Author: John Mbaraga

Kagame was speaking on Tuesday in Kigali while officiating at the Transform Africa Summit 2018 Opening Ceremony.

The Head of State said that technology is the foundation of modern and high-income economies, a reason why Africa is investing so much in physical infrastructure and in the education required to use it. He noted that the invested efforts are bearing fruit.

However, Kagame said the most advanced technology cannot compensate for shortcomings in other areas which are essential for economic competitiveness.

“This agreement will transform Africa, but only if we translate its provisions into reality on the ground. A favourable investment climate is critical in order to build trust in African economies, attract the right partnerships and spur innovation,” he said.

Kagame challenged participants at the summit that though many African countries lead in business-friendly reforms, achieving good rankings is not an end in itself.

He said the goal is to attract more and better investments, an exercise that requires to effectively communicate these facts to global markets and African investors.

“We must work harder to ensure that African private capital is mobilised to participate fully in major projects on the continent. There is this myth that we always have to look outside the continent to fund major initiatives. But this simply can’t be true, when Africa is losing billions every year through lost taxes, sending private assets abroad, and other factors,” he said.

“We are not poor, not at all. The issue is more the mindset that it is normal to use our money for consumption while we leave strategic long-term investing to others. It means that no matter how much we earn, we would remain poor,” Kagame noted.

“Whether this comes from colonialism or not is irrelevant. It is up to us to identify mindsets that hold us back as a continent, and change how we do business,” he challenged Africans.

Kagame said that these elements remind Africans that the application of technology and innovation takes place in a wider context. He reminded to harness these factors together holistically to achieve the results that people expect and deserve.

He said that the African Union and the International Telecommunications Union together with the private sector have combined efforts to bring broadband to under-served communities by harmonising spectrum and standards.

Transform Africa Summit is a leading annual continental forum that convenes global and regional leaders from government, business and international organizations to collaborate on new ways of shaping, accelerating and sustaining Africa’s on-going digital revolution.

The issue was raised yesterday by the chamber of deputies during discussions with staff from the Ministry of Trade and Industry on Budget resources for Fiscal Year 2018/19 and Budget Framework Paper 2018/19-2020/21.

A research done by the National Institute of Statistics in 2014, established that 50% of new businesses in Rwanda collapse in their infant stage.

Members of Parliament wanted to establish what MINICOM is doing to solve the problem of collapse of new businesses in Rwanda, asking whether the ministry could not find a simplified and less costly tax regime that would encourage small businesses to grow into formal bigger entities.

“Individual persons start businesses with anticipation they will be supported to flourish, expand, create more jobs, only to, after investing their hard-earned resources and efforts, have their businesses squeezed back to zero as all their money is taken away from them through taxes,” wondered MP Théobald Mporanyi.

“We are usually asked by members of the public whether MINICOM and Rwanda Revenue Authority cannot find a way of making it easier for startups to flourish,” he considered.

Mporanyi pointed out how locals invest money which in turn ends ups in tax payment. He requested for measures to be taken so to facilitate them.

“They need to be given incentives to encourage them to focus and strive. The actual tax costs should also be reviewed to reduce the actual tax burden to facilitate their growth,” he appealed.

“Another thing is how you tax informal businesses. One would even wonder how you even categorize them in the same class as formal entrepreneurs. There are many taxes that people are failing to understand,” observed Mporanyi.

Responding, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Vincent Munyeshyaka, acknowledged the challenges faced by business startups and announced that law concerning taxes is being revised.

“The tax law is being revised. We expect to have come to new decisions by the beginning of next year,” Munyeshaka promised.

The yearly list by Jeune Afrique, a French-language pan-African weekly news magazine has names of people from different domains like politicians, business people, human rights activists, artistes and players.

The magazine says that it was not an easy exercise to select 50 people among over one billion people from 54 African countries. Among factors they considered include their universal visibility.

The factors also include ways they are followed on social media, particularly on Twitter and ways their statements or activities are received outside their countries and their role in political-related decision making.

The 56-year-old Mushikiwabo who has been Rwanda’s Foreign Affairs Minister since 2009, is known for raising the voice in explaining the vision Rwanda has chosen and that Africa needs self-dependency.

The only Rwandan on the list, Mushikiwabo has 259,000 followers on Twitter and her posts are mostly debated on.

On the list, the magazine did not include Heads of State and their wives. Also, they did not include Africans living outside the continent, though they might be doing activities developing the continent or their countries.

The first on the list is Aliko Dangote, a Nigerian business magnate, investor, and owner of the Dangote Group. The second is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer of novels, short stories, and nonfiction. The third is Mostafa Terrab, the CEO of the Moroccan state-owned phosphate-mining company OCP since 2006. And the fourth is Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Head of State was speaking Monday at the opening of Transform Africa Economic Forum in advance of the Transform Africa Summit.

He said that technological integration should be seen as the vanguard of economic integration more generally.

Kagame said that the purpose of integrating technology, it is to serve all people and their businesses among other things.

“I’m sure in this audience there are people who have had close to a dozen stopovers, half of them maybe on our continent. Sometimes to fly home here you have to go to Europe maybe from one city to another in Europe, then to another city in Africa. So, when people are talking about one common digital market or one common air transport market, I think the purpose is to solve some of these problems,” he said.

He said that when people are integrating technologies, they should bear in mind to also integrate regions, countries as well as the whole continent.

“I’m sure people here know it very well, better than I how even when we are communicating the traffic follows the same route as the planes I was talking about. Doesn’t it? Sometimes the traffic has to go through outside Africa and then back to us. What are you integrating, if you don’t include this? Why don’t we have that happening without having to pay for a visa for the traffic to first go out of Africa and then receive it back?” Kagame challenged Africans.

“The visa is in the form of how much you pay. Is this something we can’t address? We are supposedly very proud Africans, businesses and governments, I think we need to work hard on this,” he noted.

Kagame said that Africa still has a long way to go noting that in recent years, regional cooperation on technology has produced good results to some extent.

Kagame said that other urgent integration projects have languished on the African agenda, and added that through technology Africans can find ways of speeding them up.

“It is beginning to change and with such a forum bringing so many people with diverse backgrounds together, I think we can make it happen faster. So, we see technology cooperation as part of that story. But behind it there has to be political will in real terms,” he said.

He said that Smart Africa’s focus on One Africa Network has helped lay the groundwork for ambitious projects such as the African Continental Free Trade Area.

Kagame pledged that they will continue to advance the digital transformation agenda championed by the African Union, Smart Africa, the Broadband Commission as well as the external partners.

Kagame was this morning speaking in Kigali while co-chairing the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development alongside Co-chair, Carlos Slim and Co-Vice Chair and ITU Secretary General, Houlin Zhao.

The broadband commission brings together leaders from the private sector, policy makers, government representatives, international agencies and academia to provide a variety of perspectives with the aim of developing a joint approach to promote broadband for public benefit.

Speaking at the opening of the commission’s working group meeting, Kagame noted that Africa’s economic transformation requires broadband infrastructure with an emphasis on both access and affordability.

“The reality is that all other digital services whether in commerce or education or healthcare run on top of broadband. Africa’s size, geography and settlement patterns mean that we must rely on a variety of different technologies to deliver broadband including satellite, fibre optic and mobile. It is up to us to lead the way in driving innovation both in policy and business models in order to speed up the provision of broadband where it has been slowest to reach,” Kagame said.

Kagame will also deliver a keynote address at the opening of the Transform Africa Economic Forum which will deliberate on the vision for a smart Continental Free Trade Area.

The Economic Forum is expected to highlight potential cross- border initiatives for investment and partnership opportunities relevant to African Continental Free Trade Area. The Agreement was signed by 44 African countries during the 10th Extraordinary Summit of the African Union held in Kigali on 21 March 2018.

The Transform Africa Economic Forum will precede Transform Africa Summit 2018, which runs from 8-9 May 2018.

In its fourth edition, Transform Africa Summit is a leading annual continental forum that convenes global and regional leaders from government, business and international organizations to collaborate on new ways of shaping, accelerating and sustaining Africa’s on-going digital revolution.