President Paul Kagame on Saturday urged senior cadres of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) to implement what they promised citizens as they work to develop the country further.

The Head of State, who is also the Chairman of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), delivered the message while speaking at the party’s Bureau Politique meeting held at RPF headquarters in Rusororo, on the outskirts of Kigali City.

The meeting, which attracted more than 2000 party delegates, discussed a number of issues in different areas, including governance, health, education, economic development and relations between Rwandans themselves and neighbouring countries among other topics.

Kagame congratulated party cadres, many of them senior leaders in government and private sector, for what Rwanda has achieved so far but urged them to work harder to make it sustainable.

"We can talk about progress but we should not stop there. When you make progress and do good work, you have to work for it to be sustainable and you have to build on it,” he said, adding that "It is not enough to come here and talk about politics, education, health or other aspects of our development. We can talk about our shortcomings but the root of it is governance”.

He urged the leaders to strengthen their readiness to put in the work and implement what they promise citizens, explaining that making good projections about what to do will never be enough without results-oriented implementation.

"We all understand what we need, what citizens expect us to deliver, but when it comes to implementation what happens? Do you measure the change in the lives of our citizens based on your actions? How do we get to results?” he asked the leaders.

He added: "Numbers will be there to show how much progress you have made and numbers don’t lie. When you have fallen short, you will have something to explain”.

The president said that 2018 was generally a productive year for Rwanda as the country continues to have good relationship with her neighbours in the region and abroad.

The Head of State said that Rwanda will strive to nurture good relations with its neighbours, even those who don’t mean well for her explaining that what Rwandans value most is peace. He added that working for peace does not prevent the country from being ready should the efforts to prioritize peace not yield results. The RPF’s political bureau meeting focused on how to drive national development based on a capable and knowledgeable Rwanda, with presentations also touching on human capital development for sustainable development as well as drivers of the country’s economic growth and pillars of good governance framework to deliver citizens to Rwanda’s Vision 2050.

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