Editor,

RE: "Gatsibo, Nyagatare farmers upbeat about irrigation scheme” (The New Times, May 5).

I have read with great disappointment news about brave Rwandan youths who have refused to work for the irrigation project financed by philanthropist Warren Buffet on the grounds that the project is in village.This was shocking news, even to Rwandans in the Diaspora.

It raised more questions than answers: how could the same people who are complaining about unemployment be the ones wasting such an opportunity?

It’s total absurd to behave in such a manner. President Paul Kagame, during his trip to Jerusalem, Israel, paid a visit to these students and encouraged them to work hard and gain the kind of knowledge that will lead to results and transformation in their field back home."Your mission here is to build relationships that will be a foundation that links people of both our nations and to gain the kind of knowledge that will lead to results and transformation in your field,” the President said at the time.

And now the same graduates of agriculture from Israel want irrigation projects to be relocated to cities like Kigali, Musanze, and Huye. Their mentor in Israel must be so disappointed. The decision to work or not to remains theirs to make and there is nothing we can do about it, but to avoid similar cases in the future, something has to be done, for instance to create national army services that are well equipped in various fields.

From engineering and agriculture to aviation and risk management, such military services would be effective because they would operate under the existing military structures and would be required to obey the Head of State.

Yulian