Maj Gen Sabiiti Muzeeyi, the General Manager Luwero
Industries Limited has urged the East African Community (EAC) partner
States to collaboratively explore and extract vital raw materials to
bolster their defence industries and further promote regional
integration.
Maj. Gen. Sabiiti said this during the opening of a two-day
Multi-Experts Working Group meeting in Kampala, which sought to unite
member states on a common approach to harnessing natural resources
within each country for the benefit of their military industries.
The goal is to reduce reliance on foreign imports and strengthen self-sufficiency.
The Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) in a statement released on
Thursday, August 26, 2024, noted that the meeting, which gathered CEOs
of military industries from across the EAC, aims to explore effective
methods of leveraging the region's abundant natural resources to create
critical raw materials for military production.
"Countries all over the world have been ensuring that critical minerals
that are essential for defence products are protected, and identified,
to ensure that countries have some level of sovereignty in being able to
have a reliable supply source of the raw materials that are required
for the military industries in this sector," Maj Gen Sabiiti noted.
Col Ndeng Mayom Manyang, the Defence Liaison Officer for the Republic of
South Sudan to the EAC, representing the EAC Secretary-General,
remarked, “The success of the Defence Sector is a vital core value of
our regional integration and precisely the military industry service,"
adding that militaries and industries are the backbone of many robust
global economies.
The meeting, attended by delegates from the EAC Partner States, was
themed: “To come up with modalities in the legal and technical aspects
as enablers in the establishment and co-own raw materials processing
industries for iron, copper, cotton, hides, lithium among others.”
Representatives from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Burundi, South Sudan, Somalia, and the East African Community
were present.