Rwanda’s ‘zero’ tolerance to corruption secret behind economic success, says Kagame

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has said the country’s zero tolerance to corruption and good investment policies have been able to attract more foreign investments and turned the East African Nation around in so short a time.

“If we allowed corruption to thrive in our country, investors would go to a bigger economy with bigger corruption and we lose out,” Kagame said.

Kagame was on Friday speaking at the World Bank Human Capital Summit in Washington DC as part of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund Annual meeting.

“We are fully aware that corruption does a lot of damage to everything we want to achieve for our people,” he said.

The Corruption Perception Index, released in June this year, placed Rwanda alongside Mauritius as third least corrupt country in sub-Saharan Africa.

The annual report, by Transparency International, ranked Rwanda 50th least corrupt country globally, retaining the same 54 per cent score as in 2016.
In sub-Saharan Africa, Rwanda and Mauritius tied, coming after Botswana and Cape Verde in first and second place, respectively, while on the global scale, Denmark and New Zealand emerged the least corrupt nations.

Under President Kagame, Rwanda has won praise for its advances in economic development, security, stability and women’s rights over the past 23 years, following the Rwanda Genocide in which nearly one million Tutsi and moderate Hutus were killed.

Kagame said while the country’s market is small, corruption once tolerated would would drive away potential investors from tapping into available opportunities in the country.

He said because of Rwanda’s good governance and stability, it does attract investment and the country disproves that it is not a viable market.

“We are fully aware that corruption does a lot of damage to everything we want to achieve for our people,” he said.

By fighting corruption and establishing conducive business policies, Kagame said, Rwanda has become a market where many key players come to invest.

It takes less than 6 hours to register a business in Rwanda – a policy Rwanda Development Board says has triggered more investments.

Records from Rwanda Development Board (RDB) indicate government projects will attract foreign direct investments worth about $1.5 billion this year. As of May, this year, 49 investments had brought in about $500 million, while another 33 projects in the pipeline are expected to bring in about $1 billion, according to RDB.

Kagame said: “We had to create that uniqueness for ourselves to make ourselves attractive so investors choose Rwanda.”

“Rwanda’s specificity as a small economy is constrained in many ways. There are certain things we cannot afford to do or ignore,” he added.

Kagame told participants at the session that Rwanda has also considered attracting nationals living abroad to invest back home.

“Many have come back to the country and have formed the backbone of the human capital in Rwanda. We connect with the African diaspora and want them to contribute to the country,” he said.

The President told participants that for the world to sustain finance for development, “we also have to deal with humanitarian situations and globally you find this requires a lot of resources.”

He explained that there was no doubt that funds to invest in development among governments were increasingly scarce but there is a way out by working closely with the private sector.