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The government through Rwanda Development Board has commissioned a US$2m electrical fence that will cover the territorial boundaries of Akagera national park.

The 2.5 metre-electric fence that is powered by solar energy will be supported by a metallic mesh intersected by three horizontal electrified wires and galvanised posts secured at short distances to endure high pressure and wind.

John Gara, the Chief Executive Officer, RDB said that the construction is important because it will provide solution to the problem of wildlife animals that have been interfering with the activities of the population living near the park.

“We are very pleased to be here today to start the fencing of the Akagera National Park. This is the beginning of the end of the human-wildlife conflicts at the boundaries of the park,” he said in a ceremony held at the park’s southern entrance of Nyankona in Kayonza district on Tuesday.

“This will not only solve the problem of human-wildlife conflicts but it will also provide employment opportunities to the neighbouring population during the construction process and also thereafter in terms of maintaining the fence,” he added.

The fencing also aims at addressing different problems linked to the close proximity of the park with the human population. These include direct damages, loss of property, poaching and other illegal activities in the park.

In a bid to support the Akagera community conservation programme that links the park to the community, RDB donated a cheque worth Rwf 6M to 132 families of Kageyo cell, Mwili sector, Kayonza district. The money will also compensate property destroyed by the wildlife.

“We recognised that the benefits from the park that we generally receive are to be shared between not only the general public but also the community projects of the population surrounding the park,” Gara pointed out.

Executive Secretary of Mwili Sector, J.M.V Habyarimana noted that the community is optimistic that the money donated shall be used to buy seeds to cultivate crops in the destroyed farms.

Rwanda’s construction company, Entreprise de Construction (EME) in partnership with a South African construction company were contracted to put up the fence.

Rwanda has said it prefers East Africans to use national identification cards when travelling in the region.

The country’s minister for East African Community Affairs Ms Monique Mukaruliza said countries that had opted to use national IDs as travel documents should go ahead and formalise the procedure.

“The EAC secretariat has to put in place a forum for those partner states which have agreed to use national IDs for the movement of their citizens across the region,” she said.

Ms Mukaruliza made the plea in Kigali on Tuesday at a meeting with new EAC secretary general, Dr Richard Sezibera.

The minister said free movement of people and labour would facilitate implementation of the EAC Common Market Protocol which came into force in July last year.

Tanzania has objected to the use of national IDs as travel documents, insisting only passports and other internationally recognised travel documents should continue to be used.

Rwanda is the only EAC state that has machine readable national identity cards while Uganda is reported to have started issuing its own.

Women hawkers in the streets of Kigali will soon boost their income levels after authorities advised them to join cooperatives to access financial services.

The president of the national women council, Tengera Francesca, is buoyant that the effort to organise women street vendors into cooperatives and empower them is one way to enhance the business
sector.

“I know you are not poor as you always run up down and think that your hopes ends from there and that is why today we are here to implement knowledge which is missing.”
Tengera also noted that the cooperatives will help women to shun illicit business and target bigger businesses.

“We want to organise women who are in petty business to come together into cooperatives,” she said,
She also noted that hundreds of street vendors, mainly women usually flock in Kigali streets during evening hours.

This workshop organised by the national women council in partnership with Rwanda Cooperative Alliance is sensitising almost 321 women from Kigali on how they come together in cooperatives to expand their
business.

Audace Bimenyimana, the officer in charge curriculum development in the capacity building unit at RCA said that women are able to earn a lot from their meagre capital if they come together in cooperatives.

“By working together, these women have the advantage of earning a lot from their savings and build bigger businesses and they will be able to employ other people,” he said.

Genevieve Mukeshimana a mother of 4 who is a street vendor dealing in vegetables says she is optimistic that this effort will improve their business perceptions thus better incomes.

“I am always up and down fighting with the local security, but when the officials from our nyarugenge district called us to come for training I did not refuse because I believed after this workshop I am
going to through away (agataro).”

The mayor Nyarugenge Solange Mukasonga said that the government has already prepared minimarkets where female hawkers will be allocated to carry out their businesses on an expansive basis.

“We have started construction of two more selling points in Mageragere and Kanyinya. This will help many of these women to get a place,” she said, noting that the markets will help women to expand businesses after acquiring credit.

The ministry of health and the private sector are working on a framework to enhance collaboration from both parties with the aim of facilitating better healthcare.

Though the private sector has contributed to improvement in health activities, the Health Minister Agnes Binagwaho argues more needs to be done to provide health services especially in rural areas.

She further assured support to the private sector adding that if they for instance put up hospitals, the government would provide them healthcare personnel. “We have to ensure that there is quality healthcare provision within the public as well as the private sector.”

Jean Nyirinkwaya, the president of the private medical association highlighted that they too have the will do more towards extending better health services to Rwandans. “We’re meeting to find ways of enhancing a relationship between the Ministry Of Health and us and we hope to come with a framework that would confront challenges such as
manpower and equipment,” he remarked.

This year’s Kigali National Agricultural show is set to highlight among other things the performance strides the agricultural sector has taken.

The annual show slated to take place from 6-12 June, 2011 at Mulindi Agricultural Show ground in Gasabo, Kigali will bring together farmers and traders countrywide.

Speaking to journalists Tuesday, Agriculture Minister Agnes Kalibata noted that the show would also showcase the current innovations the government has invested in recently.

“We have recently been investing heavily in irrigation and mechanization, said Kalibata, adding; “What we plan to do in this agricultural show is to exhibit some of these innovations.”

“The amount of work that would usually take a whole day could be done in two hours. This is why it is vital for those involved in agricultural practices to be equipped with machinery because it allows them to be more productive while at the same time allowing them to invest their time in other productive activities that go beyond agriculture.”

The permanent secretary in the ministry Ernest Ruzindaza reiterated that government is targeting to promote the use of new machinery by offering subsidies to the agriculturalists and making these easily available.

“Machinery that will be used include various tractors and (combine) harvesters and they will be imported tax free” he said, adding that; “we are trying to make these more affordable and accessible to agricultural practitioners that’s why they will be able to purchase them at a lower cost of 25 percent through corporations such as the rural investment facility”.

The minister observed that the drive towards agricultural modernisation was not only allowing and promoting investment opportunities but “also creating awareness between practitioners of the availability of new and advanced methods of farming and encouraging their use.”

The government has dubbed a report released by Human Rights as slur to the genocide courts adding that even the title of the report, Justice Compromised: The Legacy of Rwanda’s Community-Based Gacaca Court, “distorts the image of Gacaca” and misrepresented the contents of the report in an attempt to “grab headlines.”

In a report released by the New York-based advocacy group claims that the system denied some defendants a fair trial and the courts were sometimes corrupt or used for political or personal gain.

Yet Gacaca reflects a justice sector that is inherently unique even Human Rights Watch itself acknowledges in the report that 1.2 million people have benefited from the Gacaca process, it also recognizes the enormous challenges the government faced after the Genocide in processing the large number of cases, not forgetting that ‘the challenge would have overwhelmed even the world’s most advanced justice system’.

Without any tangible proof Leslie Haskell a Human Rights Watch’s Africa division researcher and author of the report argued that. “If you have unfair trials whereas a large percentage of the population perceives the trials to have been flawed, or motivated by private interests or even political interests, that doesn’t serve justice in the long term.”

According to an email statement released by the government, “Rwanda welcomes constructive criticism as it builds a modern, developed justice system but reports which mischaracterize Gacaca are not constructive. We call on Human Rights Watch to find a way in future reports to balance informed criticism with a respect for the enormity of the challenges Rwanda faced in the aftermath of the genocide.

However the report praises the Gacaca system, saying it provided swift justice, helped families find victims’ remains and encouraged community participation. “Gacaca may have also helped some of victims find a way to live peacefully with neighbors who may have perpetrated crimes against them or their families,” according to the report.

What is more, Under Gacaca, people have received prison sentences of between five and ten years, life sentences constitute just five to eight percent of verdicts while between 25 and 30 percent of cases have ended in acquittal.

The community work ruling as an alternative to prison has allowed people to live in their homes and carry out their sentences about twice a week, learning to live together and move on.

Reacting on the report through an emailed statement justice minister Tharcisse Karugarama insisted that. “Through Gacaca we have been able to judge and resolve more than 1 million dossiers, a great achievement that would have been impossible.”

“Despite this, Human Rights Watch has chosen to base its verdict of Gacaca by citing a handful of cases which went wrong and then implying that the whole 1.2 million can be assessed in the same light. This is unwarranted and makes a mockery of the efforts of all Rwandans who are working together to promote justice and reconciliation,” the statement said.

The Indian Minister of State in charge of food processing recently met with the president Kagame at the Village Urugwiro, to draw possible ways of promoting the agricultural sector in Rwanda to ensure better production of foodstuffs in terms of quality and quantity.

“We want to see how Rwanda’s foodstuffs can be produced and processed in Rwanda before they are exported,” Arun S. Yadan, the Indian Minister pointed out soon after his meeting with the President.

He added that they plan to introduce modern irrigation farming methods to produce better quality products to meet global demand.

The Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Dr. Agnes Kalibata said that Rwanda has a lot to learn from India’s agricultural sector in order especially in adoption of proper mechanisms to be used in the sector as well as production of quality seeds like rice.

She added that India would educate farmers on proper methods of farming for better quality production.

She noted that Rwanda would continue mobilising Indian investors to invest in the sector.