Among the key highlights of this week’s Southern African Development Community (SADC) Summit in Lilongwe, Malawi is the election of new Executive Secretary to replace Tanzania’s Dr Stergomena Lawrence Tax who has come to the end of her second term.
Presidents of the 16-member state bloc will elect the Executive Secretary with Botswana’s Elias Magosi vying for the position against DRC’s Prof Faustin Mukela, who has been a senior official at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) since 1996.
Magosi has worked for SADC Secretariat before. He was the bloc’s Director for Human Resource before being poached by Botswana Government to take up a senior position at the Office of the President when Mokgweetsi Masisi ascended the presidency in 2018.
Masisi has since launched an aggressive campaign for Magosi, traveling personally to most SADC countries to court Presidents for him. President Masisi left Gaborone on Monday morning for the Summit.