City sets up fund for financing neighbourhoods roads

The City of Kigali in conjunction with Rwanda Transport Development Agency are in the process of setting up a fund to co-finance roads in partnership with residents. The plan was disclosed Monday when Members of Parliament were presenting to the City of Kigali the general picture from an assessment tour that they carried out in the City. The tour was intended to assess infrastructure aimed at citizen’s development. City residents who pool their resources in order to construct neighbourhood roads will be getting top-up from the fund, officials have said. City of Kigali mayor Pudence Rubingisa said that sometimes residents put their resources together so that they build roads in their neighbourhoods, but the cost for their construction exceeds their means. “We are considering how the fund will work. We will determine how much we will allocate to it in the next financial year,” he said adding that they were looking at ways the residents can participate in building good roads but which are not expensive. He said that residents’ involvement in this activity is important because sometimes the City falls short of the budget to construct roads given that its finances are shared among different development activities. Edda Mukabagwiza, Vice President in charge of Legislative Affairs and Government Oversight at the Chamber of Deputies, said given that about 75 per cent of roads in the City of Kigali are dirt roads, it was an indication that much needed to be done. She added that there was need for proper collaboration between local leaders so that districts in the city plan together with neighbouring districts to construct feeder roads to ease inter-district cooperation and trade.

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City sets up fund for financing neighbourhoods roads