Australian legislators visit Southern Province

HUYE - Australian legislators Monday toured several institutions and women’s cooperative in Huye district on.Claire Moore, the head of the seven-person delegation, said that they are in the Country on a learning mission. “This is the first visit by legislators from Australia. It is very important to open up doors so that people from both countries can know each other,” she said. The Legislators met and held discussions with members of the Rwandan Senate and lower chamber which Moore described as valuable. “The interaction with legislators was very valuable and for me, my interest was in the number of women in politics. Rwanda is famous for having 56 percent of women in parliament, in Australia we have not gotten there,” she said. As part of their tour of the Southern Province, the delegation visited the National University of Rwanda where they were briefed on the history of the country’s oldest and biggest Institution of higher learning.Prof Silas Lwakabamba, the Rector said that the University is grappling with the problem of lack of enough infrastructures to cater for the over 10,000 student population, lack of highly skilled academic staff and retaining the few it has.He also hinted on measures that have been put in place to mitigate these challenges. The delegation later in the day visited a women cooperative in Karama Sector. The Cooperative is made up of over 1,700 Genocide widows and wives of Genocide convicts serving their jail terms.Paul Dziatkowiec, the First Secretary and Deputy Head of Mission of the Australian embassy said that the visit seeks to strengthen ties between the two countries. “We are building relations with Rwanda. There have been many contacts between our ministers and Prime Ministers and hopefully, we will build on that in the next few years to strengthen links in agriculture, education, health and other sectors,” he said. Ends