The East African Community (EAC) is working towards making Kiswahili to be lingua franca of the community in the next few years.
The East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) has received a proposal in the 2017/18 financial year to allocate at least 1,553,098 USD to the East Africa Kiswahili Commission to facilitate the enforcement of this agenda.
“The development and use of Kiswahili calls for strategic planning, transformation and adaptation of the language to these challenges so as to catalyze citizens of the community into active participants and agents of change,” said Julius Maganda, Uganda’s Minister of State (EAC Affairs).
Kiswahili is being pushed to the common language in wider communication across the region further added Uganda’s Minister of State Maganda.
“The East Africa Kiswahili Commission has taken cognizant of the continuing and growing significance of the language as a basis for regional integration and sustainable development,” said Mr Maganda who was reading the budget prepared by EAC Council of Ministers Chairman and East African Minister, Dr Ali Kivenjija.
The East Africa Kiswahili Commission is enforcing measures and activities towards the institutionalization of Kiswahili language in the integration process and development agenda of the EAC.
“The Commission has developed a Strategic Plan (2017-2022) which has been approved by the 35th Meeting of Council of Ministers…(it) defines the direction the Commission will take in the next five years in extending its mandate of coordinating and promoting the development and use of Kiswahili as a lingua franca of the Community,” Said Dr.Kivenjia. Read the full news here.