Access to safe, reliable and affordable energy is essential if the country is to achieve the projected national development targets. This calls for fast tracking of efforts to ensure that the country has enough energy for both household and industrial use. On Friday, Bank of Kigali donated solar electricity equipment to 500 households in Nyagatare district. At least 2000 residents living under absolute poverty benefited from the equipment. The gesture from Bank of Kigali should be emulated by other private players to ensure that the country’s power distribution target is realized. Improving access to electricity at the household level is key in enhancing national development. Government is promoting a diversified power generation strategy to ease access to electricity and increase the country’s generation capacity. The private sector can effectively supplement government efforts in availing off-grid power to increase the current percentage of Rwandans connected to electricity. The country’s total installed electricity generation capacity is at 208.36MW and government targets to raise this to 563MW and to connect 70 per cent of the population in the medium-term. If the private sector intensifies its involvement, Government efforts to increase off-grid power solutions to at least 22 per cent or around 530,000 households in the medium-term will come to fruition. Going forward, the private sector should play a pro-active role in provision of off-grid power solutions, especially for those who can’t afford it. In a 2014 nationwide Ubudehe Categorization exercise, results at national level found that 1,480,167 Rwandans living in 376,192 households fell in the first category of Ubudehe, profiled as living in extreme poverty characterized as not having ability to afford a proper house as well as basic household tools and clothes. This category should be the target of the private sector as the country the works round the clock to achieve middle income status.
