President Paul Kagame yesterday met with the task force charged with resolving the land issue in the Eastern Province at Urugwiro Village yesterday. Kagame called the meeting to get a progress report on the exercise of drawing up lists of big landowners and the sizes of plots they had acquired, following his two visits to Nyagatare earlier this year. The task force was confident that the follow-up exercise to reduce large plots and redistribute the excess land to deserving cases of genuinely landless citizens would begin promptly in October. Included on the lists of those waiting for plots are Rwandans forcibly evicted from Tanzania and those who have never owned land as promised by the government.It is expected that the entire re-distribution exercise will be complete by the end of the year.Present at the briefing were officials from the concerned ministries, the Governor of Eastern Province Theoneste Mutsindashyaka, districts mayors from the province, police and military chiefs, as well as members of the Land Commission.The task force reported that work to establish the owners of big plots, their locations and the sizes of the holdings were well underway and would be completed by the September 30 deadline as set out at the last meeting on the issue held in Nyagatare in June.Ends
