KIGALI  - Horizon Group, a local construction company, has been called upon to put more emphasis on improving capacity of young engineers as a way of staying competitive in the booming construction industry.

The call was made by Infrastructure Minister, Vincent Karega during a reception held by the firm to recognize business partners and different stakeholders both in the private and public sector.

"In Rwanda and in Africa we are still challenged by low capacity to develop infrastructure, I mean financial, technical and technological,” said Karega, urging Horizon to embark on this to compete favourably.

It is said that despite the boom in the construction sector that has partly led to the recent high growth rates in the real economy; the sector is still challenged with low levels of professionals, leading to lack dynamism.

"We are proud to cerebrate Horizon as a new born in the industry because we are seriously challenged by high unit cost because most our works are done by foreign companies that import temporally skills,” Karega said.

Government has an incentive of flat tax to whoever is investing $1.8m in the industry, as a way of encouraging people to invest in construction.

Lt Col. Eugene Haguma, the CEO of Horizon Group, said that since its establishment in 2007, the company has completed 30 projects.

"It’s all about building capacity, both human capacity and the machines required for construction that create good methods which will bring down the costs and becomes affordable,” Haguma said.

Haguma said that Horizon Group was formed bringing together three projects that include Horizon construction, Pyrethrum and Horizon logistics.

Horizon Construction that represents about 70 percent of the Horizon Group turnover, and was first established under the Rwanda Defence Forces Engineering Regiment.

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