This is a question that amazes and amuses me all the times. How does the Rwandan president Paul Kagame get the nerve to lie that he has transformed Rwanda? We now learn that businessmen and women outside Rwanda are paying US$2,450 to visit Rwanda to be inspired by Kagame’s ICT achievements. These achievements – we are told – now make Rwanda, Africa’s ICT success story.
What wealth has ICT created in Rwanda? How many Rwandans are employed in the ICT sector? How many ICT engineers graduate and operate in Rwanda?
Kagame’s own government statistics show a shocking reality of the state of ICT in Rwanda.
Three years away from reaching the year 2020 when Rwanda will supposedly become a Knowledge-Based-Economy, the country’s ICT sector employment realities are as follows:
* 646 full time permanent jobs;
* Of the 646 full time employees, 54 are foreign, meaning that Rwandans employed in ICT sector number only 592.
* 375 positions are “outsourced” while 91 are “temporary” positions.
* 1,112 is the total employment in Rwanda’s ICT sector.
This disaster is what Kagame is selling all over the world as an ICT miracle and African development success story.
Kagame has squandered over US$100 million since 2000 to build an ICT sector. Seventeen years later, the sector employs a mere 1,112, including temporary, non-Rwandans, and outsourced work. What an embarrassment! What a shame! Some day Kagame will account for this, among other things.
David Himbara
