Arusha, Tanzania — East African Community (EAC) Secretary General, Amb. Dr. Richard Sezibera has asked the partner states of the community to reduce dependence on development partners to fund regional security programmes.

"Our intention is to reduce dependency on development partners to fund regional security programmes by creating a directorate of peace and security which will help to expedite peace and security issues in the partner states," he said while opening the EAC Minister's sectoral council on inter-state security meeting held in Kigali, Rwanda recently.

He underscored the importance of regional peace and security, saying that East Africans individually and collectively hoped for their security to improve as the integration process deepened.

"The expectation is that the threat of terrorism, trafficking in persons and narcotics as well other transnational security threats will be managed better and in a smarter way," Amb. Sezibera stated.

The ministerial session of the sectoral council backed Uganda's bid to host the EAC Regional Forensic Referral Centre (RFRC) facility which is expected to revolutionize fighting of crime in the region by providing scientific information to investigators and courts.

The council on inter-state security is composed of Ministries in charge of Internal Affairs, Disaster Management, Immigration, Police, Prisons, Intelligence and Counter-terrorism, among others.

The source added that in criminal law, forensic science can help prove the guilt or innocence of the defendant. In civil actions, forensics can help resolve a broad spectrum of legal issues through the identification, analysis and evaluation of physical evidence.

Amb. Sezibera hailed the EAC Police chiefs for having already taken concrete steps to deter criminal activities, adding that EAC wholly supported their efforts.

Police chiefs expressed their support after considering a report of an EAC fact-finding mission, which visited all five partner states in March this year, and a detailed report of an independent forensics consultant from the UK who participated in the assessment mission with forensics experts from the partner states together with technical staff from the EAC Secretariat.