{UAH} 10 Reasons Why Paul Kagame’s Rwanda Is Not The Rwanda He Says It Is
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10 Reasons Why Paul Kagame's Rwanda Is Not The Rwanda He Says It Is
For a country that lost slightly less than half of its population in span of three months in 1994, through a sordid process known as the worst human genocide in history, it is a praiseworthy to know that the country is back on its feet and healing the wounds of the past. Amongst the pros is a disturbing con, championed by the Rwandan Leader, Paul Kagame.
He is painting an image of Rwanda as the heaven of Africa, to the outside when it is obviously not true. He keeps exaggerating positive developments in Rwanda, when he needs to buckle down and do more, for there is more work to be done to build the Rwanda he says he has already built. Below are some reasons why Paul Kagame may be twisting the truth in his public rants about his country.
1. RWANDA IS NOT EXTRAORDINARY IN AFRICA; for all you know, Rwanda is the poorest country in East Africa second only to Burundi. For Africa's miracle economy, that cannot be true, right? Hold on, I have evidence to underwrite my claim. Rwanda's per capita income of $697.4 lags behind those of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania nut leads only that of Burundi which has it pegged at $277. Now you know!
2. RWANDA IS ONE OF THE LEADING AID JUNKIES IN AFRICA, PERHAPS THE LEADING BY PROPORTION; Rwanda roughly has an annual national budget of $2 billion, 50 per cent of which is catered for by foreign aid. Yeah! This is the Rwanda we are told has the annual growth rate of 8 per cent.
3. WITHOUT FOREIGN AID, RWANDA WOULD SLIP TO THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD DEVELOPMENT INDEX; just as one of the Presidents of France once admitted that his country would slip to the rank of a third world country without their former colonies, the same fate awaits Rwanda without foreign aid, in this, Rwanda is already a third world country, this means more poverty. For a miracle economy that has had an average growth rate of 8 per cent of from 2003 to 2012, we least expect for the aid cut of 2012 to affect the overall performance of the economy in the way it did. It came at surprise to us that the economy could not absorb any of the shock. Growth rate reduced to a whopping 4.7 per cent. You see what what we are talking about now!
4. RWANDA IS NOT SINGAPORE; unlike Singapore, Rwanda is not made up of only its capital, Kigali. Paul kagame's obsession with the looks of the capital comes at the expense of the development of other cities. Kigali may look like Johannesburg now, but how about the deplorable conditions of Gitarama, Ruhengeri or Kibungo. President Paul Kagame, enough of your buff, 'I have built the Singapore of Africa.' You maybe write to say you have built the Singapore of Rwanda with reference to Kigali.
5. RWANDA HAS ONLY 700 DOCTOR WHEN ITS POPULATION IS JUST OVER12 MILLION; I know with this achievement, Rwanda is better off than many countries particularly in Africa, but certainly, it is nothing to write home about for a miracle economy. And worse, Mr President goes from one international body to the other shouting on roof tops that he has attained universal health coverage in Rwanda. How is this possible when the country's doctor to patient is around 1:17,000? Paul Kagame should shut up and do more to arrest the situation to the WHO proposed 1:1,350.
6. OUTSIDE KIGALU AT NIGHT IS JUST TOO MUCH DARKNESS: Africa's annual average per capita energy consumption is 124 kilowatts per hour but Rwanda when singled out has an annual energy consumption of 41 kilowatts per hour. Rwanda has installed, a meagre 115 megawatts of power much of which is consumed only in Kigali. How did Mr President manage to spur the economic development with such a huge power deficit?
7. BRITAIN MAYBE A POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY BUT UNQUESTIONABLY NOT RWANDA: Rwanda economic development blueprint is predicated on a capitalist dogma,'the world lives in a post-industrial world' while it may be true for some countries, it is not cannot be fit the developmental history of other countries of which Rwanda is one.
8. THE SERVICE SECTOR IS POOR ENGINE OF GROWTH: whereas powerful countries have their manufacturing sector dominating, 73 per cent of Rwanda's economy is made up of the services. Kagame wants to carve out truth out of a lie. The service sector is highly untradeable, which would leave a high balance of payments deficit and the good part is, we are all not ignorant of what the outcome of such a move is likely to be.
9. RWANDA A COUNTRY IS ECONOMICALLY UNVIABLE: Africa's man of the millennium, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in his book, 'Africa Must Unite' warned us that Rwanda alongside smaller African countries like Togo, Benin, Eritrea, Djibouti etc. are economically unviable. Such countries according to the chief architect of Pan-Africanism must unite or perish!
10. RWANDA IS A MOCKERY OF DEMOCRACY: in 2015, when the president of Burundi, Pierre Nkurunziza altered his country's constitution to enable him to run for a third term, he received a lot of international backlash and condemnation. Foreign aid to his country was cut. But around that very corner, Paul Kagame of Rwanda does same and everything seems normal. What a world we live in! In a multi-party democracy, it is unheard of for a candidate to be able to mash up up to 93 per cent of the total votes cast, especially not in a country where bitterness of the past keeps flashing back into people's memory with one of the biggest perpetrators portraying himself as a saviour. People don't forget so easily. Paul kagame would be running for his fourth term but he would tell us it is his third.
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