Focus Media (Kigali)
29 July 2008
editorial
Kigali City Council has been demolishing slum houses and shacks in Rugenge, the area popularly called Kiyovu cy'Abakene. The bulldozers, with policemen standing on guard, have been flattening the shacks, some of them still with tenants in them.
Most of the denizens of the Rugenge slum have been moved against their wishes and consequently are very bitter. Some claim they haven't been fairly compensated for their property. Others say they will never find another place as convenient for them as Rugenge which is within walking distance of downtown Kigali.
Despite all these complaints however we have to agree with the government that Kigali has to become a modern city-as do the other urban centres of this country. We can't have a situation where most people in our towns live in unplanned slum residencies. The tough decision to do something about it was long overdue.
Demolishing the Kiyovu cy'Abakene slum is a "pilot project" for more flattening of eyesore slums. But before the city and government authorities do more they better draw some quick lessons out of this pilot. The first two questions to be asked are: How quickly can Kigali be modernized without causing widespread anti-government societal discontent?
And how much can one rely on the city authorities to implement plans that are integral to the city's modernization such as moving masses of people to better alternative housing and providing the populations ancillary services like cheap, reliable means to commute to workplaces?
The answer to the second is key to finding a satisfactory response to the first-of how successfully the capital can be modernized without provoking much bitterness.
The problem we have with Kigali City Council (and even with the government) is that they seem to think a capital city like ours-which for decades had authorities indifferent to the need to turn it into a functional city with basic amenities for at least a percentage of its inhabitants in the 40s-can become a real city in 10 or 15 years.
In fact we find it highly doubtful whether Kigali City Council has enough skilled bureaucrats and a dedicated team of employees to carry this out in any short time frame. To get back to the demolition of the Kiyovu slum and the people the exercise has displaced-the city authorities explain that plans are in place to move the displaced to a new and better planned residential area at Batsinda.
But that is kilometers away from the city and its neighboring areas where these poor slum dwellers are to find casual labor jobs like work on construction sites or employment as porters in the Quartier Commerciale or Mateus.
Currently there is no commuter transportation service from Batsinda to the city, and so you would have a marooned population of poor people living in houses with good lavatories and bathrooms and better electricity cabling than they've ever seen in their lives...but without the money to pay for water and electricity.
This is a situation that means either these houses will soon become slums themselves, defeating the original intent to make their new inhabitants live better, or individuals with much better incomes (also meaning the ones more likely to own private transportation) will edge out the poor, thus driving them further away from any source of livelihood they are used to.
The authorities say plans are in place to help the poor find employment, but this stretches credibility. Employment figures depend on how well an economy is doing. Ours is a poor economy, despite impressive growth figures.
Yes, the economy has grown an average of 6 to 7 percent per annum for the past several years; however this was from a very low base. There is no way it can make a significant dent in the unemployment rate of this country which is estimated in the high 60s.
We are sure we aren't the only ones seeing the picture the way it is. Perhaps even Kigali City Council will begin to see it more clearly, and concentrate more on building infrastructural projects such as better roads in and out of the city, public housing for mid-income people and other projects that are of a nature to avail more employment to Rwandans.
Better infrastructural projects within the city's confines would mean slums gradually being phased out-a much better alternative to immediate removals of massive numbers of people.
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