WESTERN PROVINCE

RUBAVU — visiting members of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) have hailed Rwanda’s methane gas project, saying it will solve the problem of power shortages in the region.

The MPs made the remarks during their recent tour of Rubavu District where they inspected the Gisenyi methane gas project, Coopac tea factory and various coffee farmers’ associations.

Addressing the group, the minister of State for Energy, Albert Butare said, "Lake Kivu has the capacity of producing 700mw of methane power and Rwanda needed only 250MW. Rwanda has electricity cables linking it with the neighboring countries such as Burundi, Uganda through Mbarara and another cable connecting Rwanda to DR Congo. That will make it easy for the country to share the methane power with the region.”

Butare reassured Rwandans that the country will have started benefiting from methane power by the end of next month.

"We already have everything in place. We have gas collected from the water into our huge cylinders. We are remaining with only the process of drying it before sending it to the powerful generators off shores, which will transform the gas into power to be channeled into electro gas cable for use,” explained Butare.

He said that although the pilot plant is meant to produce only 4MW, there were other projects in place which will soon increase the production to 350MW- the power that is enough for Rwanda at the moment.

"There is a new project here in Gisenyi by the Rwanda Investment Group (RIG) and a new project in Kibuye by an American investor which will produce up to 100MW,” he said.

Responding to the EALA member’s fears that the gas projects could trigger conflicts between DRC and Rwanda- the countries that share the Lake, Butare explained that the two governments had signed an agreement to avoid any future misunderstandings.

While in Rubavu, the delegation shared dinner at Serena Kivu Hotel during which they discussed the importance and the success of Karisimbi project.

Romain Murenzi, the Minister in the President’s Office in charge of Science and Technology explained to them the future ability of the Karisimbi project in improvement of ICT not only in Rwandan but also in the region.

The MPs asked the ministry and the government to speed up the Karisimbi project to provide immediate benefits to the region.

Regina Katabarumwe, one of the EALA members from Burundi said that other member countries of the East African Community had learnt a lot from their tour of Rwanda.

"People from the other EAC member states have always thought that Rwanda and Burundi were very poor in terms of natural resources. But what we found here in Rubavu such as the fertile soils good for coffee, the enormous quantity of methane gas in Lake Kivu has changed their attitude towards the new EAC members,” she said.

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