The Minister for Trade and Industry, Soraya Hakuziyaremye, has pledged to address the challenges affecting cross-border markets in the next financial year which begins in July 2020.

The minister’s promise came after Members of Parliament said that the occupancy rate of cross border markets was low and that they were mismanaged and poorly utilised.

This, the lawmakers say, is a result of poor coordination among responsible institutions.

These challenges were disclosed on Wednesday, March 11, when Hakuziyaremye was tasked by a plenary of the Chamber of Deputies to provide answers to cross border markets challenges that were identified by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC)’s assessment of the Auditor General’s 2017/2018 report.

"All those problems will be addressed in the next fiscal year and all those who are responsible for them will be identified and be held accountable,” Minister Hakuziyaremye said.

Rubavu cross-border market in the western province at the border with DR Congo has an occupancy rate of 87 per cent, Rusizi in the western province 61 per cent, Karongi at 26 per cent while Cyanika is at 49 per cent.

"The main rationale for setting up cross-border markets at borders was to facilitate traders who export commodities to neighbouring countries to take and keep their products near the border so that those who need them get them easily,” she said.

MP Théogène Munyangeyo said that poor planning is the root cause of the problems, citing Karongi market which has a warehouse designed for storing goods but is not accessible by cars because there was no road.

"The people responsible for wasteful spending should be identified so that they are held accountable,” he said.

The ceiling at the roof of Karongi cross-border market fell off before the market started operating, MPs said, adding it caused losses to the government through extra expenditure.

MP Leonard Ndagijimana said that there are practices that are not acceptable in the establishment of cross border markets.

"At Rusizi market, ‘monophase’ electricity was installed which is insufficient to run cold rooms [to store commodities safely],” he said wondering whether the person who made the installations was an [electrical] engineer.

"Cyanika market does not have water,” he said.

Encouraging exports to the region

These challenges are likely to hurt Rwanda’s trade fortunes.

Hakuziyaremye observed that cross border markets contributed to the rise in Rwanda’s exports to neighbouring countries – including Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and DR Congo – from $37 million in 2012 to $411 million in 2018.

Talking about imports from the same countries, she said that they amounted to $274 million in 2012, which implies a trade imbalance of $237 million compared to the country’s exports then.

However, in 2018 she said that Rwanda had a trade surplus of $3 million with neighbouring countries, she said.

"The positive trade balance was thanks to the good results from strategies to ease cross border trade which contributed to our programme to reduce imports, and boost exports,” the Minister said.

"This shows that if more cross border markets have 100 per cent occupancy rate, we can have better results,” she observed pointing out that there are also plans to encourage neighbouring countries to have their people utilise such markets.