Government reaping benefits from privatisation programme

The privatisation of former public sector enterprises has brought the state three billion Rwandan francs (about US $10 million) in the three years to the end of 1999, the government’s privatisation secretariat stated on Tuesday. Some 606.3 million francs (roughly US $20.2 million) had also been spent on preparing the ground for the sale of additional government enterprises targeted, without which it would have been difficult to dispose of them, the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) quoted secretariat spokesman Anselme Ngabonziza as saying.

Rwanda’s privatisation programme is continuing steadily, with almost half of the 70 enterprises identified for privatisation having been sold or in the process of being sold, the latest country report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) stated. The government has plans to break up the water, gas and electricity components of the state provider ElectroGaz in preparation for selling it, and to change the regulatory environment to allow it sell off the state telecoms company Rwandatel, it said. Investment levels will have to rise to 19.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2000-01 to sustain the strong economic growth rate of recent years, and international investors have shown interest in both ElectroGaz and Rwandatel, scheduled for sale this year, the report added. The privatisation programme is a key plank of a new macroeconomic Policy Framework Paper for 2000-01, which sets targets of 5-6 percent economic growth per year; inflation below 5 percent; and a current account deficit level of about 17 percent, excluding official transfers, the EIU added.