President Kagame today toured Nyagatare District in the Eastern Province, visiting several sites and holding two meetings with citizens at the Matimba and Mbale sites.
The first stop of his tour was at the Kagitumba One Stop Border Post (OSBP), a facility created to facilitate business between Uganda and Rwanda by considerably reducing clearing time of the goods that go through the border.
Following the visit to the border, President Kagame proceeded to meet with the residents of Matimba. In his address, President Kagame called them to keep holding their leaders accountable in regards to how they manage public funds: “You should not be afraid to hold public officials accountable and speak out when they are not serving citizens. Public officials have no right to use public resources as their own.” In regards to the Government’s efforts to fasten the electrification process in the district he said: “Our goal is to provide electricity to every citizen of our country. It is your right to demand it from us.”
President Kagame continued his tour of Nyagatare, meeting the residents of Karangazi at the Mbale site. Interacting with the population, President Kagame urged them to work hard in order to eradicate poverty in their region: “We were not created to remain poor. We may have a history of poverty but we must work to leave it in the past.”
For the last leg of his tour of the district, President Kagame visited EPIC hotel, a facility currently being developed by local investors to boost tourism in the region as well as the East African Granite Industries Ltd (EAGI), a granite-processing factory established in 2012.