Dr. Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo embraces with one of his supporters in Nyamata, Bugesera (Photo Gaaki Kigambo)
Ntawukuriryayo said at the campaign rally Nyamata grounds that his government will commercialise cassava production in the Bugesera area.
Bugesera faces severe dry weather all through the year – with massive floods when the rainy season comes in. Cassava is said to be the one crop there that has remained drought resistant.
Bugesera will be supported to shift from growing for home food to extensive production, said Ntawukuriryayo, on his third last day of campaigning.
The PSD candidate also promised to establish a programme that would expand fishing on the about seven small lakes in the region. The programme would also position them as tourism spots, he said.
Energetic, full of cheer and happy about how the campaigns had gone up to this point, Ntawukuriryayo said PSD has, throughout the 19-year existence, emphasised tolerance and peaceful coexistence. He said PSD was expecting nothing beneath that during voting on Monday August 9, or even after.
He returned to his central points of the campaign including equally balance the representation of men and women in parliament; to extend power sharing from the national level to the village level; to improve social welfare by strengthening the education system and the health sector – by initiating water harvesting systems, starting up funds to support local initiatives and industries, and introducing better agricultural practices that will yield richer harvests.
In later conversation with reporters on whether he was expecting free and fair elections, Ntawukuriryayo said his business in the campaign has been to go around the country and market his candidacy, and PSD agenda.
In doing so, there had not been an instance in which PSD was blocked or distracted, he said.
He again pushed back on claims that he was a front of the ruling RPF. People who are propagating such claims lacked an understanding of what Rwanda had been through and how it had chosen as a country to resolve its problems and forge ahead, said Ntawukuriryayo.
Ntawukuriryayo has a rally planned in Kamonyi (South) for Friday August 6, while his closing rally is set for Amahoro stadium in Kigali City.