President Paul Kagame envisages his capital city of Kigali as Africa’s model of urban planning and development. He sees Kigali as a city of gleaming high-rise towers, arching pedestrian walkways, green spaces, fountains and an effective public transport system. Financed by Rwanda’s pension fund – the usual victim of Kagame’s fantasies as I showed in my book – Vision City was to become the centre piece of modern Kigali.
But as with Kagame’s other projects, Vision City was unrealistic. At worst, Vision City was a work of delusion of grandeur. Vision City was doomed from the start because it failed to take into account Rwanda’s demographic and economic realities.
Vision City is truly a spectacular failure
The first sign of doom for Kagame’s Vision City was the pricing. When the complex was completed and put on the market, the prices of the units ranged from $179,000 to $560,000. There was one little problem with this – per capita income in Rwanda is $702. That is the average income for Rwandans per year. So who was to buy these units? FULL STORY