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Rwanda Arsenal Partnership Working Well For Us: President Kagame Answers Critics
President Paul Kagame says people who criticize Rwanda’s partnership with Arsenal do so out of confusion or they don’t know what they are talking about but the country is happy with the outcome so far.
Speaking during the Rwanda-Zimbabwe Trade and Investment
Conference on Wednesday, the Head of State said that the negativity around the
‘Visit Rwanda’ partnership is misguided because Rwanda wouldn’t spend money on
such a deal without gain.
“I just I don’t think those people know what they’re talking
about because if they imagine that Rwanda just started spending its money
anyhow like that, and in fact giving it to those who don’t even need money,
like Rwanda does, I think that’s where the confusion starts from,”
President Kagame said that Rwanda is not only working with
Arsenal, but the country is also working with French side Paris Saint-Germain
(PSG) and the deals are paying off. “Of the several pillars of development, in fact, one of them is
tourism. We have invested in tourism and infrastructure, trained people around
services that go along with that and so on and so forth. But with tourism, you
need visitors,”
“You need people to come and enjoy what the country offers, the
beauty of the country, the experience and so on and so forth,” President Kagame
said. President Kagame said that from the onset, not so many people would
understand why the country would make such a strategic investment, equating it
to the period after 1994 when the country was rebuilding from scratch.
He said at the time, around 1998, the country started rebuilding
infrastructure with limited resources, out of which the government also built a
hotel, known as Intercontinental. He said that at the time, the government was attacked by
different critics who said that the government was wasting money.
“Oh, you’re building a five-star hotel. Why? They really thought
we were stupid. We just kept quiet, we said, okay, after five years you will
get to understand what we were really doing,” President Kagame said. He said that when the government built the hotel, it was one of
the strategies to build up the momentum for development of the tourism sector.
President Kagame said that the idea was to give people the
option of coming to Rwanda and having a comfortable place to stay because some
people might choose not to come if they can’t have a place of choice, without
limiting them to being backpackers or something of a sort.
“You can see the contradiction here. People are saying you are
wasting money, building up this infrastructure, but the infrastructure was
built for a reason. In a short time, the hotel did well, we sold it and paid
off the loans,” he said. He said that at the time, the government did not build the hotel
so that the government could go into running the hotel business but the idea
was to build it, serve its purpose, and after sometime, the private sector
would take it up.
He said that at the time, there was a need for a good hotel and
the private sector could not be asked to invest in one because they had
different priorities. So, the government had to do it since it couldn’t dictate
to the private sector. “So, in this case, if I had waited to tell them [private sector]
to build a five-star hotel, they would not have built it, but because I built
it and it was there standing before them, then the present sector gets
attracted and say, well, you know what? I want, that hotel,” “It’s different from telling the person you build the hotel, or
you building it and then setting it,” he said.
Partnership with Arsenal paying off
Regarding tourism, President Kagame said the ‘Visit Rwanda’ partnership with Arsenal has increased the number of visitors coming to Rwanda. “The partnership we have with the Arsenal has actually attracted more people, who have brought to the country more money than we have given to Arsenal,”
“You don’t have to be a very sharp businessman to understand
this. I’m not one, but I think on this one we got it right,” adding that not so
many Africans criticized the deal. He said that those who did were in cahoots with western critics
who ran articles, especially in the UK, criticizing Rwanda, since they give aid
to the country.
“If you can give me 50 million and in using the 50 million, I am
able to earn the country 300 million, why would you blame me for that? There
must be something wrong,” President Kagame said. He pointed out that the issue has been politicized by critics,
which is why he believes that there is confusion but Rwanda is happy with the
partnership.
President Kagame emphasized that even though he has been a fan
of Arsenal for more than 35 years, which is a bonus, the partnership is built
on strategic reasons, same with the French side PSG. He said he has since become a fan of the French giants who now
boast of superstars like Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé.
Source: www.ktpress.rw