By David Himbara
Open Letter To Anthony William Hall, Director-General of the BBC; Jamie Angus, Director of News; Solomon Mugera, Regional Editor, BBC Africa; and Rachael Akidi, Head of BBC East Africa.
On April 25, 2019, I watched with dismay an episode of the BBC In Business Africa on Rwanda, hosted by Nancy Kacungira supported by Maggie Mutesi. The Rwanda described by the two BBC journalists and their research team is a rapidly transforming economy with a prosperous middle-class no longer limited to purchasing used cars — they can now buy locally-essembled Volkswagen cars. The knowledge economy , too, is booming with young folks establishing ICT startups, and attracting brainpower from outside Rwanda. Billions of dollars in foreign direct investment (FDI) are flowing in and creating employment and prosperity opportunities.
This perception of Rwanda fits perfectly with the narrative relentlessly propagandized by the Rwandan head of state, General Paul Kagame. The General characterizes Rwanda as ”an economic lion” in which ”development is a marathon that must be run at a sprint.” He further claims that,
”In our pursuit of progress, we have of course looked to East Asia’s so-called “tiger” economies for inspiration…So while being described as an “African tiger” is a welcome recognition of how far Rwanda has come, perhaps it isn’t quite right. After all, our continent has its own big cat. Step forward the new lions of Africa.”
That is how Kagame popularized the notion that Rwanda is the Singapore of Africa.
Two faces of Rwanda
While it is Kagame’s prerogative to paint himself a man who transformed Rwanda into an African economic lion, is it acceptable for the BBC to uncritically reproduce Kagame self-portrait? No, it is not. The BBC should be ashamed for letting two reporters who appear to be either naive or biased to handle such an assignment. In what follows, I highlight four reasons why the BBC failed its audience, especially the people of Rwanda who watched the Rwandan episode of In Business Africa.
Firstly, the Rwandan episode ignored the current context in which Rwanda’s business and economic environment is operating. Since February 28, 2019, Rwanda closed its common border with Uganda and by extension, Kenya. Uganda and Kenya are Rwanda’s main East African Community trading partners. As a result of the hostilities at Uganda and Burundi borders, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and the UK have issued travel advisories on insecurity in Rwanda and its borders. Naturally, this closure seriously undermines the Rwandan business.
Secondly, the BBC team failed to verify the statistics given to them by the Rwandan authorities. This flaw is what especially turned the BBC presentation into a platform for Kagame propaganda. Take, for example, the amount of FDI that Rwanda receives annually. The Kacungira team claimed that FDI to Rwanda is in excess of US$2 billion a year, a figure provided by Rwanda Development Board (RDB). It never occurred to the BBC presenters and their researchers to verify such a falsehood. Had they done so, they would have been surprised. The World Bank data would have revealed that Rwanda has never received more than half a billion dollars of FDI in a single year. For example, Rwanda attracted US$217 million of FDI in 2013; US$314 million in 2014; US$223 million in 2015; US$266 million in 2016; and US$293 million in 2017. The National Bank of Rwanda reported in 2017 that the total stock of FDI accumulated over the past 20 years is US$2.3 billion.
Thirdly, the Kacungira and Mutesi team did not interview even a single Rwandan business leader from the private sector . The two main interviewees were Diane Karusisi, the CEO of the Bank of Kigali (BK) and Michaella Rugwizangoga, the CEO of Volkswagen Mobility Solutions, Rwanda. BK is a government-owned bank, whose chairman is Marc Holtzman, a UK-based friend of Rwandan head of state, Kagame. Holtzman replaced Lado Gurgenidze from Georgia. How these men are appointed, nobody knows, except Kagame. Michaella Rugwizangoga runs the US$20 million Volkswagen Mobility Solution, an Uber-like service. The Kacungira team accepted at face value that Volkswagen built an automobile assembly plant in Rwanda with a mere US$20 million. Strangely, the BBC operates from Nairobi, Kenya, and could have easily observed a real Volkswagen automobile assembly plant there for comparison.
Be that as it may, had the BBC team scrutinized the business environment in Rwanda and interviewed real private sector leaders, they would have discovered the elephant in the room. As is widely known, the main challenge in Rwanda’s business is the fact the ruling party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), controls much of the economy. As The Economist explains,
”Crystal Ventures, the RPF’s holding company, has investments in everything from furniture to finance. It owns the country’s biggest milk processor, its finest coffee shops and some of its priciest real estate. Its contractors are building Kigali’s roads. There are several firms offering security services in Rwanda but the guards from ISCO, part of Crystal Ventures, are the only ones who tote guns. The company is reckoned to have some $500m of assets.”
Meanwhile, leading Rwandan business people operate at a disadvantage. Some lose their enterprises or even leave Rwanda. As the US State Department says, ”investors continue to complain about competition from state-owned and ruling party-aligned businesses.”
Fourthly, like Kagame himself, the BBC team equates the cleanliness of central Kigali with Rwanda’s socio-economic development status. Typically, the central Kigali enclave is isolated from the rest of the country in which 55.5% of the population lives on less than US$1.90 a day, and only 51% have access to electricity. As the UK government stated in 2018:
”Rwanda remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Over a third of its population live in poverty. UK aid contributed to Rwanda’s achievement of lifting almost two million people out of poverty since 2005. British taxpayers’ support is providing Rwandans with the means to have productive livelihoods, it is helping to educate more than 350,000 children and it is also helping Rwanda to generate more taxes to help end aid dependency.”
It is also important to highlight the fact that Kagame’s Rwanda has now quietly conceded that it will not achieve its Vision 2020 of attaining a middle-income status next year. As the international Monetary Fund (IMF) states, the Rwandan authorities
“are crafting a revised medium term development strategy with the goal of achieving middle income status by 2035. To help achieve this objective, it will be important to regain momentum in mobilizing domestic revenue as a reliable source of financing for development.”
From the above, we see how the BBC added insult to injury. Let us recall that the Kagame regime cut off the BBC Kinyarwanda programme back in 2014/5. Millions of Rwandans who relied on the BBC for impartial news and information lost out because the BBC showed a documentary the regime did not like. To now subject Rwandans to propagandistic presentation instead of balanced and independent journalism, the BBC has dealt them a second blow.
In conclusion, I challenge the BBC to practice what it preaches in fair reporting and the right to respond. Let the BBC provide the opportunity to interrogate the Rwandan business and economic environment. The audience that watched the BBC presentation deserves this. I will readily participate in such an exercise designed to inform rather than misinform the BBC audience on the current realities in Rwanda.
Sincerely,
David Himbara