Politics

Kagame advises new cabinet on collaboration

Published

4 weeks ago

August 22, 2024

Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, wants his new cabinet to work together, as he considers his latest five-year tenure a public endorsement and an opportunity to improve his record.

After taking office this week, most of them reappointed, President Paul Kagame informed the ministers they must not work alone, a trend he had seen earlier.

The 21 cabinet ministers and 9 state ministers will serve with Kagame for the upcoming five-year term unless removed or reshuffled. Last Monday, the president took the oath of office for another term after a huge July election victory.

“The country’s development cannot be achieved by the works of one individual, however excellent or sacrificial the person is.

“People and organs have to work together, that’s how a country develops there’s no other way around it, but the habit of working in isolation keeps coming back.”

He will likely want unity from his government, along with integrity and commitment. Rwanda, like most countries in the region, is facing economic uncertainty after geopolitical concerns and the COVID-19 outbreak.

On Tuesday, he advised ministers to prioritise Rwanda. Rwanda’s rise from 1994’s slaughter to stability is an inspiration. Kagame’s practicality and micromanagement contributed to his success.

“There are times I am looking for someone and I call, only to be told the person is in a meeting, on calling another one I am told the same thing.

“When I wait and try again in the evening and I am still told the person is in a meeting, when do you work, when do you implement the things you meet about?

“Only go for a meeting if it is indispensable, even then first identify the key points to meet about and come up with clear expected outcomes. It shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes, a maximum of an hour,” said Kagame.

“You find someone cordoning off other people from using the elevator, because ‘the boss’ is going to use it. Why do you still do these things? The elevator is for all people to use”

“Others have been branded VVIPs, and some leaders have their briefcases and bags carried for them. What is all that for? Where are these tendencies coming from?” questioned Kagame.

President Kagame has acknowledged that ministries have returned the country to growth from Covid-19 and reached 8% GDP growth. H advises the new team to improve.

“I am not asking you to do the impossible. The things I challenge you to do are things that are possible to achieve.”

Rwanda trades with surrounding nations, but tensions have arisen. His new team must repair relations.

Related Topics:Featured President Paul Kagame Rwanda

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Politics

Ghanian opposition protests, demands audit of voters register

Published

12 hours ago

September 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Ghana’s major opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party protested statewide on Tuesday, seeking an independent forensic audit to clean up the voter register for free and fair elections.

NDC leaders said the election commission secretly relocated voters to various voting sites, undermining the register.

In red and black, thousands of supporters marched through Accra’s main streets, blasting reggae and campaign music and calling on international bodies, Ghana’s peace council, and religious and civil society groups to intervene. Protest leaders petitioned parliament and the Accra electoral agency. Ghana’s other 15 regions also saw protests, local media said.

Protester Kwame Acheampong, 68, told Reuters in Akan that his registration had been moved from the capital to Tamale. He asked, “How can I vote in Tamale?”

Meanwhile, the electoral commission claims the flaws were fixed. It suspended a northern Pusiga district director in August for “using his credentials to transfer voters without their knowledge.” Ghana is one of Africa’s most stable democracies, although eight people died in the last election, which was marred by opposition claims that the government unjustly influenced the vote, which it rejected.

Allegations of irregularities tarnish the electoral authorities. Afrobarometer’s July survey found Ghana’s election commission’s trust at an all-time low since confidence polls began in 1999. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, NDC chairman, told demonstrators he wanted “transparent elections.”

Ghana will have general elections for president and parliamentarians on December 7, 2024. President Nana Akufo-Addo cannot run again due to term limits after eight years. Old NDC president John Dramani Mahama will face New Patriotic Party Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia in the election.

The President of Ghana is elected in two rounds, while 275 MPs are elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting.

Politics

South Sudan ready to resume pumping oil through Sudan

Published

17 hours ago

September 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

According to South Sudan’s finance minister and the president’s office, progress has been made in getting South Sudan and Sudan to resume supplying crude oil through a pipeline that goes to a port in their neighbourhood.

South Sudan depends heavily on its oil exports for its income, and Sudan keeps a portion of the oil as a transit fee.

The devastation resulting from a fight between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces forced the closure of the major pipeline that transported oil from South Sudan via Sudan for export in February. According to observers, the stoppage has caused food prices in Sudan, where millions of people suffer from acute hunger, to rise. The damage is likely to cause major environmental degradation.

“Sudanese engineers have accomplished the necessary technical preparations for the resumption of oil production,” South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s office said in a statement late on Monday after a meeting in Juba between Kiir and Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

“Engineers from South Sudan are expected to visit Sudan in the coming weeks to familiarise themselves with the readiness of the facilities to jump-start production.”

“There has been a breakthrough, and (news of) it will come to the public very soon,” South Sudan’s Finance Minister Marial Dongrin Ater told a news conference late on Monday.
Burhan’s office said the two sides would develop an operational plan to restart oil flows.

Due to intercommunal violence, South Sudan’s economy has been under strain recently. Since the civil war that lasted from 2013 to 2018, revenue from crude oil exports has decreased, and more recently, export disruptions have occurred because of the conflict in neighbouring Sudan.

Following its independence from Khartoum in 2011, South Sudan began exporting roughly 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day through Sudan, following a formula that took the majority of the country’s oil production with it.

Before the civil war, South Sudan produced between 350,000 and 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day at its highest point.