By David Himbara
The 14th National Leadership Retreat produced a few hilarious resolutions – and some cash for Kagame’s ruling party, RPF. First, the funny resolutions:
Resolution 4:
“Devise strategies to increase consumption of unused electricity and increase access to electricity, starting with factories, schools, hospitals and other pulic places.”
Can someone help me understand what “unused electricity” in Rwanda means? Rwanda has a miserable 200 Megawatts, of which 20% is lost due to dilapidated transmission infrastructure. In a population of nearly 12 million. So how does “unused electricity” come about?
Resolution 5:
“Sensitise Rwandans and set up sound mechanisms for them to use gas and other modern environmentally-friendly energy sources for cooking in households as well as in schools, prisons and other big institutions.”
Only 5% of Rwandans use electricity to cook. So the 95% who use firewood to cook do so because they are not aware of “modern environmentally-friendly energy sources” or because they are poor? How will the government “set up sound mechanisms” to enable the 95% of Rwandans who use biomass to shift to using gas and other modern energy sources?
Resolution 9:
“Accelerate implementation of effective waste management program in the City of Kigali and in the 6 secondary Cities.”
Let us remind Kagame and his government that the The Kigali City Sanitation Master Plan was adopted 7 years ago in 2010. The implementation of sewage and waste management was to have been completed in 2016. The Ministry of Infrastructure confirmed this objective in February 2016:
“All the studies including Engineering Design, Economic Feasibility Study…will be completed end of March 2016. There has been interests from a number of development partners to finance the Kigali centralized Sewerage System project, including the European Investment Bank (EIB) which is currently financing the ongoing appraisal studies that are a precondition for financing. Apart from Kigali Centralized Sewerage project, Kigali Feacal sludge treatment project has been initiated and the study for the Conceptual Design, performance specifications of Septic Tank Sludge Management and treatment plant will be completed end April 2016. The construction of the plant is planned in the fiscal year 2016/17.”
So what happened?
Resolution 18:
“Improve quality of education at all levels, especially by improving the quality of teachers, infrastructure and equipment, by conducting regular inspections, and by promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).”
Mr. Kagame, the University of Rwanda is in total shambles due to funding shortages – and is said to be “struggling with a Rwf2 billion debt it owes varsity lecturers for overtime as well as pending payment to service providers.” And as we all know, the percentage of Rwandan university teachers with PhD is still tiny. How do you expect this university to ever produce quality professionals?
Resolution 23:
“Fast-track penetration of communication network across the country and use it profitably.”
Mr. Kagame, what happened to the fibre optic cables that landed in the districts at a cost of over US$100 million? Have you constructed “last mile” infrastructure to connect the fibre optics to end users yet? And what sort of business will the end users in the districts conduct using this communication network?
Never mind the bogus resolutions. Kagame’s Crystal Ventures Ltd made some cash from the National Leadership Retreat. Look closely at what the folks at the Retreat are drinking – Inyange juice and bottled water.
With a crowd of over 300 people, held over for an entire week, Kagame’s Crystal Ventures Ltd banked a few Rwandan Francs.
