KIGALI - The outgoing African Development Bank (AfDB) Resident Representative, Jacobs Diko Mukete, has described Rwanda as a great country with great people.

Mukete made the remarks after paying a courtesy call on President Paul Kagame at Village Urugwiro, to bid him farewell.

"Rwanda is a great country with great people. When you look at what they have been able to achieve over the last 17 years - from ashes of the Genocide...there are very few countries in the world which have been able to show the kind of resilience,” he said.

Mukete said that Rwanda has not only succeeded in terms of economic recovery, but also in other aspects.

"Some of you may forget that in the 1980’s Rwanda’s average growth rate was two percent, today, the average growth rate, at least in the period from 2000 to 2009, is over eight percent.”

"In terms of access to water, people in areas like Ruhengeri (Musanze) in the northern part of the country, used to walk kilometres to get water, but today, they walk less than 400 metres,” said Mukete, adding that a big difference has been made to the lives of ordinary Rwandans.

The AfDB representative, who has been in Rwanda for almost four years, highlighted some of the major success stories as being in the areas of infrastructure development, regional projects and joint governance assessment.

He, however, attributed the achievements to the visionary leadership of President Kagame and his government, a team he described as dedicated and hardworking.

"We had very good results; we worked hard, thanks to the quality of the partnership with government and other development partners. But most credit goes to the government and the people of Rwanda,”

The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, John Rwangombwa, said that the President described Mukete as a person dedicated to Rwanda’s development.

The Minister noted that the government has a three-year programmes with AfDB and that the recent one approved is worth $150 million.

Mukete leaves Rwanda to serve as Division Manager in charge of Governance, Economic and Financial Management at the AfDB headquarters in Tunisia.

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