IGIHE

Category: Opinion

  • KCB to pump billions into struggling subsidiaries

    The Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) group Board of Directors has approved an additional Sh1.9 billion capital injection to support the growth of the bank’s struggling regional subsidiaries.

    Group chairman Peter Muthoka said the increased investment is meant to help the subsidiaries speed up their financial performance, and yield better returns to the shareholders.

    The beneficiaries of the new funding include KCB Uganda (Sh1.1 billion), KCB Tanzania (Sh225 million) and KCB Rwanda (Sh557 million). With the exception of KCB Sudan, these subsidiaries returned an accumulated net loss of Sh259 million last year, diluting the Group’s overall profitability.

    Performed better

    KCB Uganda reported a loss of Sh409 million, while KCB Tanzania and KCB Rwanda registered losses of Sh111 million, and Sh318 million, respectively. KCB Sudan, however, performed better than expected, returning a profit before tax (PBT) of Sh581 million.

    “KCB Sudan reported a good profit last year, and is poised for better returns in 2011 whereas KCB Rwanda and KCB Uganda are moving closer to profit making. KCB Tanzania is now stable, and should become more profitable going forwards,” said Muthoka. He, however, said all regional subsidiaries would be expected to break- even this year.

    Muthoka also said the KCB board would be reviewing the operations of each subsidiary as it seeks the right business model which delivers increased returns to the investors.

    “The board has agreed to increase investment in the subsidiaries this year to enable them accelerate their financial performance,” Muthoka told shareholders during the bank’s 40th annual general meeting (AGM) in Nairobi, yesterday. Muthoka said the board has also approved wide-ranging business 

  • Europcar rental agency: more than just a car

    One of the largest car rental agencies in the world Europcar set up its operations in Rwanda in January of 2011 without much fanfare. But five months on, the company is already making Rwandans to stop and take notice. 

    Going by the motto ’You rent more than a car”, the local agency consists of a management team, an operational team, marketing and sales team that have already managed to rapidly gain a huge client base. Some of the firms major clients within this short time span include international organisations, NGOs, the U.S Embassy as well as individuals who rent cars to travel for long distances.

    The Europcar offices are adjacent to Gorilla Hotel in the plush Kiyovu estate in Kigali.

     The operations manager of the local agency is Leonard Mugisha, a suave Ugandan-born chap of Rwandan descent, who is convincingly adept at lionising his firm. After giving me a short summary of Europa cars history, I ask him what the benefits of renting a car from Europa car agency rather than another car agency in Rwanda or abroad.

    “Firstly,the maintenance and servicing of the vehicles is one of our major responsibilities and we take seriously what we believe in, though we know how to keep our customers happy even while dealing with the competitive rates, we always remember our long term relationships have been due to our customer satisfaction,” he says.

     Europcar deals with millions of different types of cars every single day and for every car that is rented, the agency takes full responsibility for not only the insurance cover but also the delivery of the vehicle the customer has requested for. Mugisha told IGIHE.com that the vehicle with the highest demand in Rwanda is the Toyota Land Cruiser VXV8, especially by various organisations, private companies, as well as many of the CEO’S of corporate companies such as Tigo. Mugisha discloses that all these cars are 2010 models. 

    The company rents a Toyota Land Cruiser VXV8 at Rwf 100 million, whether the car is brand new or second hand. Renting and leasing isn’t the only service the agency provides.

    “A client may also hire qualified professional drivers to drive you during your lease of the car,” discloses Mugisha.

    Europcar, a car rental agency that was established in 1945 in Paris, France, now has 145 different rental agencies across the globe, in the Caribbean, North America, the middle east, the United kingdom, Russia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda and now Rwanda. iin all these countries, there are over 2,825 different car models rented in 3,000 different locations.

    Europcar, which has two divisions ; Europcar France and Europcar International, partners with a few of the great names in the car industry including Accor, Volkswagen, Thalys, Renault and Mercedes, as well as working with other partners such as Delta Air Lines and Easy jet. Their solid reputation for professionalism has made them the top third car rental brand in the world.

     The various prestigious awards that have over a decade placed themselves in their world trophy accolade include the number one and best car rental company in Europe and Africa in 2004 for three consecutive years and the world’s best leisure car in 2006.

    One of leading rental car agencies in the world has come to Rwanda not to compete against us but with us, says Mugisha.

    “Though we are still new, we are now working towards building a relationship with the government of Rwanda”, “I have personally seen what a great and diverse culture Rwanda has and we are hoping to recruit more Rwandans in order to enlarge the diversity of our agency. ”

    “Like I said with Europcar agency you are renting more than just car,” he aptly recap.

     

  • Methane gas to boost economy and eliminate fear of explosion.

    Rwanda is targeting to reap US$ 25 billion in the next 50 years in the ongoing methane gas project in Lake Kivu if all the 60bn cubic metres of methane in the lake is extracted.

    Dr. Natacha Tofield Pasche, an expert in limnology said the extraction of methane is a double achievement for the government as it would reduce the methane threats and also provide energy for economic growth.

    Dr. Pasche who led a Franco-Swiss team of scientists studying the physicochemical characteristics of the lake observed that this would not only contribute to the development of the country but would also reduce the risk of cataclysmic explosion that would affect the people around the area.

    “The extraction will reduce methane gas threats and also contribute to the economy of the country,” Dr. Natasha Tofield Pasche, a Limnology Expert at Kivu Power Generation Pilot Project said during the press visit at the site recently.

    She illuminated that the main reasons for extracting methane gas in this lake are to ensure safety through removing methane and carbon dioxide, and protect the ecosystem by avoiding nutrient increase in the bio-zone as well as the economic gains of the country through generation of electricity among others.

    Pasche said that the accumulation of the methane gas in the lake has lasted over 800 years. “This proves that there is enough methane to be extracted because if not extracted, it would destroy the stability of the lake and also explode which will affect the surrounding areas,” he disclosed.

    At a moment ; Pasche, who also does the assessment of the methane project, said that the lake cannot explode since the gas pressure now stands at 55 percent of the saturation. She added that it would be dangerous if this was at the rate of 100 percent.

    The Engineer Operator at Kivu Pilot Plant Project 1, Hodari Muhire, said that the Kivu Power Generation Pilot Project, which is 100 percent owned by the government of Rwanda was estimated to produce 4.5megawatts per hour but since it is the first time the project has been undertaken in the whole world, there were miscalculations by experts. He noted that the project currently produces only 2megawatts per hour which contributes 2.6 percent to the national grid.

  • Who is now on the World’s Most Wanted list?

    Rwanda’s most high profile fugitive and genocide mastermind Felicien Kabuga may have probably be quivering as news began to filter in that Osama Bin Laden had been shot dead on Monday. Kabuga, who has a US$5 million bounty on his head, is said to be hiding somewhere in neighbouring Kenya, though his exact location remains a mystery to many. But what the world has exhibited is that one can run (for protracted periods) but cannot hide. Osama, despite his camouflage and immense financial prowess, could not survive the fury of the innocent blood he shed during the years that he has continued to terrorise the world. Would something similar happen to Kabuga, who has all along managed to mask his identity this long ? After the demise of Osama, Kabuga alongside Uganda’s Joseph Kony, the leader of the murderous Lords Resistance Movement, join FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives in the world.

    He wasn’t the World’s Most Wanted Man. Officially, at least, there’s no such thing. But when Osama bin Laden|More from guardian.co.uk on Osama bin Laden died from a shot to the head and another to the chest sometime between midnight and 1.30am local time on Monday, the man who, in the popular western imagination, held arguably the best – and certainly the best-publicised – claim to be regarded as such left behind him something of a conundrum for those who compile such lists : who could replace him ?

    It’s not such a straightforward question. Leaving aside such niceties as one man’s evil terrorist mastermind being another man’s blessed freedom fighter, attempting to place in order of importance crimes on the kind of scale that might warrant inclusion in a Top 10 of global iniquity is a task fraught with difficulties. How do you measure a Serbian ethnic cleanser against an American serial killer, dismemberer and necrophile ; a Mexican drugs baron against a Rwandan genocide-merchant ?

    Most lists, sensibly, do not try. The first and perhaps the most famous of all, the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives|FBIs 10 Most Wanted Fugitives – from which Bin Laden was summarily ejected on Monday, his photograph stamped with a blood-red banner and the single word “Deceased” – doesn’t rank its members, who are confined to criminals indicted by a US federal grand jury. Bin Laden, indicted in absentia in New York in 1999 for his alleged part in the US embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi the previous year, was a bit of a misfit on that list.

    His fellow fugitives were, for the most part, fraudsters, rapists, murderers and drug traffickers, with bounties on their heads ranging from $100,000 to $2m ; the reward offered for Bin Laden’s capture totalled $27m (£16m). Robert William Fisher, for example, is wanted for allegedly killing his wife and two young children and then blowing up the house in which they all lived in Scottsdale, Arizona in April 2001 ; Alexis Flores for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a five-year-old girl in Philadelphia.

    Heinous crimes, but hardly the equivalent of masterminding 9/11. Or indeed, as assorted warrants put it, of “organising a global network committed to bringing down the United States|More from guardian.co.uk on United States“. That explains why the FBI created a separate list in 2001, in the wake of the September 11 attacks :Most Wanted Terrorists|Most Wanted Terrorists. The death of the al-Qaida|More from guardian.co.uk on al-Qaida figurehead leaves 29 people on that list, including his reported deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and also indicted for the US embassy bombings ; Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso, wanted in connection with the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, which killed 17 US sailors ; Adam Yahihe Gadahn, sought for providing “material support, comfort and aid” to al-Qaida ; and Abdul Rahman Yasin, indicted in the 1993 bombing of the New York World Trade Centre.

    The FBI’s hope, it seems, was that the terrorist list would have the same mobilising effect on the US public as the original 10 Most Wanted, first launched on 14 March 1950 after the FBI director, J Edgar Hoover, spotted the potential of the publicity generated by a news agency story profiling the “toughest guys” the bureau would like to capture. The first person placed on the list was Thomas James Holden, wanted for the murder of his wife, her brother and her stepbrother. Down the years it has also featured the likes of James Earl Ray, the prime suspect in the assassination of Martin Luther King ; the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy ; and (briefly) civil rights activist Angela Davis.

    According to the FBI, 494 fugitives have figured on its 10 Most Wanted list, and 464 have been captured or at least or located, 152 of them with the help of the public. Priorities have changed over time, the agency says. In the 50s, the list was “primarily comprised of bank robbers, burglars, and car thieves”. In the radical 60s, “the list reflected the revolutionaries of the times, with destruction of government property, sabotage, and kidnapping dominating”. The 70s were overwhelmingly about organised crime|More from guardian.co.uk on Organised crime, and in the 80s and 90s the 10 Most Wanted began to include suspected international terrorists as well. In more recent years, common crimes have included rape and other sexual abuse, crimes against children, white-collar crime, gang violence and drug trafficking.

    Maintaining such a list on a global scale has obvious pitfalls. Interpol, the international police organisation, makes no attempt to prioritise. The 321 criminals who currently feature on its website|321 criminals who currently feature on its website range from an Australian kidnapper to an Argentinian counterfeiter.

    (In Britain, rather more prosaically, Crimestoppers UK’s 10 Most Wanted includes one John Levy, wanted for “driving off from a petrol station without paying for £51 worth of diesel”.)

    Since 2008, the US business magazine Forbes has published a list of The World’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives, compiled in consultation with law enforcement agencies internationally (see below). Its criteria, the magazine says, are that fugitives have been criminally indicted or charged in national jurisdictions or by an international tribunal, stand accused of “a long history of committing serious crimes”, and are “still considered dangerous”. In addition, each is said to represent “a type of criminal problem with which legal institutions in diverse jurisdictions are grappling”. It also ranks its candidates from one to 10.

    Described as “armed, dangerous and very tough to catch – the world’s worst thieves and thugs who have eluded local police, armies and international organisations for years”, Forbes’s most recent list was topped by Bin Laden. It also includes Semion Mogilevich, “the face of Russian organised crime” ; Joaquin Guzman, “Mexico|More from guardian.co.uk on Mexico’s most notorious drug trafficker” ; Dawood Ibrahim, “India|More from guardian.co.uk on India’s most wanted man” ; Italian |More from guardian.co.uk on Mafiamafia|More from guardian.co.uk on Mafiaboss Matteo Messina Denaro ; Rwandan businessman (and alleged genocide financier) Felicien Kabuga ; Joseph Kony of the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army ; and James L Bulger, a Boston mobster wanted in connection with up to 19 murders.

    But the list is disputable. Britain, for example, would probably quite like to see Andrei Lugovoi, the former KGB operative wanted for the murder by plutonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, somewhere on a list of this kind (although he hasn’t been charged). Augustin Bizimana, likewise, is the most senior of the 12 or so people wanted for genocide by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda|More from guardian.co.uk on Rwanda not to have been apprehended ; the former defence minister faces charges over the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. Some might like to see the name of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the Sudanese dictator seen as responsible for ethnic cleansing that has left 300,000 dead and 2.5 million homeless in Darfur and the first sitting head of state ever indicted by the International Criminal Court. And what of Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb army chief indicted for genocide in The Hague in 1995 ? He’s still out there, laughing.

    So who will replace Bin Laden for the list-makers ? It seems logical he could make way on Forbes’s list to last year’s runner-up, Guzman. The FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list will simply shrink ; Bin Laden’s name will not be substituted. But on the Top 10 Most Wanted, the jury’s out. Some reckon Zawahiri is a shoo-in ; other favour the Libyan, Anas al-Liby, or the Egyptian Saif al-Adel, both allegedly implicated in the east African embassy bombings. Adan el Shukrijumah, a Saudi citizen suspected of planning to attack the New York subway in 2009, and Yasin, wanted in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, are also mentioned. But, some observers say, Bin Laden’s replacement on America’s 10 Most Wanted could be an altogether less rarefied species of lowlife : a white-collar criminal, say, or a bank robber. Ultimately, such lists are always going to be subjective.

    The new 10 Most Wanted List

    1 Joaquín ’El Chapo’ Guzmán Mexican drug lord

    “El Chapo” or “Shorty” (he stands 5ft 6in tall) heads an international drug trafficking organisation, the Sinaloa Cartel, and became Mexico’s top drug kingpin in 2003 after the arrest of his rival Osiel Cárdenas of the Gulf Cartel. Appears simultaneously on Forbes’s lists of the world’s most powerful, most wealthy and most wanted men. Ruthless and determined, Guzmán has succeeded in turning Ciudad Juárez, a strategic smuggling point that overlooks El Paso, Texas, into one of the murder capitals of the world through mind-numbingly brutal battles against both the Gulf and La Linea cartels, leaving thousands dead. A faction from La Linea has recently defected to Shorty’s side ; a local street gang, the Mexicles, has sub-contracted its services in killing, kidnapping, drug dealing and extorting ; and even elements of the police and army seem to have thrown their lot in with him. Sinaloa smuggles many tonnes of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico into the United States, and is also heavily involved in Mexican methamphetamine, marijuana and heroin.

    2 Dawood Ibrahim Head of Indian crime network 

    The most wanted man in India heads up a 5,000-strong organised crime network called the D-Company that is involved in everything from drugs trafficking to contract killing in Pakistan, India and the UAE. Currently on the Interpol wanted list for organised crime and counterfeiting, besides association with al-Qaida. According to Washington, Ibrahim uses the same smuggling routes as al-Qaida and has worked with both the mother organisation and its offshoot Lashkar-e-Taiba, responsible for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. He is also suspected in the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people and wounded 713. Like Bin Laden, Ibrahim may well be based in Pakistan.

     3 Semion Mogilevich Russian ’boss of bosses’

    Arrested in Russia|More from guardian.co.uk on Russia for tax evasion in 2008, Ukrainian-born Mogilevich was released in 2009. Wanted in the US in connection with a $150m share fraud ; believed by both European and US law enforcement agencies to be the “boss of bosses” of most Russian mafia syndicates in the world. Nicknames include “Don Semyon” and “The Brainy Don” ; often described as “the most dangerous mobster in the world”.

     4 Matteo Messina Denaro Cosa Nostra kingpin

    Sicilian mafioso who has effectively taken control of Italy’s Cosa Nostra following the arrest of Bernardo Provenzano and other leading mobsters. Nicknamed “Diabolik“, after an Italian comic-book character. Known for his fast lifestyle, Porsches and Rolex watches, he has been on the run since 1993.

     5 Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov Uzbek mobster

    Major Russian mobster originally from Uzbekistan and apparently known as “Taiwanchik” for his Asian appearance. Washington describes him as a “major figure in international Eurasian organised crime” engaged in “drug distribution, illegal arms sales and trafficking in stolen vehicles.” He is even alleged to have bribed the figure skating judges in the 2002 Winter Olympics.

    6 Felicien Kabuga Mastermind of genocide

    Accused of bankrolling the Rwandan genocide, inciting bloodshed through his radio station and even supplying the machetes and hoes used in the massacres, Kabuga is wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for “serious offences under the 1949 Geneva Conventions, crimes against humanity and genocide” in connection with the massacre of more than 800,000 Rwandan men, women and children in 100 days of terror in 1994. Allegedly hiding in Kenya.

     7 Joseph Kony Ugandan guerrilla leader

    Head of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a guerrilla group engaged in a violent campaign to establish theocratic government in Uganda|More from guardian.co.uk on Uganda. Has also operated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan, abducting an estimated 66,000 children and displacing more than two million people since 1986. The International Criminal Court has indicted him on 33 charges including crimes against humanity and war crimes.

     8 James ’Whitey’ Bulger Old-school US mobster

    The ever-so-slightly embarrassing older brother of William Michael Bulger, a former president of the Massachusetts state senate and the University of Massachusetts, Bulger was part of the Winter Hill Gang, a Boston-based Irish-American crime network that for many years ran illicit drugs and extortion rackets. Pursued by the FBI for more than a decade for racketeering, murder (his name has been linked to 19 killings from the early 70s up to the mid-80s), conspiracy to commit murder, extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, money laundering and narcotics distribution. Bulger’s wealth is estimated at between $30m and $50m (£18m-£30m), cash he is said to be using to evade arrest with his longtime girlfriend. Last confirmed sighting was in London in 2002. There is a reward of $2m for information leading to his arrest.

    9 Omid ’Nino’ Tahvili Head of Canadian crime group

    Head of a Persian organised crime network in Canada linked to assorted Triads and other global criminal groups. Arrested on charges of torturing a relative of a man he suspected had stolen a chunk of his organisation’s illicit drugs money, he walked out of a Canadian maximum security prison in a janitor’s uniform in November 2007 after promising to pay a guard to let him out (he never forked up). US law enforcement wants to talk to him about a fraudulent telemarketing business that targeted people in the US, stealing some $3m from hundreds of victims, most of them elderly.

    10 ? Ayman al-Zawahiri Al-Qaida number two

    Born in June 1951 into a prominent upper-middle class family in Cairo, Zawahiri was the final “emir” of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which he merged into al-Qaida in 1998. Reportedly a qualified surgeon, he speaks Arabic, English and French. According to former al-Qaida members, Zawahiri has worked with al-Qaida since the organisation’s earliest beginnings. He is often described as Bin Laden’s right-hand man, and by some as the “real brains” of al-Qaida. The friendship between the two men supposedly began in the 80s when Zawahiri is said to have given medical treatment to Bin Laden in Afghanistan in the teeth of a Soviet attack. According to terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman, Bin Laden considered Zawahiri his mentor. Most experts believe 9/11 could not have happened without Zawahiri’s controlling influence.

  • Rwanda Plans to Start Sinking Geothermal Wells

    Rwanda plans to start drilling exploratory geothermal wells in an area that may have at least 700 megawatts of steam power, following in the footsteps of neighboring Kenya, Energy Minister Coletha Ruhamya said.

    Rwanda lies within the same Great Rift Valley fault system as Kenya, where shifting tectonic plates provide sizeable reserves of geothermal energy. Kenya, Africa’s biggest geothermal power producer, estimates the extent of its untapped power resources at as much as 10,000 megawatts, enough to meet its own electricity needs and export the surplus.

    “Geothermal is the area that the government of Rwanda wants to prioritize,” Ruhamya said, according to a statement e- mailed from the Nairobi-based Geothermal Development Co. today. “Since Kenya has progressed far in the area, we are looking for collaboration and partnership in capacity building, drilling and putting plants in place.”

    Ruhamya made the comments in a meeting yesterday with her Kenyan counterpart Kiraitu Murungi, according to the statement. She didn’t say when drilling may start. The New Times newspaper reported on March 10 that the country would start digging wells in August, citing Ruhamya.

    Experts from Kenya’s state-run Geothermal Development Co. are currently training 12 Rwandese students on how geothermal technology works, today’s statement said.

    Investigations into Rwanda’s geothermal potential began in 1982 with the north-western Volcanoes National Park and areas around Lake Kivu identified as possible sites, according to the energy ministry’s website.

  • Business Life After Death in Rwanda

    Last month, three Rwandan owners, graduates of the three-year BPeace program, visited the United States during a trip that paired them with American businesses in their industries. The participants included Languida Nyirababeruka, who founded Pompe Funebre Twifatanye, a funeral home, after the 1994 genocide.

    Ms. Nyirababeruka, a former teacher who lost her job for political reasons, ran a tailoring business before 1994. The genocide claimed her husband and several family members, as well as her home and business. When it was over, she had to locate her three children, now in their 20s. “After the genocide, I started from scratch,” she said, speaking through an interpreter. A United Nations contact helped Ms. Nyirababeruka get a job as a cook, and she began to rebuild her life in Kigali.

    The idea of opening a funeral home took shape after Ms. Nyirababeruka spent an exhausting day helping a friend plan a funeral. At the time, there was no one business that provided all funeral-related items and services, like coffins, transportation and flowers. Ms. Nyirababeruka said her friend was forced to “run around, buying things here and there.”

    When Ms. Nyirababeruka opened Pompe Funebre Twifatanye in 2003, her friends and neighbors were uncomfortable with the concept of a business that profited from death. Now, many have become her customers, and she has two competitors. “She’s changing their culture,” said Craig Baker, a BPeace mentor who works at Brady Funeral Home in Danville, Pa., which was the host of Ms. Nyirababeruka for part of her stay. Mr. Baker met Ms. Nyirababeruka two years ago when he traveled to Rwanda to share his expertise.

    Today, Ms. Nyirababeruka employs 10 people, including a recently hired carpenter who makes the coffins that she previously outsourced. Her business, which supports her family, had 2009 revenue of $26,435. Though she said that owning a business places her in Rwanda’s growing middle class, Ms. Nyirababeruka said her company must become more profitable.

    She looked forward to learning from her counterparts in the United States. After leaving Pennsylvania, Ms. Nyirababeruka visited Cobble Hill Chapels in Brooklyn. Brady Funeral Home and Cobble Hill Chapels shared best practices and arranged field trips to the businesses that service the industry, including florists, cemeteries, headstone makers and a morgue.

    During a meeting with the staff at Cobble Hill, Ms. Nyirababeruka admitted she often reduces her prices out of sympathy for grieving families and then regrets it. Although fixed prices are virtually unknown in Rwanda, Ms. Nyirababeruka vowed to establish them for her services and to make no exceptions. She was intrigued to learn that many American funeral homes offer interest-bearing accounts that make it easier for families to save for future funeral costs. Back in Rwanda, she plans to educate people to prepare for funeral expenses and to increase her chances of collecting them.

    At Cobble Hill, Ms. Nyirababeruka also learned about potential add-on products and services that could boost her profits, like rosary beads and casket engraving. While some practices (like embalming) would be too costly for her to implement now, she learned how to create printed extras, like prayer cards, using a computer. She left Cobble Hill with shopping bag full of samples, including thank-you notes and a guest book.

    Ms. Nyirababeruka hopes one day to pass her business on to her children. She is thinking about sending her son to a funeral services program that Mr. Baker attended in Pennsylvania and that they visited during her trip. Most of all, she said, she hoped her children will struggle less than she had.

  • Rwanda projects lower farm output this year

    Growth in Rwanda’s agricultural output is seen slowing to 6 percent in 2011 from 7.1 percent last year due to a drought late in 2010, agriculture minister Agnes Kalibata has said.

    The country has invested in new agricultural production to raise food and export output, with agriculture a mainstay of recent economic growth.

    “Agriculture growth this year will not be as good as the previous year’s because of a drought at the end of last year, so we expect around 6 percent growth,” Kalibata said during a rural poverty conference.

    “Next year we go back to our original plan, 8 percent growth,” she added.

    Kalibata said increased agriculture investment would pave the way for Rwanda to reduce its dependence on two of its main imported crops — rice and wheat.

    “We are investing very strongly in irrigation systems that will see (rice) imports going down in the next three years,” she said.

    “We will probably be importing about 10 percent from 40 percent now by 2014. In wheat we also have investments coming in that indicate… we could produce in the next two-to-three years about 50 percent of what we consume in the country,” Kalibata added.

    Rwanda currently produces 60 percent of the rice it consumes, importing the shortfall, while it imports about 60 percent of its wheat needs.

    She said the country of about 11 million people did not have any food security fears, although the rising global cost of fuel and food prices could impact domestic inflation.

    “Inflation is going up because some imported commodities are going up because fuel is influencing them,” Kalibata said.

  • Rwanda expects to fetch U.S.$60 million in tea exports

    Rwanda
    expects to fetch at least $60 million from its tea this year buoyed by
    increased international commodity prices.

    Tea
    has become one of Rwanda’s main exports by value with its revenue increasing
    from $48.2 million in 2009 to $58 million in 2010. According to Rwanda Tea
    Development Authority, the value of tea has increased largely due to recovery
    of global prices while the volume has fallen slightly due to harsh weather
    conditions experienced from July to October last year.

    “The
    rains were so scarce during those months : The yields are expected to be less
    than those we experienced in the previous year. But because of slightly better
    prices we many get around $60 million this year,” the tea agency’s
    director general Anthony Butera said. Mr Butera noted that in the first three
    months of this year, tea earnings hit a record high of $8 million signaling
    higher revenue for the rest of the year.

    “If
    we can get that in the April, May June quarter, we may exceed the $60 million
    mark. Currently prices are at an average of $2.7 – $2.8 per kilogramme,”
    he said. Last year’s prices were $2.5-$2.6 per kilogramme.

    Mr
    Butera warned that productivity is still low with the output generally lower
    than elsewhere in the region.

    “Currently
    our average harvest is 7,000-8,000 kilogrammes of green leaf per hectare per
    annum compared with Kenya which can go up to 17,000 per hectare per
    annum,” he said. To boost productivity, Rwanda Tea Development Authority
    has set up a fertiliser fund mainly funded by tea factories and farmers to
    facilitate purchasing and distribution of fertilisers at subsidised prices. The
    authority’s target is to increase tea plantation yields to 9,000kg by the end
    of June. In addition, it is investing in encouraging tea growers to practice
    better farming methods.

    Currently, tea plantations cover 17,000 hectares. According to the 2008 Rwanda Tea
    Strategy, government intends to generate wealth by selling a high quality range
    of branded Rwandan teas with some added value through partnerships with new and
    existing buyers in Europe, US and the Middle East.

    Currently,
    Rwanda sells its standard teas in bulk form at auction, mostly to Asian buyers
    and a small but growing number of European and Middle Eastern buyers.

  • MTN Rwanda to augment mobile cash service

    MTN Rwanda plans to develop more applications on its mobile money transfer service to allow more transactions and tap into the booming demand for the facility.

    The firm announced it had transferred over Rwf12 billion ($201 million) since its launch last year with an estimated 6,000 transactions carried out daily. It has so far attracted 261,000 users and 310 agents across the country.

    “We are expanding usage of the service beyond money remittance to allow clients from financial institutions such as MFIs to pay off loans and make deposits and transfer money from their savings account to their Mobile Money account,” MTN Rwanda’s head of mobile money Albert Kinuma said.

    Millicom International Cellular’s Tigo Rwanda and Rwandatel are in the process of launching mobile money transfer services too.

    Remittance charges

    Sending money through the MTN service attracts a fee of Rwf250 ($0.42) for any transaction between Rwf1,500 ($2.6) and Rwf300,000 ($504) for those registered while the transaction cost varies between Rwf600 ($0.90) and Rwf4,000 ($6) for the unregistered.

    However, users can only send between Rwf1,500 ($2.6) and Rwf 500,000($804) — the limit set by the National Bank of Rwanda for funds transfer through the service.

    Currently, the product, in which MTN Rwanda invested over $2 million, also allows users to buy airtime and pay for electricity upon registration.

    “The Mobile Money arena is still in its infancy,” said Mr Kinuma adding that MTN Rwanda is exploring possibilities of extending the service to enable transactions across the border.

    According to BNR director of payment systems John Bosco Sebabi, while MTN’s Mobile Money has registered tremendous progress, services offered on MTN’s Mobile Money need to be brought onto the national electronic payment platform.

    “If the value stored in the telephone can actually be used to pay for goods and services without necessarily picking up cash at the agent or, if it is transferable onto accounts at the bank, the unbanked can stop using cash,” Mr Sebabi said.

    Mr Sesabi added that the bank’s strategy of modernising payments systems in the country is to change Rwanda from a cash-based to a cashless society.

    Earlier last month, the central bank licensed the country’s second mobile operator Tigo Rwanda to provide a mobile payment service (Tigo Cash). The company is set to launch the service by end of this year.

    As part of modernising the national payment system, the central bank has begun implementing the Rwanda Integrated Payments Processing System, which is geared towards making payment systems in the country efficient and reliable.

    According to Mr Sebabi, the system will support new and innovative payment instruments and systems such as mobile money.

    “A mobile phone is owned by many people, thus the growth of cellular phones supersedes the growth of usual bank accounts. The growth of mobile money is thus promising and it is a good channel for electronic payments.”

    In addition to money remittances, MTN is working with other companies such as microfinance institutions (MFIs) to allow users the option to pay loans and make savings deposits, transfer money from their savings account to their mobile money account, and so on.

    MTN Mobile Money was officially launched in February 2010. The carrier invested over $2 million in the service developmen

    Currently, Rwanda’s mobile phone penetration stands at 35 per cent, the second lowest in the region after Burundi.

  • Umubano Hotel operations normal-Caretaker

    After the enforcement of the UN resolution which declared a freeze of funds, financial assets and economic resources owned and controlled by the Libyan authorities, the government has taken full control of Hotel LAICO-UMUBANO and rebranded it to UMUBANO HOTEL.

    In an interview with Igihe, the caretaker of the hotel, Rosemary Mbabazi, noted that operations at the hotel remained normal as the government seeks a professional firm to run the establishment.

    “We want to tell the public that the hotel is running well as usual and will remain operational, and in any case, we aim to offer better services,” Mbabazi, who is also the chairperson of the Board said.

    Sources privy to the ongoing saga affecting the Libyan investments in the country indicate that even before the UN move, the Libya Africa Investment Company commonly known as LAICO had failed to honour its pledge to raise US $25million to renovate the hotel and increase room capacity from 100 to 166.

    The sources further indicated that LAICO had been financially crippled even before the UN resolution, as the government of Rwanda sought for another investor to take over the operations of the hotel.

    Laico Hotel Entrance View

    LAICO took over the running of the hotel through SOPROTEL SARL, a joint shareholding with the government of Rwanda. The Libyan government held 60 percent of shares while the Rwandan government held the remaining 40 percent.

    As the majority shareholder, LAICO took over the management of the Hotel with Mr. Hussein Omrani appointed as SOPROTEL’s Managing Director while Mr. S.Hameeuw, was appointed as the Managing Director of the LAICO management Company. The two people have since been relieved of their duties since the government effected the the UN resolution.