President Paul Kagame has merged the ministries of Youth and ICT and appointed Jean Philbert Nsengimana as the minister.Speaking to The New Times, yesterday, Protais Musoni, the Minister of Cabinet Affairs, confirmed the changes.“Constitutionally it’s a prerogative of the president to make changes in the cabinet. I cannot tell you the reason why the two ministries have been merged, “he said.“President Kagame sees ICT as a tool that can create wealth and employment for Rwandans. As you know the majority of Rwandans are youth, so this is a strong message that ICT should be used to uplift the livelihoods of the young people.”Dr. Ignace Gatare, the former Minister in the President’s office in charge of ICT, is now the Director General of Information Technology Commission in the Office of the President.Gatare has been heading the ministry since 2009.Nsengimana had spent almost five months heading the Ministry of Youth, which was curved out of the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture.Reacting to his new position, Nsengimana told The New Times that the new ministry will not pose any serious challenge to him because of his professional experience in ICT.“The merging of the ministries gives youth a better platform to embrace innovations, in terms of applying ICT tools, techniques across different sectors both social and economic,” said the youthful minister.“Since the youth are the ones who have substantially benefited from the training programmes that have been implemented so far in various academic institutions, this will make them transform the sectors using ICT.”He stated that during his tenure he will embark on championing ICT for the economic empowerment of the youth, mainly through job creation.Nsengimana further said he would focus on putting in place a conducive ICT environment to attract the private sector. A former student leader and lecturer at the National University of Rwanda (NUR), Nsengimana holds a Master’s degree in Software Engineering from SP Jain Centre of Management (Singapore), Dubai campus.He also holds an advanced degree in Project Management and once headed the Rwanda Development Gateway and represented Africa Gateway Networks. More recently, he headed Voxiva, a US-based firm which specialises in health technology. He is married with two sons.
