Rwandan dailies focus on Covid-19 pandemic, reopening of Rwanda/DRC border

30 Mai 2020

Kigali, Rwanda, May 30 (Infosplusgabon) - Rwandan newspapers this week gave wide coverage to ongoing measures to relax COVID-19 lockdown in the country.

The papers also focused on current interventions by the Government to provide emergency assistance to thousands of casual workers whose jobs were suspended due to COVID-19. Under the headline, '60 Rwandans lose livelihoods due to COVID 19 lockdown and need urgent help', a private  daily 'The Chronicles' wrote that the situation is so dire that people considered to be in the middle class also need help, after losing everything during the lockdown which has been holding since March 14.

The daily said that in a current policy plan to deal with the impact of the local and global lockdown, government is planning to continue distributing food, generate jobs and give direct cash transfers.

Government is also planning to cut taxes, hoping cost of business operations will reduce and possibly encourage investment.

Basing on data shared by the DFID, the UK government international development agency, the newspaper reported that the figure of the needy in Rwanda is staggering.

According to a DFID study, the lockdown will reduce earnings/consumption for the most heavily impacted groups by almost 100%. This involves 60% of the population (in both urban and rural areas) – meaning at least 7m of the 12m Rwandans are affected.

The analysis, suggested that the most heavily impacted groups are not entirely the same as those who suffer from extreme or chronic poverty; those reliant on casual wage labour and household enterprises for large portions of their income will be the ones mostly affected.

The worst affected by the lockdown are workers in such occupations as tailoring, carpentry, barbers and hairdressers, knitting, electricity, hospitality and tourism, plumbing, welding, ordinary farmers, small traders, traditional healers.

The semi-privately owned 'KT Press' reported that it was finally a relief for Rwandans who were stranded in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and could not return home since March after work came to a stop and flights were cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Under the headline 'Relief As Rwandans From UAE Are Repatriated Back Home', the newspaper wrote that majority of the returnees were students or employees in Dubai and other cities of UAE but got stranded after all activities ground to a halt.

One of the returnees, identified as Deo Niyonkuru and who was in UAE before the COVID-19 outbreak, told the newspaper that they were relieved to finally get back home after more than two months of being stranded in the Middle East.

The evacuation flight was earlier scheduled for May 16 but it was postponed to May 29 because there weren't enough passengers for the flight. Niyonkuru said they paid $422 each for the one-way ticket yet normally the return ticket costs $353, the newspaper said.

Rwanda’s Ambassador to UAE, Emmanuel Hategeka told KT Press that the returning citizens had been tested and all necessary precautions were taken to ensure that they are isolated to avoid any risks.

Meanwhile, 'The New Times' reported that Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have agreed to reopen their common border despite Covid-19 persisting. The daily wrote that senior Rwandan officials and their counterparts from the DRC on Thursday agreed on a set of mechanisms to revive cross-border trade despite the pandemic.

The purpose of the meeting, according to officials, was to formulate proposals for high-level political commitments meant to guide the strengthening of cross-border cooperation in surveillance of Covid-19 pandemic and its implication for cross-border trade in compliance with specific measures taken by either country, the newspaper said.

FIN/ INFOSPLUSGABON/LMP/GABON2020

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