The Government has saved Rwf125 million so far during the 2016/17 financial year following a decision to reduce foreign trips by public servants.

The Minister in the Office of the President, Vénantie Tugireyezu, revealed this, yesterday, at a news conference called to brief journalists about the 14th Leadership Retreat, which closed on Thursday at the Rwanda Defence Force Combat Training Centre in Gabiro.

Tugireyezu said some of the travels were unnecessary because they could not generate income for the country.

The decision to cut on foreign trips was one of the resolutions from the 13th National Leadership Retreat in 2016.

The Minister of State in charge of Economic Planning, Dr Uzziel Ndagijimana, said in order to cut the cost of foreign trips and attendant cost, the Government decided that some conferences should be attended by the country’s envoys abroad, or exploit video-conferencing technology mostly in the East African Community meetings.

"We hope to save more than that before the end of the fiscal year in June,” Dr Ndagijimana said.

Without giving figures of foreign trips within a specified period, the minister added that around Rwf2 billion used to be spent on such trips annually.

"The aim was to reduce the money spent on foreign trips so that the government could allocate it to more important use,” he added.

During the 13th National Leadership Retreat in 2016, President Paul Kagame said Tanzanian President John Pombe Magufuli’s restriction on foreign trips by public servants was worth emulating.

Bank of Tanzania says that since November 2015, the government saved $429,000 following the restriction of foreign trips for mostly government officials.

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