@DavidHimbara : What Is The Purpose of Rwanda’s Annual Leadership Retreat – Reflection or Public Humiliation?

Looking at the images of the 2017 National Leadership Retreat, one might mistake Kagame for an obituary announcer, and leaders listening to him as mourners. It is a gloomy and fearful occasion. It is therefore a legitimate question – what is the purpose of the National Leadership Retreat in Rwanda? This Retreat is unlike similar exercises. Normally, Retreats enable leaders, executives and other stakeholders to improve performance and delivery of services. In particular, leadership retreats provide space to do at least four things:

1. Engage minds to reflect on past performance and to fine-tune future policy execution.
2. Recognize unproductive patterns, both within leadership and in workplace interactions in order to adjust for improved performance and delivery.
3. Initiate change by connecting fully with those in charge of oversight and sector programs.
4. Respond to opportunities and challenges for better results.

Rwanda’s Leadership Retreat has little in common with such exercises. Kagame uses the Retreat to exert his power and position to make other leaders feel insignificant. Worse – Kagame declares Rwandan leaders useless. The abuse has now become a ritual.

Who does Kagame humiliate? Rwanda’s National Leadership Retreat is attended by government officials including President Paul Kagame, Chief Justice, President of the Senate, Speaker of Parliament, Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and other senior officials. The gathering also includes military chiefs, business leaders, and heads of civil society organizations.

In a style of old-school totalitarian headmaster, Kagame reduces the entire Rwandan leadership to inept and even corrupt people. This is precisely how Kagame just described Rwandan leadership at the 2017 Retreat.

Perhaps the 2015 Leadership Retreat was the worst in this regard. Shockingly, the President stated:

“Everybody has become like the other – the killers of yesterday and the liberators of yesterday…full of self-importance and doing nothing for this country that has suffered so much.”

According to Kagame, he is the only one left to save Rwanda as he put it in 2015. Were it possible he would even “take arms and fight” against the current non-performing and corrupt system.

In most bizarre moment of the 2015 Leadership retreat, the Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda who doubles as Kagame advisor, tried to rescue Rwandan leaders from Kagame by listing all the good things that Rwanda has supposedly achieved. Mwenda extraordinarily claimed that Rwanda has a better healthcare system than even the united States of America.

Kagame then turned on Mwenda:

“I really don’t like your comments. You can reserve them for your Independent newspaper. You write them and I will read them there.”

Fast forward to 2017. Kagame has once repeated the ritual, terming the Rwandan leaders zombies who come to the retreat only to leave and repeat same motions – incompetence and no delivery.

Kagame seems to forget four factors:

1. He is the builder of the current system since 1994.
2. He is the appointing authority of all the officials he is now cursing.
3. He is their chief executive officer; chief operational officer, and chief financial officer.
4. He has used the same people he is abusing to grab power – he is set to rule until 2034 and possibly beyond.

By characterizing the Rwandan system as incompetent and corrupt, Kagame is conceding that he is a total failure. He is, after all, the architect of the system.

___
David Himbara

Continue Reading..

Watch Kagame and his Ugandan strategist Mwenda clash about Rwandan economic Performance.

Watch Kagame and his Ugandan strategist Mwenda clash about Rwandan economic Performance.

Continue Reading..

Watch Kagame say he Never Wanted to Remain President

Blair and Buffett Crown Kagame King of Rwanda

Watch Kagame say he never wanted to remain president, but was forced to stay in power. Watch also his consultants Blair and Buffett crown him King. Howard says he would not have invested in Rwanda if Kagame was not the ruler.

Continue Reading..

Kagame’s Singapore In Deep Economic Trouble

Paul Kagame

President Kagame’s Singapore needs urgent help from donors. As indicated in my book Kagame’s Economic Mirage, the already tiny export base has shrunk, tax base not expanding, foreign reserves almost depleted, and donor-dependency not declining — against massive imports.

Here is how the Kagame regime itself describes the crisis, in a letter to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) dated May 25, 2016:

As a result of this crisis, the IMF approved US$204 Million Stand-by Credit Facility for Rwanda —of which the first disbursement (about US$102 million) was made “available immediately” as of June 8, 2016.

So what will the US$204 million IMF credit achieve? According to the IMF, its credit to the Kagame regime “will help bolster reserves.” More importantly — says the IMF — the Rwandan authorities will accelerate “policies to diversify and promote higher value exports, which should help strengthen the country’s medium-term growth prospects and its resilience to future shocks.”

Will these these things happen in the Singapore of Africa? Dream on!

____
David Himbara

Continue Reading..

Rwanda’s in Danger of Running out of Money – A Serious Worry

The Current Rwanda’s currency crisis should worry those who would rather see Rwanda’s good economic performance. Last week, the international monetary fund (IMF) has warned Rwanda that Rwanda’s foreign reserves must be maintained to allowable limit in order to keep stabilising Rwanda’s domestic currency and Rwanda’s only foreign income generator comes from the trade of coffee and tea and in mining sector and since December, the export of tea, coffee and mining product have been increasingly declining which sends the signal that Rwanda will be shortly out of cash and will be forced to print more money into the economy that will further deteriorate the current currency crisis.

The saviour to Rwanda’s currency fluctuation can only come from Rwanda’s central Bank (BNR) but the current situation where foreign reserves falls below the allowable limit, the BNR can only watch and do nothing because it cannot increase the rate, it cannot shrink the money supply because out of foreign reserves, the central bank is not able to create a capital outflow which means that Rwanda’s domestic currency does not have any demand hence the currency crisis where Rwanda’s exchange rate keeps going up against the dollar(hard currency).

Obviously Rwanda’s central bank has no other choice but to let the Rwanda’s currency fluctuate in order to continue keep foreign reserves because it cannot use Rwanda’s foreign reserves to fix exchange rate and if by mistake, it does so, then it means Rwanda will run out of cash and the risk from doing that; the inflation rate will go up and interest rate will also go up and that will create Rwanda’s economic disasters worse than that one that was witnessed in Zimbabwe and horribly thought is that the current Rwanda’s economic crisis may lead to another Ruzagayura famine that Rwanda went through between 1943-1944 killing almost 50,000 Rwandans.
Unlike Ruzagayura Famine which was caused by a prolonged period of drought in the region, another famine in Rwanda would be caused by the political crisis in the region. All doubt towards future and current political stability in the region does hold the further creation of markets and it slows down domestic and foreign investment meaning with that future doubt on economic condition, people would rather hold their foreign currency rather than buy domestic currency because with that doubt on future economic condition, the domestic currency loses demand and foreign currency gets more demand.

The president Kagame’s third term announcement also adds up to any doubt any investor/trader would have towards Rwanda’s future political and economic stability as a result, people are not now willing to invest in Rwanda’s economy and those who hold domestic currency are selling it quickly (more domestic currency supply) to keep foreign currency as their tomorrow’s financial security becomes uncertain hence foreign currency is more preferred than domestic currency.
The current Rwanda’s move to abandon the west and turn eye to Arab world is not in the interest of Rwanda’s economy but a show of defiance by president Kagame and his clique to international call of his to step down coming 2017 and instead of listening, he has chosen to attempt different path of economic partnership and trade between Rwanda and Arab world. This is also a bad move basing on fact that these Arab countries are rich in oil hence their ability to dictate the world market and they cannot be inspirational to Rwanda, a country that sits on the rock.

Rwanda must be open up to more economic trade and opportunities and that can benefit Rwanda and it would make Rwanda a better country that we all deserve and the only remedy to the current Rwanda’s currency/economic crisis is for President Kagame to announce once again that he will not run for a third term coming 2017 and that would be an action that would not make investors jittery and that would save Rwanda from running out of cash.

______
Jean paul Ndindamahina

Continue Reading..

While Kagame is Hunting for Medals, The US Congress has included his Regime in Totalitarian States.

President Kagame was decorated by His Majesty King Mohammed VI with the Grand Collar of Wissam Al-Mohammadi, Morocco's highest national award of honour

King Paul is finding new medals - not in USA or UK anymore. The medals from the USA/UK have dried up. Kagame is getting medals from the Arab world these days. The hunt for new medals is on. Kagame just landed a new medal from Morocco.


Meanwhile a new US Congress "national security white paper" places his regime in the company of tyrannical regimes around the world. http://abetterway.speaker.gov/_assets/pdf/ABetterWay-NSTF-PolicyPaper.pdf

According to the White Paper, "the historic expansion of freedom worldwide has been eroded by democratic backsliding. Many of the democratic transitions that marked the end of the Cold War and were sustained over the following decade have stalled or reversed.

Freedom House reports that 72 countries experienced a decline in freedom in the last year, while only 43 countries posted gains, continuing a decade-long decline in global freedom...In Rwanda, a constitutional referendum on presidential term limits will effectively allow President Paul Kagame to stay in power until 2034. In Venezuela, the regime has cracked down on the opposition and imprisoned itsleaders such as Leopoldo Lopez.

The regime in North Korea likely has the worst human rights record in the world. Over 140,000 North Koreans are kept in forced labor camps where many are worked to death. Yet for years, the global community, including U.S. administrations, largely ignored this barbarity in a failed attempt to arrest North Korea’s nuclear development."

Continue Reading..

In Pictures, Kigali Experiencing Increase of Street Children In Numbers.Who Cares?

Kigali is peaceful today because the street children are still children. Today they are begging, practically requesting their donors to willingly handover the loose change in their possession. When the sense of frustration develops, they may use ‘reasonable force’ so to say in police speak.

Throughout the year, hundreds of men, women, and children—many of them street children, commercial sex workers, or street hawkers—were detained unlawfully, without charge or trial, in very poor conditions in an unrecognized detention center commonly known as Kwa Kabuga, in the Gikondo area of Kigali. Many were beaten by police, or by other detainees in the presence of police.

Although no official statistics have been collated, it is estimated by various NGO’s that there are between 10,000 and 15,000 children who live on the streets in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. Most of these do not actually sleep on the streets at nighttime, because there is a high risk that they will be killed, or beaten. Many live in underground big pipes, or share a small mud hut with some older street children.

Rwandan authorities have come under fire for forcibly rounding up hundreds of street children in the capital, Kigali, ahead of an African leaders summit.
Below are few images of Kigali steet Children and the video of Human Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014

Numbers of street Children in Kigali in Increasing, 

Continue Reading..

Mr President — Who Owns Prime Holdings?

Kagame dominates the Rwanda government in every sense. Without a genuine opposition, or business sector voice, or genuine independent media to raise questions, Kagame’s word is taken as gospel truth. The only voice of reason seems to come from donors — in particular, from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to the IMF, the PSI “helps countries design effective economic programs that, once approved by the IMF’s Executive Board, signal to donors, multilateral development banks, and markets the Fund’s endorsement of a member’s policies.” That is the very instrument that the IMF uses to regularly review Rwanda’s economic performance.

Mr President — Who Owns Prime Holdings?

In its 2006 PSI review, the IMF discovered serious financial irregularities in Rwanda, pointing out to the government of Rwanda that its “adherence to conditionality was poor.” The reason the IMF gave for its conclusion was that the Kagame government had failed to supply the financial audit of the construction of the hotels that later became the Kigali Serena and Kivu Serena. The two projects were at the time under the management of company called Prime Holdings.

The then Finance Minister James Musoni and the then Governor of the National Bank of Rwanda, Francois Kanimba, confirmed to the IMF that indeed the government of Rwanda had failed to supply the said audit. Immediately an audit of Prime Holdings was made — and the results were shocking. Prime Holdings could not account for the financial resources that had been poured into building of the two hotels. Musoni and Kanimba then assured the IMF that the government of Rwanda had ended the management of contract of Prime Holdings. Nothing was ever heard of regarding Prime Holdings from 2006 onward.

Fast forward to 2016 — in researching for my book Kagame’s Economic Mirage, I discovered that Kagame had not only revived the long-discredited Prime Holdings, the Rwandan ruler had given the corrupt firm an even larger assignment. Prime Holdings now “owns” 50% of the US$150 million Kigali Convention Center (KCC) funded by out of the US$400 million Eurobond money raised in 2013. Not only that. The RPF’s Crystal Ventures Ltd is also now said to be one of the “owners” of KCC.

Kagame who has branded himself as Mr Clean, must explain how he revived Prime Holdings that made millions of dollars “disappear” in the mid-2000s. How could he reward a corrupt company with an even bigger responsibility of “owning” KCC? And who is the real owner of Prime Holdings? Shame! Perhaps IMF might save us again…..from Prime Holdings.
______

By David Himbara

Continue Reading..