President Paul Kagame has tasked leaders to ensure that places that face abject poverty are given utmost attention and uplifted to catch up with other areas that are on path to development. He also called out leaders who are slow in taking decisions that impact people's lives saying that such an attitude is unacceptable. Kagame made the remarks on August 26 in Nyamagabe District on his second leg of Citizen Outreach programme where he is touring Western and Southern provinces. In his address to thousands of residents who gathered at Nyagisenyi Stadium, the Head of State referred to his previous visit to the district in 2017 during the presidential campaign and thanked residents for having delivered on their pledge of voting as committed by then. You have achieved a lot but we are not yet where we want to be. If the threshold of what we want to achieve is 100 percent, it's unacceptable to score 40 percent. Water access in this area is at 60 per cent, it should be raised to 80-90 percent. Every Rwandan deserves to have access to clean water and near them, Kagame said. He further pointed out that; there are issues of extreme poverty around Kaduha-Gitwe Corridor that I've been hearing since yesterday. This must change. No one should be left behind in our journey to develop. To eliminate poverty, leaders were tasked to collaborate more and double their efforts. Leaders at all levels must understand the responsibilities they have in serving the people. They should worry a lot about what people need but can't have. This calls for working hard and in a synergistic way with leaders, the people and private sector, said the President adding that leaders must have a culture of selflessness when serving the people. The issue of slow-moving leaders has been raised by the president twice on his tour. While meeting the southern province opinion leaders, Kagame raised the same issue and also demanded for accountability. Stalled wheat factory During the Nyambagabe meeting, the district mayor Hildebrand Niyomwungeri pointed out a number of challenges the district has, one of them being a stalled wheat factory. This made the President put both Niyomwungeri and the Minister of trade Jean-Chrysostome Ngabitsinze to task to explain why a factory can stall for over three decades. “We were headed to completely shutting it down and getting a new factory but luckily we got an investor recently who is taking it on,” said Niyomwungeri. However, the president’s concern remained on the farmers who cultivate wheat and have no market for it. When Ngabitsinze was asked the state of the factory, he said, “The factory was bought by Janvier Gasasira but he still doesn’t have the land title and electricity at the factory. We request the district to give him a land title as it will help him have access to a loan.” The President instructed the leaders to work closely at all levels to ensure the issue is swiftly solved.
