The former American Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan would have had a hard time fitting into society in this era of fake news. He is the one who coined the famous quote; “You have a right to your own opinion but not your own facts”. Of recent, some people have cropped up whose heads are always buried in the sand and yet claim to see everything. These are people who have built a hard shell around the truth; they are the ones who propose “alternative facts” at every turn. President Kagame made “Les faits sont têtus” statement quite famous, meaning that the truth is the truth, there is no going around it. Some people are still stuck with their “alternative facts”, most trending now are some fame-seeking journalists, like the one who recently created waves in the Financial Times that Rwanda was cooking up its economic figures to hide the fact that its economy was crumbling. Even after the World Bank had debunked the journalist’s assertions, the person would not let up. He was not about to let his grips off his five minutes of fame. And the sorry part of it all was that some respected media houses that were in a position to know or research the facts simply swallowed the fairy tales. So, now the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has published a report that will definitely constipate Rwanda-pessimists; the growth of Rwanda’s economy was even brighter than had been envisaged. The IMF has revised its initial economic growth projections from 7.8% to 8.5%. It is not very common for the IMF to get off target that much, but definitely there is something this country is doing right that even the proponents of “alternative facts” must be eating their hats. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
