President Yoweri Museveni has revealed that the Uganda-Rwanda border impasse that has caused untold losses to traders will end soon.
In a statement, the President said he received Ambassador Adonia Ayebare, who had gone his special envoy to President Kagame, on the issue of the tensions between our two countries.
“Ambassador Ayebare was well received by H.E Paul Kagame and they had very fruitful discussions. Soon, the two sides will be taking decisive actions to end the tension,” Museveni said.
He added: “Uganda, I can guarantee, will do its share of the normalization of the relations between our two countries. I salute H.E Kagame, the brotherly people of Rwanda and the people of Uganda.”
Uganda and Rwanda are important trade partners, but Rwanda’s closure of the Katuna-Gatuna border since February 2019 has had far reaching effects to the economies of the two countries.
After closing the border, Rwandan government advised its nationals against crossing to Uganda on condition that they could not guarantee the safety of their nationals in the Ugandan territory.
Rwanda also accused Uganda of hosting and facilitating dissidents especially Rwanda National Congress-RNC and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda- FDLR, which have declared war on the Kigali government. Uganda has denied the allegations.
The border closure has since cost Uganda Shs530 billion since March 2019, the Private Sector Foundation of Uganda (PSFU) said recently.
“Uganda has been losing $16 million (Shs58.9b) every month
since Rwanda closed the border, affecting our food and beverages, steel,
roofing materials, cement and sugar,” Gideon Badagawa, the Executive Director of
PSFU recently said, adding that the developments at the Rwanda border were
worsened by the Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo and the war in
South Sudan, which has stalled the operational capacity of factories in the
country.
