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Community puts 2007/’08 budget at $28m, increases MPs’ pay

There was nothing mentioned about financial contributions of new East African members Rwanda and Burundi as the Community unveiled a $28 million budget for the financial year 2007/’08 in Kampala, Uganda yesterday.

Tabled by the EAC Council of Ministers before the East African Legislative Assembly at Uganda parliamentary chambers, the Community’s budget cut dependence on foreign aid and tightened on resource wastage. The session was presided over by EAC Speaker Abdirahin H. Abdi.

Community puts 2007/’08 budget at $28m, increases MPs’ pay
The budget estimates reflect an overall increase of 26 per cent inconsideration of donor aid. The Council also instituted measures of cost savings. A zero growth budget has been imposed in respect of the pre-existing operations, with savings of $1m.

In his budget speech, the Eriya Kategaya, Uganda’s Minister for East African Affairs, said $14.5 million has been allocated to the Community Secretariat; $696,276 to the Defence Liaison Unit; $1.5m for the Directorate of Customs and Trade, and the EALA will receive $6.4million.

In addition, the East African Court of Justice has been allocated $2.3m and the Lake Victoria Basin Commission $2.9m. The budget, to be financed by miscellaneous income of $39,563, revenue float of $662,180, donor aid amounting to $6m and equal contributions from partner states of $4.3 each of the five, suggests an increase in the Community emoluments.

Shortly after the budget presentation, Ambassador Julius Onen, the EAC deputy Secretary General, told journalists that legislators’ salaries would rise from $2,200 to $3,300 each per month arising from a “continuous review exercise”.

The payments will cater for months beginning June 5 when the new lawmakers were sworn-in. Rwanda and Burundi, both of which acceded to the EAC Treaty on Monday, are yet to elect their MPs to the EALA.

But Lydia Wanyoto, a Ugandan legislator said the increase in emoluments cut across the board.

“It was spread to all institutions including the Secretariat, Court of Justice and the Lake Victoria Basin Commission. In fact the Secretariat staff salary rise was effected in January this year from a supplementary budget,” Wanyoto complained.

From the budget proposals, which Onen described as “very balanced budget that reflects major activities in the past and the future projects and programmes”, East Africa seems determined to reduce reliance on aid. The deputy Secretary General said the Community had cut donor funding from 11% last financial year to less than 8% this current financial year.

“This has been and will be sustained because of the political will exhibited by leaders of the partner states,” he said.

Onen added: “We want to be self reliant and manage our resources prudently. We have enhanced salaries without seeking addition funding. Instead we have cut on the excesses.”

The EAC chief also said contributions by member states would be debated since their economies are not at the same level. He said the proposal on the “alternative source of funding” has been submitted, and that the Council of Ministers is yet to consider it for debate. Should the proposal be accepted, contributions of the partner states would vary according to their economies. That implies that Rwanda and Burundi’s contributions would not be equal to those of Kenya or Tanzania.

Part of the budget will also be used in the sensitisation of East Africans on the Community.

In a report, the Council of Ministers earlier in the week expressed concern that majority of the people were ignorant of the Community.

An EAC Partnership Fund, including the EAC Re-branding Project, which is intended to revamp the EAC Marketing and publicity effort are to be supported under the proposed budget.

In the budget, it is also announced that works on the Mombasa-Katuna road (Northern Corridor) and Dar es Salaam-Mutukula road (Central Corridor) were contracted out and would be completed in the next two years.

Further, construction of the Arusha-Namanga –Athi River road project is planned to start in July this year.

Ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam as well as those of Kigoma and Bujumbura have also been catered for under the 2007/08 budget. Kategaya also announced that the construction of the EAC headquarters in Arusha will start in September 2007 and will take 21 months to complete.

The African Development Bank, according to the budget estimates, has extended a grant of $5.5m to the Community to support feasibility and design study for the Arusha-Holili-Taveta-Voi; and investment preparations for the Tanga-Horohoro-Malindi road.

Kategaya also revealed that the World Bank has consented to be the lead agency for the co-operating partner states and will work with the Secretariat to raise resources for the creation of a Regional Power System with the creation of a Power Pool as a central feature in seven years.

The implementation of the Power Master Plan will cover both power generation and transmission projects at an estimated cost $1.2bn and $600m, respectively.

Kategaya further presented that EAC would continue to pursue the comprehensive regional strategy on scaling access to Modern Energy Services under the auspices of the UN. “The main objective of the programme is to ensure that at least 50% of EAC’s population will access modern energy services by 2015,” he said. Again, on infrastructure, this financial year the EAC will retrace its civil aviation vision that had collapsed in 1977.

It will be the first sub region in Africa to jointly establish a regional civil aviation safety and security oversight framework as recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

Kategaya said the systematic promotion of Infrastructure development in the region is intended to create employment and stimulate higher productivity and investments.

The successful growth of the Community, which is acknowledged by the European Union as one of the best on the African continent, is reflected in the East African Development Bank’s performance.

Kategaya claimed that the Bank’s financial performance improved with net profits rising by over 100% in each of the last four years through issues of bonds, administration of lines of credit and cross-currency swaps. “The Bank is now engaged in discussions with the African Development Bank for an eighth line of credit of $120m and is finalising negotiations with the China Development Bank for a $30m line of credit,” he revealed

However, the Ugandan minister noted the delay in the implementation of the East African Submarine Fiber Optic Cable System telecommunications project.

The budget estimates also indicate that the Common Market would be realised earlier than the set target date of 2010.

A consultants study, commissioned towards the end of last year on the establishment of the Common Market, has been presented in the first draft form. The draft is being subjected to discussions and inputs by the broad spectrum of stakeholders.

Kategaya said in future the East African tourist boards would jointly promote and market the sector to the Asian, Far Eastern and American markets.

Written by CHARLES KAZOOBA IN KAMPALA

While addressing the UN Security Council in New York, US on Monday, the Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga expressed fears over the current discovery by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) chief prosecutor, Boubakar Jallow, to transfer convicts and cases to the French jurisdiction.

“My Government has serious concerns with this, principally because well-known fugitives continue to live in that country (France) with impunity. We intend to raise this issue with appropriate authorities at the highest level,” the prosecutor general said.

France has always been reluctant to help apprehend the Rwanda Genocide suspects still at large on its country. The fugitives include former First Lady Agathe Habyarimana and Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia by Rwandan courts of law.

Rwanda also accuses France for taking part in the Genocide.

“We are appealing to the Council to take urgent measures to ensure that indictees do not evade justice,” said the prosecutor general as he urged the Security Council to combine forces with Rwanda in apprehending fugitives that are spread in numerous UN member states. He also added that the ICTR completion strategy shouldn’t be an exit strategy for the commitments of the international community to ensure that these fugitives are brought to justice, either by the Tribunal before the end of 2008 or in national jurisdictions after 2008.

He said that Rwanda is willing to take up the recent move by the ICTR prosecutor concerning the transfer of suspects to Rwandan jurisdiction, saying that Kigali is set in this regard.

“The Rwanda Government and the (ICTR) Prosecutor have made remarkable progress with respect to referral of cases,” he said with an example of the organic law No.11/2007 that was promulgated to govern all legal matters pertaining to referral of cases to Rwanda.

In recent times, the ICTR prosecutor moved a motion to have the case of one Fulgence Kayishema transferred to Rwanda. Kayishema is still at liberty, but according to sources, Jallow is preparing another motion to transfer three suspects who are in detention at the ICTR detention facility though the identities of those people are still unknown. So we call upon the Security Council to back Rwanda’s bid to have convicted suspects serve their sentences in the country.

“Rwanda believes that the ICTR convicts must serve their sentences in Rwanda where they committed the crimes and where they should be seen serving their sentences,” Martin Ngoga said. In order to try the masterminds of the Rwanda Genocide, the UN Security council established the ICTR, an ad hoc tribunal located in Arusha, Tanzania 1994.

With a budget of millions of dollars, the tribunal has completed only 33 cases with five acquittals in almost 13 years and the court reportedly spent an astounding $31million which is an approximation of Frw17 billion on each of these cases.

By Nakawooya Grace

A US$15million 4-star hotel and $1.5million training institute will soon be set up in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda to strengthen its tourism industry.

The director general of the Canadian Consortium for development in the tourist and hotel sector in Africa (CCDTHA) Mr. Jacques Roy said that the multi-million dollar project will be completed in two phases.

The US$1.5million tourism and hotel training school will be set up fist followed by the $15million 4-star hotel facility that will provide accommodation to Rwanda’s visitors and travelers. The hotel training school will facilitate 600 students with a capacity of 200 in each scholar year, and issuing out degrees to successful students.

The 4-star hotel to be built will not only advance the number of hotel beds in Rwanda but will proceed to be the hands on and practical training ground for a new breed of experts from the institution that are the core of the tourism and hotel sector.

Mr. Jacques Roy said that CCDTHA is in partnership with Merici College that will be exclusively in charge of the training in the tourism and hotel training school. The first group of students is to be admitted come August 2007.

The Rwanda Investment and Export Promotion Agency (RIEPA) office in Montreal , Canada helped to make the investment bonding between the Canadians and Rwandan tourism community possible.

The investment communities involved have been credited for taking part in the development of hotels in Rwanda and the Rwanda Tourism Sector.

As Rwanda marked 25 years of cooperation with the Federal State of Rhineland Palatinate of Germany, yesterday the President put in place Africa’s biggest solar energy plant at Jali hill in Gasabo District. The infrastructure, was funded by the German state through a company called Stadtwerke Mainz and Rhineland Palatinate citizens to the tune of Euro one million (approx. Frw700m).

At the launch of the plant that generates 250KW, the president said that there would not have been a better way to mark the 25 years of cooperation between the two parties from Rwanda and German.

“In 2004, we experienced a major power crisis brought about by the falling of water levels in our water bodies and this was at a time when Rwanda had set the pace of development,” said President Kagame.

He said that the facility will not only amplify the production of power, but also assist in environment conservation at a time when the world is faced with the challenge of a deteriorating eco-system due to global warming.

He also urged international partners and investors to invest in the eco-friendly power-generating venture which he said was a main concern to Africa and the whole world.

During the function, the visiting Minister President for Rhineland Palatinate, Kurt Beck, said that the people of Rwanda are proud of having this biggest plant on the continent.

“This comes at a time when the world is facing environmental degradation and this infrastructure we are witnessing sends a positive signal towards preserving it (environment),” said Beck.

The existing power producing plants in the country are hydro-electric generators which need the use of fuel like diesel or petrol which present threats to the environment.

Eng. Albert Butare, the State Minister for Communication and Energy, said that the new project was conceived in 2003 and a Memorandum of Understanding for its construction was signed in July 2006 between Rwanda government and the Federation State of Rhineland Palatinate.

“Today, what we dreamt in 2003 has been realised and as of now we are witnessing it becoming a reality. This is a result of the existing cooperation between Rwanda and the Palatinate,” said Hon. Butare during the function.

He said that the government, through the Ministry of Infrastructure contributed Euro 200,000 while the rest of the works were financed by the Rhineland.

He also added that “The money the Rwandan government contributed to the project was to help pave the road for the plant and the actual works were funded by them”.

And the land on which the plant sits was provided by the Ministry of Defense.

The construction of this infrastructure, carried out by Stadtwerke Mainz kicked off in January 2007, and according to John Mirenge, the Director General of Electrogaz – the national water and electricity utility – the facility will be expanded depending on the availability of funds to generate more power.

Rwanda Information Portal

By Nakawooya Grace

The number of criminal groups trading in rhino horns has boosted poaching in some countries of African, putting the endangered animals at risk of extinction, said the conservation groups and U.N. wildlife pact.

Although the international trade in rhino horns was banned to guard these wildlife species from extinction, many traders in Asia and the Middle East pay bulky prices for these horns since they are considered a powerful medicine as well as a symbol of status.

There is an increased demand for rhino horns from countries including Yemen and China that is driving this illegal trade in Africa mostly in Zimbabwe and Congo. These two African countries have the worst records in poaching and involvement in illegal shipments as revealed by the wildlife trade monitor TRAFFIC and environmental group WWF.

“The situation in Congo and Zimbabwe is a particular concern,” Steven Broad, executive director of TRAFFIC, said in a statement during a meeting that lasted two weeks in The Hague of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

“It tallies with an increase in the organization of criminal horn trading networks operating in Africa,” Broad said.

They exposed that fact that 60 percent of the rhino population was illegally killed by poachers between 2003 and 2005 in Congo, according to TRAFFIC data. Two-thirds of all mortalities over the same period, affecting one in eight animals was accounted to poaching in Zimbabwe.

In an effort to prevent poaching in Zimbabwe, the official media reported that the process of dehorning rhinos started last month.

To address the problem,

The 171-nation CITES pact that regulates wildlife trade, called for better cross-boarder collaboration between countries along rhino horn smuggling routes and tougher domestic controls as a way to solve this problem. They also urged better management of horn stocks to avoid horns leaking into illegal markets.

Relentless poaching in the 1970s and 1980s nearly drove the world rhinos to extinction. Black rhino numbers declined by a staggering 98 percent between 1970 and 1992 largely to supply the Far East medicine trade.

“CITES is concerned that some rhinoceros populations have continued to decline drastically and that four of the five species are threatened with extinction,” the pact said.

The biggest danger to rhinos remains horn demand and TRAFFIC realized a rise in illegal trade between 2000 and 2006, which it attributed to the increased complexity by which some Southeast Asian criminal trading networks operate in Africa.

Rwanda safaris and Tours

By Grace Nakawooya