in trade, investment and agriculture as well as to promote cultural exchanges. — AFP
