By David Himbara
A reader has requested that I provide a more comprehensive list of President Paul Kagame’s trips overseas for January-October 2014. If we include Kagame’s forthcoming trip to London to attend the Global African Investment Summit (20-21 Oct) and give a lecture on “Rwanda’s Role in an Emerging Africa and Uncertain World” at Chatham House, 21 Oct 2014, he will have made 28 trips overseas in ten months. Of the 28 trips, 17 were in Africa, Europe and Middle East averaging 2 days each – meaning 34 days in total. In February, the President spent a week in western USA, and another week in eastern and western part of America in April – a total of 14 days. The President then spent the entire month of September in the United States, beginning in Aspen, Colorado in the west, swinging to the south in Atlanta, Georgia, before jetting to New York City for the UN events. From there, Kagame continued on to Dubai on 1 October, returning to Rwanda on 2 October and flying back to Europe for the event in Italy on 5 October 2014 – a total of 36 days. This means that in total Kagame was absent from Rwanda for a grand total of 84 days, or nearly 3 months.
Putting aside the costs which runs into millions of dollars, who runs Rwanda when Kagame is away, and how?
HERE IS A MORE COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF PRESIDENTIAL TRIPS JAN-OCT 2014
1. 12 Jan: ICGLR Summit, Luanda, Angola
2. 21 Jan: Nation Media Group Governor’s Summit, Naivasha, Kenya
3. 24 Jan: World Economic Summit, Davos, Switzerland
4. 30 Jan: AU Summit, Addis, Ethiopia
5. 05 Feb: Africa Innovation Summit, Cape Verde
6. 12 Feb: Western USA visit (including Los Angeles World Affairs Council, Wisdom Conference, visits to Berkeley University, University of California, and Palo Alto University)
7. 20 Feb: Northern Corridor Integration, Kampala, Uganda
8. 23 Feb: UN Broadband meeting, Dublin, Ireland
9. 25 Feb: ICGLR Summit, Luanda, Angola
10. 02 April: EU-Africa Summit, Brussels, Belgium
11. 22 April: Eastern USA (including MIT, Tufts and Brandeis University)
12. 25 April: Western USA (including Milken Institute, Saddleback Church, and Stanford University)
13. 02 May: Northern Corridor Integration, Nairobi, Kenya
14. 08 May: World Economic Forum for Africa, Abuja, Nigeria
15. 11 May: Signing of standard railway gauge, Nairobi, Kenya
16. 16 May: World Telecommunications and Information Society Award, Geneva, Switzerland
17. 23 May: New York Forum Africa, Gabon
18. 27 May: UN meeting on sustainable urbanization, New York, USA
19. 27 June: AU Summit, Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
20. 08 July: Honor of Wole Soyinka, Accra, Ghana
21. 03 Aug: Aspen Institute, Aspen, USA
22. 06 Aug: USA-Africa Summit, Washington, DC, USA
23. 20 Aug: Rwanda Day (plus Mercier University), Atlanta, USA.
24. 21 Aug: UN General Assembly (plus other events, including Global Citizen Festival), New York City
25. 01 Oct: Global Business Forum, Dubai
26. 05 Oct: 50th anniversary of International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy
27. 07 Oct: Uganda-Rwanda Business Forum, (plus Uganda Independence celebrations), Kampala, Uganda
28. 20 Oct: Global African Investment Summit (plus Chattam House Lecture), London, UK
We wait to see where the gentleman jets for November and December.
