The Minister of Industries and Commerce (MINICOM), has revealed that the country has achieved a lot in its efforts to build a strong human resource base, making it increasingly unnecessary to depend on foreign consultants.

This was announced, yesterday, by Minister Monique Nsanzabaganwa during an interview with The New Times following the recent closure of OTF Group, a foreign capacity building consultancy firm.

According to the minister, the closure of OTF operations in the country followed the end of a two-term contract between the governments and the firm.

"They left after the expiry of their contract, not before, as some speculations had suggested that their contract was terminated,” revealed Nsanzabaganwa adding that the company had done enough training for the locals to take charge.

She further noted that OTF’s responsibilities had been handed over to the government and are currently being handled by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB).

Meanwhile, the Private Sector Capacity Building Secretariat Coordinator, Peter Malinga, has confirmed that the exercise to employ foreign consultancies was reaping the expected fruits through the imparting of capacity among nationals.

"When you hire a foreign consultant to train your people, in most cases they come and teach, after which they leave with their skills. This is what we are trying to change for the benefit of nationals who will in turn train fellow Rwandans,” said Malinga.

He further insisted that it is always costly to hire such firms and hence the government usually gives them conditions of prioritizing nationals and put in place monitoring mechanisms to ensure that they impart the required technical skills to locals.

Malinga, further asserted that although it was expensive to hire these capacity building firms, it was very important as far as national human resource development is concerned. 

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