In the year 2020, the coronavirus pandemic sent the entire world in a lockdown. Land borders were closed, flights suspended, businesses be it local and international froze; tourism too was not spared from this hit. From the greatest countries to the poorest countries, they were all affected.
What happened in 2020 doesn’t require someone to have big brains; its basic knowledge since it happened in the eyes of the world’s 7 billion people minus one person. That one person is Murunganwa David Himbara, the RNC Mouthpiece on Museveni and Rujugiro paycheques, who actually claims that Rwanda should not have incurred losses in the tourism sector in the year 2020. How ironic?
He, however, refers to IMF reports which he manipulates the data and key facts to advance his negative propaganda against Rwanda.
What he actually dodged saying is that IMF reported that Rwanda’s real GDP is projected to rebound to 5.1 percent this year, after a contraction of 3.4 percent in 2020 as a result of the pandemic.
The IMF goes on to say that the authorities in Rwanda continue to appropriately balance their policy response to contain the pandemic, including by procuring vaccines, and minimize its long-lasting impacts, with maintaining fiscal sustainability.
In a nutshell, IMF sees a brighter future in Rwanda tourism sector recovery. Murunganwa definitely knows this because he read the same reports. However, the reports don’t say the same on his sponsoring regime.
In fact, Uganda has lost US$1.6 billion a year in earnings from tourism as visitors stay away due to the impact of the coronavirus – an implication that Uganda’s tourism earning fell by over 90% in 2020. Even Murunganwa’s sponsor Museveni is on record attesting to this.
Precisely, on June 01, 2021, Museveni said, “Already Ugandan will lose 1.6 billion dollars per annum from the loss of tourism.”
What is happening in reality is that Uganda has been pleading for the consideration by the G-20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative, which would help them deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s what Himbara should have written.
However, the more Himbara thinks he is attacking Rwanda the more he exposes his sponsors. Like the saying goes, the higher the monkey climbs, the more it exposes its…..
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