Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
19 June 2008
Kigali — The Council of Ministers of the East African Community this week approved the 2008-2009 budget expected to be $40.5 million, RNA reports.
At a session in Arusha, the Ministers nodded to the spending plan that they said will give priority to the building of transportation infrastructure such as the railway line and a road network for easy link up of the community members - Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Burundi.
Electricity outreach, industrial development, agriculture and food security - as well as tourism will also be catered for in the new budget for the block.
According to the Council of Ministers, the member countries will contribute 24.4 million dollars of the total, with the rest amounting to 16.1 million dollars expected to come from donor partners.
This will be the first budget done with Rwanda and Burundi as full members of the block after joining just recently.
Rwanda and Burundi are the members that seriously need a link up to the regional railway line and have been very active in campaigning for its development.
Last week, Uganda earmarked from its 2009 budget a landmark provision of sh320b (about $170 million) to construct the Northern Transport Corridor, a dual carriageway from Busia/Malaba at the Kenyan border to Katuna at the Rwandan border.
The Rwandan capital Kigali is to also host the fourth summit of Africa Management Forum (AMF), a network of Africa business executives from June 24-25.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
