By David Himbara
They are going nuts in Rwanda. Kagame’s regime, the ruling party, the media are all falling over themselves for one thing – Rwanda will apparently host the Commonwealth in 2020. What is this noise about? Is it the prestige of hosting 53 heads of state and a queen? Or perhaps about how the largely empty hotels in Kigali will fill up for a week or so?
It seems to me there is little to celebrate in Rwanda in 2020
If Kagame had an iota of decency, he would beg for mercy from the Rwandan people. For the past 20 years, Kagame has been spreading the big lie around the world that he is transforming Rwanda from a poor nation into a middle-income country. According to the big lie, Rwanda would reach the middle-income milestone by 2020:
“The Vision seeks to fundamentally transform Rwanda into middle – income country by the year 2020. This will require achieving per capita income of US$1240.”
Currently, Rwanda’s per capita income stands at US$702. To achieve the middle-income status by 2020 — two years from now — Kagame needs to increase per capita income by US$538! That of course won’t happen.
Kagame Vision 2020 is officially dead.
Kagame has nowhere to run. His regime has quietly conceded the death of Vision 2020 to the IMF already. According to the IMF, Rwandan authorities
”are crafting a revised medium-term development strategy with the goal of achieving middle income status by 2035.”
In other words, what Kagame boasted he would achieve in 2020, he will accomplish it in 2035 — fifteen years late. Don’t bank on it.
Hosting the commonwealth may make Kagame feel important for three days. After that it is back to usual lies. He does not have the courage to acknowledge his moral corruption of living a lie.
