[kictanet] Rwanda Is Removing Work Permits.

[Jose']

PRESIDENT Paul Kagame of Rwanda has said Rwanda is removing work permits and  employment restrictions on East African professionals and others planning to  work in the country. 
 In his key note address during the Commonwealth Business Forum (CBF) dinner  in Kampala on Tuesday, Mr Kagame said the decision is in the spirit of the East  African common market that will formalise free movement of goods, services and  people.
 "The need for professionals to improve public sector and corporate  effectiveness remains a challenge to Rwanda, for East Africa and for the  continent as a whole," Mr Kagame said.
 The step taken by Rwanda is unprecedented, as older members of the community,  Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda still impose permit restrictions on nationals from  partner states. Of the three, permits for East Africans are easier to obtain in  Uganda, followed by Kenya and hardest in Tanzania. 
 In a 2001 directive, the then interior minister Eriya Kategaya made permits  for Kenyans and Tanzanians applying to work in Uganda 'automatic'.
Mr Kagame  said the East African region's "comparative strengths can help to build capable  public and private sector institutions. Corporate East Africa has a pool of  talent that can uplift their private sector counterparts in lesser developed  parts of the region."
 "We in Rwanda are facilitating this by removing work permits and employment  restrictions on professionals and others to work in our country," President  Kagame announced amid applause. "We lose professionals as soon as we create  them, and then resort to borrowing in order to finance expensive international  expertise". 
President Kagame said the region is competing for skills in an  increasingly open, global market place. 
 "This reinforces our dependency on aid, because short term consultants add  little to our need for critical mass of home grown expertise and talent," he  said.
"We should not begrudge those of our people looking to improve their  lives elsewhere, instead, we must offer better prospects in our countries to  ensure they stay with us". 
 President Yoweri Museveni stressed the need for exporting finished goods as  opposed to raw materials. Mr Museveni said part of Africa's continuing poverty  was due, in part, to the failure to escape being a producer of raw materials  instead of finished goods. Mr Museveni said many economies have gone to great  lengths to create aggregate demand among ordinary citizens to get them actively  engaged in economic activity.      
 Mr Museveni said Uganda needs more companies that can generate income to the  economy. "Business can contribute to the transformation of society," he said at  the dinner organised by East African Breweries. Addressing a joint press  conference, the two presidents said the clashes in the Democratic Republic of  Congo (DRC) were not a threat to investment in the region. "These problems you  are talking about are residual problems that are no longer major any more. They  are peripheral not structural. But in any case, they can not stop investments in  Uganda and Rwanda," Mr Museveni said.
 "These are challenges that cut across the region, but we are handling them,"  Mr Kagame said.    CBF Chairman James Mulwana, said while the  East African governments have harmonised policies to attract domestic and direct  foreign investment, the region with a market of 120 million, still has a big  investment potential that has not been tapped.
 Mr Mulwana said there was need to implement global partnership in order to  increase investment, overcome poverty levels and achieve the Millennium  Development Goals (MDGs).
 "While our historical economic role as suppliers of raw materials to the  world may have contributed to the economic growth in the past, it is now clear  that the role left our countries in deep poverty and underdevelopment," Mr  Mulwana said.
The CBF being held ahead of the main Commonwealth Heads of  Government Meeting (Chogm) has attracted a big number of delegates from 40  countries.
 The theme of the conference that ends today is: "The untapped potential.  Transforming societies through economic empowerment and building partnerships  with east Africa and the Global economy".    
    
On trade in the region, President Kagame said Information and Communication  Technology (ICT) must be used to make border clearances a rapid one-stop-shop  exercise.
He said border challenges were part of the reason intra-Africa  trade remains negligible in spite of its importance.
 "A lorry of commercial goods travelling inland to coastal gateways can take  anywhere from five days to two weeks depending on good luck. Everyone loses  here, the wealth that would otherwise accrue to East Africans fails to  materialise," Mr Kagame said.
 Mr Kagame said congested port facilities, ad hoc and illegal checkpoints,  impassable sections of the road network and legal border crossings that are  always closed at night are all obstacles to conducting trans-border commercial  transactions. "The business that we so badly want to grow are undermined and the  state is deprived of revenue. And that is why we remain poor," Mr Kagame  said.
 "It has been indicated for example that trade among African countries  accounts for only 10 percent of our total exports and imports, a factor that is  due to, among other things, poor regional infrastructure"

Source:Ugabytes

       
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