Kikukiro in electricity roll-out drive

In a bid to improve the social welfare of communities, Kicukiro District targets to connect all cells and villages with electricity this fiscal year.Paul Jules Ndamage, the Mayor, recently told The New Times in an exclusive interview that access to electricity across the entire district was one of the main priority areas this fiscal year.“All sectors in the district are connected to electricity but this is not enough. We want every village and cell to have access to energy,” he stated.“We are remaining with only three cells that do not have electricity, but this year we want all of them connected.”The remaining cells are Rusheshe, Mbabe, Ayabaraya all in Masaka sector.Kicukiro recently emerged top performer of the year 2011/2012 in implementing performance contracts (Imihigo).Imihigo is a home-grown initiative aimed at facilitating development through enhancing accountability of public officials in various capacities.“We are proud of our performance in social economic development programmes, and this year, we are targeting to build on what we previously achieved in the previous years,” said Ndamage.The government has embarked on a programme to increase access to electricity, which is a key driver of economic development. Various projects to boost energy are in the pipeline.OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) last month approved a $12 million additional loan to an earlier $10 million to boost Rwanda’s Electricity Access Scale-up Roll-out Programme.The government and Hakan Mining and Generation Industry and Trade Inc, a Turkish corporation, recently signed a $283 million (Rwf 170bn) loan agreement to set up a peat power plant in the peat-rich wetlands of Nyanza and Gisagara districts in the Southern Province.It is estimated that the country has peat reserves of up to 155 million tonnes capable of generating 450MW of energy every 12 months.

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Kikukiro in electricity roll-out drive