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The chairman of the council of ministers of the East African Community, Hafsa Mosi, has said the bloc proposes to spend $109.68 million from July compared to $77.66 million that was allocated for the current expenditure window.

During the presentation of the budget estimates last week in Arusha, Tanzania, she said the implementation of the Common Market and laying the foundation for the next Financial Year would be a momentous one as the Community enters a higher phase in its integration process in view of the launch of the Common Market and the energised process toward the establishment of the East African Monetary Union. 

According to estimates, development expenditure would take up 67 per cent of the total budget for next year.

Some $42 million would finance sustainable use of environment and natural resources, tourism and wildlife conservation while $10.27 million would be used to implement the common market protocol that was signed by the EAC heads of state in 2009 to boosting commerce.

Promotion of regional trade and infrastructure is planned to take up $12.5 million.

“While tremendous achievements have been made, we also recognise that there will be challenges in the period ahead to which we must apply ourselves in taking the regional integration forward,” Ms Mosi said.

She added : “The stage is therefore set for the full operations of a vibrant single market and investment area in East Africa.” Members of the EAC plan to jointly manage and share revenue from their tourism facilities as part of efforts to boost earnings from the key sector. Officials said EAC would also step up focus on the smooth implementation of the common market to allow the free movement of goods, services, people and capital within the bloc. This would make region easier to market to foreign investors.

The realisation of this dream has, however, run into hitches amid mistrust by some partner states that fear their economies would be compromised by dominant partners under such an arrangement.

“Our pressing call is to consolidate the gains of the customs union and maximise its benefits. During the year, we intensified efforts to address the problem of non-tariff barriers,” Ms Mosi said.

The EAC will also be looking to improve its road and energy infrastructure in 2011/12 fiscal year amid projections of higher inflows of investment. Foreign direct investment in the five-nation trade bloc rose to $1.72 billion in 2009 from $910 million in 2005.

She said the presentation of the Budget comes at a time when the East African Community is making very good progress and holding great promise for the period ahead. “While tremendous achievements have been made, we also recognize that there will be challenges in the period ahead to which we must apply ourselves in taking the regional integration forward. The stage is therefore set for the full operations of a vibrant single market and investment area in East Africa. 

When local fuel
pump prices went up by 4.4 percent in April, the second price increase in less
than two months, there was course for alarm. Prices went up from Rwf 1,015 to
Rwf1,060. The Ministry of Trade and Industry attributed the continued hike to
the constant increase in international oil prices over the last two months.

In a move seen to screen Rwandans from external shocks arising from the volatile fuel
market,
Rwanda plans to boost its
oil reserves by constructing an additional 40 million litre storage capacity in
a move to cushion.

The
government has contracted Falcon Oil Limited is to construct the reserves.

The
facility is expected to increase the country’s storage capacity to 60 million
up from the current 20 million litres.

According
to Emmanuel Hategeka , the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Trade and Industry
the government is considering both short and long term measures to reduce fuel
price shocks.

Mr Hategeka
said though mitigation measures have been made possible through streamlining
taxation and logistical issues, the country need to increase storage capacity
for petroleum.

“It is like
hedging such that when fuel prices are up, Rwanda is not heavily affected. We
still have limitations in storage capacity …the way out of this is investing in
fuel storage,” he said.

With the
increased storage capacity, the private sector will be encouraged to consider
bulk purchase schemes, Mr Hategeka said.

Oil
companies are required to keep 10,000 cubic metres of operational stock to
ensure that there is sufficient petroleum supply. Rwanda imports approximately
17 million litres of oil monthly, both for domestic and industrial consumption.

The main
supply route runs from the Mombasa refinery to Nairobi by a 485 kilometre
pipeline and on to Kigali via Uganda by trucks along a 1,250 km road route.

The government has dispatched a high-powered delegation to Zimbabwe to try and convince its nationals staying in the country as refugees to return home.

Minister of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs Marcel Gatsinzi and his delegation are expected to meet the Rwandan refugees and convince them that there was peace back home.

According to Zimbabwean newspaper Newsday, there are about 750 Rwandans staying in Zimbabwe as refugees.

Zimbabwean Public Service and Social Welfare Minister Paurina Mpariwa, said she was hopeful the Rwandan delegation will convince the refugees that their country was now peaceful.

“He (Gatsinzi) is around, we have about 700 Rwandans. I hope they will be able to convince them that it is peaceful back home,” Mpariwa said. 

“We believe as a government that there is peace in Rwanda. We believe that at their meeting, they will be convinced that they should go home.”

An adviser at Gatsinzi’s ministry in Rwanda, Jean Damascene Kayitana, said the majority of Rwandan refugees in Zimbabwe were unaware of the cessation clause, saying the aim of the minister’s visit was to sensitise the refugees about the issue.

The clause, under the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) stipulates that no Rwandan living abroad will qualify for refugee status after December 31 2011.

Last year, the Zimbabwe government promised to repatriate all Rwandan nationals by December 2011 after the UNHCR declared Rwanda safe for refugees to return but the refugees resisted the move.

Testimony in the federal trial of Lazare Kobagaya, 84, accused of participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide is expected to conclude during next week with defence lawyers resuming their efforts to convince jurors about the innocence of the accused. 

According to news agencies , defense attorneys will put on the stand their last witnesses in the case of Kobagaya, who faces the loss of his citizenship and deportation if convicted. He is charged with unlawfully obtaining U.S. citizenship in 2006 and with fraud and misuse of an alien registration card in a case prosecutors have said is the first in the nation requiring proof of genocide.

U.S. District Judge Monti Belot has told jurors that they will not get their jury instructions or hear closing arguments until after the Memorial Day holiday. That would make May 31 the earliest day that the jury could possibly get the case and begin deliberations.

Jurors must decide if Kobagaya lied to U.S. immigration officials. The government alleges he purposefully concealed that he was actually living in Rwanda during the genocide by misrepresenting on an immigration form that he was in Burundi at the time. He is also alleged to have lied when he told authorities he had not engaged in genocide or committed any crimes for which he was not convicted.

More than 500,000 people were killed in Rwanda during 100 days of violence that began in April 1994. Most of the dead were ethnic Tutsi, while most of the killings were carried out by ethnic Hutu militias, before a Tutsi-led rebel movement took power.

The prosecution brought Rwandan witnesses to this country in an effort to prove that Kobagaya, a Hutu born in Burundi, ordered other Hutus in Birambo, the village where he lived at the time, to burn down the houses of their Tutsi neighbors. He is accused of stabbing a Hutu man who refused to join in the killings, forcing him to later kill another man for fear of his own life. Kobagaya is also accused of helping lead an attack up Mount Nyakizu where hundreds of fleeing Tutsis who had been massacred.

Defense attorneys brought their own Rwandan witnesses to testify otherwise.

Kobagaya’s son, Jean Claude Kandagaye, took the stand first for the defense to recount for jurors their family’s life as Burundian refugees in Rwanda and his father’s efforts years later to learn English so he could become a U.S. citizen.

The defense used Kandagaye — who filled out an immigration form for his father — to show jurors that the elderly Kobagaya did not understand English well and depended on others to translate documents and help him fill out immigration paperwork. Several people testified prisoners were pressured to confess and accuse others in order to be released from prison.

Among them was Jean de Dieu Maniraho, who told jurors that Kobagaya’s name was on a list of people whom Rwandan prosecutors and a Tutsi survivors’ organization wanted prisoners to accuse others as a condition of their release.

Maniraho testified the inclusion of Kobagaya’s name on the list caused “a lot of trouble” at the prison in 2005, triggering fights and arguments that divided prisoners from Nyakizu Commune into two groups. Some inmates didn’t want to accuse “the old man” of something he didn’t do. Others argued they had to do what the Rwandan government and a survivors’ group wanted.

Also taking the stand this past week for the defense was Francois Patrick Tuyisabe, who at the time of the genocide was an 18-year-old student home on vacation. He testified that Hutu children and elderly people were excluded from joining the attacks on Mount Nyakizu because of fears they would be killed in a fight. He told jurors that he saw Kobagaya at his home in Birambo during the attacks at Mount Nyakizu.

The seventh gorilla naming ceremony commonly known as Kwita Izina will be held on 18 June 2011 at Kinigi, Musanze District. During the ceremony, a total of 22 gorilla infants, This includes a set of twins born in February this year,a rare occurrence for an endangered species which counts fewer than 800 individuals.

Mountain gorillas are Rwanda’s main tourist attraction and accounted for 90 percent of tourism revenue in 2010.

The naming ceremony will also mark the country’s seventh year tourism anniversary to be marked under the theme community development for sustained conservation,

Clare Akamanzi RDB Chief Operative Officer, observed that there has been a steady increase in tourism revenues. She pointed out that the industry made a total of US$200 million in 2010 while projections for this year are estimated to be US$216 million.

She further pointed out that there has been a 26 percent growth in the gorilla population since the last census in 2003. The growth is partly attributed to the conversion of poachers into productive activities such as agriculture. “The transformation has also improved security in the parks at the same time improved their livelihoods,|” she remarked.

Prior to the naming ceremony, RDB shall recognise the efforts of the community in contributing to the welfare of our wildlife and its conservation. The celebration of Kwita Izina will be preceded by a weeklong activities which includes Kwita Izina national cycling tour, conservation conference, launching of community projects as well as a community party known as “Igitaramo“. The activities consist of refurbishing of health centres, schools and funding of cooperatives specialising on tourism products. RDB would facilitate workshops in Kiningi to train handicraft makers on how to produce quality goods market them to tourists. In total, RDB would inject Frw 1billion to support community projects surrounding national parks.

 RDB’s head of tourism and conservation Rica Rwigamba encouraged locals to visit gorillas and abandon the erroneous mindset that this is meant for tourists. “We’re doing our best to encourage locals, we charge them Frw 20,000 while foreigners pay US$500,” she commented.

According to Rwigamba, Mountain gorillas are Rwanda’s main tourist attraction and accounted for 90 percent of tourism revenue in 2010.

In the 2010 census, the total number of mountain gorillas has increased by a quarter over the past seven years to reach more than 780 individuals. Two thirds of them are found in the Virunga massif, which straddles Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwanda has recorded only five twin mountain gorilla births over the past 40 years.

The Helsinki Court of Appeal is to travel to Rwanda and Zambia
to hear witnesses in the appeal of a man convicted of involvement in the Rwanda
genocide. Francois Bazaramba, a Rwandan-born Finnish citizen, was sentenced last
summer to life in prison for mass murder.

The court plans to be in session in Rwanda for 18 days in September and October
to hear testimony from 39 prosecution witnesses. The court also hopes to visit
places where killings took place.

The court will also go to Zambia in October to hear testimony from 15 defence
witnesses. Most of the witnesses live in Zambia and other countries in the
region.

The arrangement still requires the approval of the Rwandan and Zambian
governments.

The defendant will follow the events via video link from Finland, as was done
in the first trial.

The case is being handled in Finland because the Ministry of Justice refused to
extradite Bazaramba to Rwanda for fear that he might not get a fair trial
there.

The
lower court found that Bazaramba, a resident of Porvoo, had led attacks against
Tutsis in the south of Rwanda in 1994 and gave orders that led to their deaths.

Bazaramba
sought asylum in Finland, in 2003.

He was
convicted on two charges ; intent to destroy the Tutsi population in Maraba, and
spreading malicious propaganda calling for their extermination, crimes for
which he was handed a life sentence.

He is
said to have masterminded the killing of over 5,000 people in Nyakizu, Southern
Province.

Bazaramba
allegedly organised and maintained night patrols and road blocks, forcing the
Tutsi to leave their homes. He organised the setting on fire and destruction of
their homes and property.

RwandAir the national carrier of Rwanda today launched flights from Kigali to Libreville the capital city of the West Central African republic of Gabon. The three weekly flights have been designed to operate a triangular schedule between Kigali, Libreville and Brazzaville with full right to ferry passengers between Libreville and Brazzaville.

Making this announcement at a colourful ceremony hosted by the Gabon Ministry of Transport in Libreville , RwandAir CEO John Mirenge affirmed the airlines’ commitment to linking Central and West African cities with East Africa. “Earlier this year we launched flights to Brazzaville in the Republic of Congo, but that was not the end of it, we were just finalizing arrangements for Libreville which we are now proud to launch,” said Mr Mirenge. He further added that the memorandum of understanding for bilateral air services agreement signed between the representatives of governments of Rwanda and Gabon will allow the carriers of both countries fifth freedom rights. Kigali – Libreville flights will operate three times a week on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Libreville, located on the west coast of Africa along the banks of Komo River and overlooking the Atlantic Ocean becomes the fourth port city for RwandAir after Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Dubai. The Brazzaville route was launched March this year and is expected to get a major boost from the planned triangular operation.

RwandAir makes Libreville its second new destination this year with another  domestic destination, Gisenyi, set to launch May 31, 2011.

The airline will later this year take delivery of two Boeing 737- 800 from Boeing Commercial Airplanes. These aircraft become the first on the continent to be fitted with the Boeing “Sky Interior”.