Paul

This is quite a revealing interview with President Paul Kagame by the BBC. I only wish Kagame had made a clearer case on the involvement of the international community in the Rwandan genocide, which is indeed scandalous. But this is some welcome publicity for certain issues on both sides of the argument. Click here to watch the interview (RealPlayer file).

Lake Muhazi (video)

This clip is from a 2-day visit to lake Muhazi. A beautiful place, about 70km to the North-East of Kigali.

Privatisation in Rwanda

This will probably only be of interest to Rwanda-philes and energy sector people. But the FT published a very interesting article on the privatisation of Rwandan utilities.

Working on the development of small private sector companies in the energy sector, I am very much aware of the painfully slow privatisation process in the energy sector. My comments on this are also on the World Bank's Private Sector Development Blog:

"Privatisation has to be about more than selling off state assets. It needs to be as much about transparent regulation and stimulating competition. The telecoms sector in Rwanda is still lacking much-needed competition. As for the lack of progress in the energy sector, this sector could move ahead even whilst Electrogaz' privatisation is paralysed by its high generation costs. But for this, Rwanda would need to introduce clear regulation that opens the way for private sector investors to challenge the poor levels of delivery of Electrogaz' defacto (but no longer legal) monopoly."