South African President Ramaphosa visits Angola
Friday March 02 2018
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. AFP PHOTO | PHILL MAGAKOE
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has visited Angola on his first foreign trip as head of state.
President Ramaphosa arrived in Luanda at 11am (1000 GMT) for a day visit , which is part of a three-country tour of members of the regional bloc, SADC.
South Africa currently holds the chairmanship of the 16-member states Southern African Development Community.
Mr Ramaphosa held a consultative meeting with President João Lourenço. The Angolan leader is the current chairman of SADC’s Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation organ.
President Ramaphosa, who became South Africa’s leader on February 15, 2018, will also visit Namibia on Friday and Botswana on Saturday.
Botswana hosts the SADC Secretariat while Namibia will take over the SADC’s chairmanship from South Africa later this year.
Other SADC member states include Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Lesotho, Seychelles, Swaziland and Madagascar.