By David Himbara
I have a new name for Clare Akamanzi and her boss Paul Kagame — Artful Dodgers. The original Artful Dodger is a character in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. The Dodger was so called because of his incredible cunning skills. He was a master of lying, cheating, and manipulation.
Take the case of foreign direct investment (FDI). The Rwandan Artful Dodgers reported a figure of US$1.6 FDI into Rwanda for 2017. This is how the Rwandan Artful Dodgers put it:
”The three sectors that attracted the most investments were construction and real estate, mining and lastly, infrastructure. They registered investments of USD$ 637,659,692, USD$ 267,344,495 and USD$202,660,135.”
The newly-released UNCTAD’ World Investment Report indicates FDI into Rwanda was US$366 Million in 2017. The Rwandan Artful Dodgers, therefore, inflated FDI into Rwanda by whopping 77%.
UNCTAD further indicates that the entire FDI stock in Rwanda since foreign investments first came to Rwanda is US$1.7 Billion. In other words, what the Artful Dodgers claimed to be FDI into Rwanda for a single year, represents the entire stock of FDI accumulated over decades.
Comparatively, FDI into eastern Africa in 2017 was as follows:
- Ethiopia — US$3.5 Billion
- Tanzania — US$1.1 Billion
- Uganda — US$700 Million
- Kenya — US$672 Million
- Somalia — US$384 Million
- Rwanda — US$366 Million
- Burundi — US$0.3 Million
Comparatively, FDI stock in eastern Africa is as follows:
- Tanzania — US$20 Billion
- Ethiopia — US$18.5 Billion
- Kenya — US$11.9 Billion
- Uganda — US$11.8 Billion
- Rwanda — US$1.7 Billion
- Burundi — US$242 Million
Dear Artful Dodgers aka Akamanzi and Kagame, you have gone overboard. While you claim that you attracted foreign investments of US$1.6 Billion in 2017, you received only US$366 Million. Rwanda attracted less than Somalia which received US$384 Million.
