Kigali, 6 April 2011
Following a farewell meeting with President Paul Kagame, the outgoing African Development Bank representative, Diko Jacob Mukete, has said that he was able to achieve a lot during his three and a half years tenure due to the quality of leadership in Rwanda.He highlighted successes made in the areas of Infrastructure, regional projects and in the joint governance assessment process. He said his successor should not listen to detractors if he wanted to attain any achievement during his stay in the country:
“I must emphasize that we had these good results because of the visionary and inspiring leadership of the President and of course the government that I describe as a dedicated, purposeful and hardworking team. The credit goes to the quality of partnership.”
Describing Rwanda as a great nation, he said that no country in the world has been able to show such resilience:
“Rwandan people have been able to achieve a lot over the last 16 years, from the ashes of genocide not only in terms of economic recovery. Lest many of you forget, in the 80s Rwanda’s average growth rate was 2% but the average growth rate now stands at over 8%. In terms of access to water, if we take the example of people of Ruhengeri, they used to walk for four kilometers but today they walk for only four hundred metres. You can imagine the effect of this in terms of improving the health conditions in the rural areas. Much has been achieved and it is obvious.”
The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning describe Mr. Mukete as a someone who served Rwanda as a true African son who went beyond performing his duties and worked to assist Rwandans to achieve their objectives:
“He served this country with a lot of commitment and dedication and has also promised the President to be Rwanda’s Ambassador where he goes. The President thanked him for his contribution on behalf of the Rwandan people”.