Sixteen member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have agreed to adopt Kiswahili as a formal language in the region.

 Tanzanian President, John Magufuli stated this while speaking during the opening of the SADC 39th Heads of States Summit holding at the Julius Nyerere International Centre.

“I am appealing to your excellencies to fast track the adoption of Kiswahili to be among the four official languages in SADC.

“Kiswahili would be adopted at the level of Council and Summit, first as a language for oral communication before eventually being adopted for written official communication within SADC,” Magufuli was quoted as saying.

According to the Chairperson of the SADC Council and Tanzania’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Professor Palamagamba Kabudi, Kiswahili is an official language of the African Union and the lingua franca in most of East Africa and parts of Central and Southern Africa.