Editor,

I wish to extend my sincere appreciation to the government for considering us the rural poor.

I was overjoyed when I read in The New Times that the government plans to allocate the biggest proportion of the 2011/2012 budget to the agricultural sector.

It is a fact that the majority of our population are rural based and depend on agriculture. This indicates that, resource allocation to the sector would translate into improvement of rural incomes as the country gears itself towards realising Vision 2020.

I concur with the ministry on the issue of supporting the private sector especially,  the SMEs. Many SMES in Rwanda are either agriculture based or are closely connected to it.

Investing in energy means that rural areas will be connected and farmers’ cooperatives would be able to set up processing centres for their products to add value and fetch higher prices.

The ball is now in our court. Let us use the opportunity and fight poverty.

Jean Claude Mugisha
Gisenyi