KIGALI - Residents of the 20 sectors that make up the urban part of Kigali City will, on Saturday, propose new names of the streets in their respective neighbourhoods during the monthly community service exercise, Umuganda.

The naming of streets is in line with the urbanisation plan. According to the City Mayor, Fidele Ndayisaba, residents will name lanes in their neighbourhood while the avenues will be named by districts.

"The Kigali City Addressing Project is designed to assist the city, municipal and districts to manage the process of establishing a coherent street addressing system.

We want people to own their neighbourhood lanes, this is why we are engaging them in naming the streets,” the Mayor said.

He added that local leaders have been tasked with passing along the message in their respective constituencies and ensure that the public understands the concept.

The city streets are categorised into three; boulevards which are the major city roads, avenues that connect from boulevards, and streets or lanes that link up from avenues.

Part of the City Council plan is to have street signposts and electronic coded house numbers for houses located along boulevards and avenues.

"We have set a deadline of December this year to have all streets/lanes, avenues and boulevards named; the proposed names will have to be approved by a cabinet meeting,” said Ndayisaba.

He added that, after the initial project, a navigation system, through the use of GPS will be set up so that a person can trace directions online.

The IT Manager of Kigali City Council, Cedric Umuhire, said that the preliminary phase of the project which is mapping is in its final stages, adding that 2,712 streets will be named.

"The urban part of Kigali City has been divided into four zones; North, East South and West that make up 594 villages.

"The consultant has finished the data collection of all zones, the technical committee has also approved the final report of the north zones while training on the navigation system is currently going on,” said Umuhire.

The North Zone is composed of Gisozi, Kacyiru, Kimihurura, Kimironko, Kinyinya and Remera sectors. Sectors in the South Zone are, Gitega, Gikondo, Kagarama, Kicukiro and Niboye.

Kanombe and Nyarugunga are only two sectors in the East zone while the West Zone is composed of the sectors of Gitega, Kigarama, Muhima, Nyakabanda, Nyarugenge and Rwezamenyo.

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