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Rwanda: Zimbabwe's Situation Has No Winners
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New Vision (Kampala)
INTERVIEW
5 July 2008
Posted to the web 7 July 2008
Kampala
Rwandan President Paul Kagame took over the chairmanship of the East African Community (EAC) from President Yoweri Museveni. The hand-over coincided with the First East African Investment Conference in Kigali last week, which attracted over 700 investors. George Kalisa and Els De Temmerman had an exclusive interview with Kagame at the end of the conference.
Q: What did you expect to come out of the first East African Investment Conference?
A: It was well conducted and it brought in key players in business and investment from the whole East African region. A lot of networking was done. People learned more about Rwanda and what happens in the other East African Community (EAC) states. We can really work together for prosperity of the East Africans.
Q: In your speech you talked about the constraints of doing business in East Africa. You listed them as congested and ineffective ports, dilapidated railway lines, broken highways, chaotic border crossings and a multitude of weighbridges that encourage corruption. How do you want to address those constraints?
A: The easiest and most effective way of dealing with them is changing the mindset. The more the private sector and government leaders become conscious of these problems, the easier they can be overcome, especially when it comes to corruption. I am sure people understand the cost of corruption in business.
And I am sure that we can put in place mechanisms and measures to try and fight it. It is important that we talk about it so that people become conscious about it. And then all of us, the government side and the business side, can plan how to defeat it.
Q: The director general of the East African Development Bank, Godfrey Tumusiime, blames the poor state of infrastructure in the region on corruption. "If our meagre resources were efficiently deployed, we would have done a better job in putting in place at least basic infrastructure of reasonable quality," he wrote. What do you plan to do under your chairmanship to stamp out corruption?
A: That corruption is bad for business and bad for governance is not in dispute. It is a problem for which we do not need to go looking for donor support, but which we can address ourselves.
I don't intend to apportion blame and say that one country is more corrupt than another. This would not help. I am looking at the EAC as a whole because the problems are found in all the partner states. They may be at different levels, but they are problems that concern all of us.
Q: Do you believe the other leaders have the same commitment to fight corruption?
A: I have no doubt that other leaders are also thinking about it. How they will ensure that we all work together to resolve this problem is another matter.
In any case, I don't think there is anyone in business or government who would argue that there is no corruption or that corruption is something good to have around.
Q: You took the test and sent a researcher on a truck with export goods from Kigali to Mombasa. What were his findings and how much did he have to pay in bribes?
A: He was paying different amounts of money at different stages. But for me it is not whether you pay a $100 or 10. A bribe is a bribe. We are not discussing how to reduce the amount we pay in bribe; we are talking about eliminating altogether bribery as a form of corruption. This researcher was someone from outside who acted as a co-driver. He met over 10 roadblocks from Kigali to Katuna alone. When I got his report, I tried to figure out why our police would need 10 roadblocks over such a short distance. Somebody delays you until you think of a way of getting out fast. Even if this researcher did not meet anybody who asked for a bribe, somebody else who came behind may have paid.
Q: You called the weighbridges the most devastating, accounting for 84% of the total bribe value.
A: Why should you have 10 weighbridges between Katuna and Malaba? First of all they are expensive. Second, I don't understand the idea of weighbridges. Why should you keep weighing these trucks? And then there are the hours of waiting. Some things that happen at the border are just not necessary.
Look at the border between Rwanda and Uganda. One time I went there. People on the Ugandan side had woken up. The engines of the trucks had started running. But they could not move.
People 100 metres away, across the border, were still sleeping because Uganda is one hour ahead. It does not make sense at all. We should make sure we are more efficient. The danger is that people have become used to it. It is a way of life. Nobody seems to complain.
Q: What are you going to do about these obstacles?
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A: We should reduce the number of weighbridges to maybe two per country, one at the entry and one at the exit. We should also leave the border open 24 hours a day. We might start by extending the opening times gradually, one or two hours at a time.
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