The Minister of Infrastructure, Linda Bihire, has said that the Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA) will be instrumental in managing the transport infrastructure in the country and keeping it in good shape.

Bihire said this while presenting a draft law which puts in place RTDA to the Senate recently.

RTDA will be in charge of regulating, following the day- to-day activities in the transport sector, and also construct and maintain roads, airports, water ways and railways in the country.

The minister explained that the government decided to put in place this body after realising that the Ministry of Infrastructure was doing a lot of work.

"The ministry will be left with the work of formulating policies and play a supervisory role while the body will be implementing the policies,” she explained.

She expressed optimism towards the body saying that similar bodies in other East African countries like Tanzania had proved efficient, the same as in South Africa.

The minister however said that some transport agencies like ONATRACOM and Rwandair express could not be combined in this body because there was a possibility that these agencies would be privatised in the near future.

Senators questioned the minister on the issue of naming cities and towns as well as roads, saying that lack of official names was creating confusion.

The minister explained that the programme to officially name cities and towns and main roads was in place and she promised that more efforts would be made in speeding up the process.

Bihire added that the ministry had started a survey to see if rivers and lakes in the country could be used as means of transport.

She said that some water bodies like Nyabarongo and others had been surveyed and that there was a possibility they could be used for transport.

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