Africa's leaders have been warned by a fellow president on the continent to realise the needs of people and cater to them, rather than delaying development by bickering.
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni was speaking at the recent inauguration of the Kikagati Murongo Hydroelectric Power Project (HPP), located across the Kagera River, a boundary between his country and Tanzania.
Museveni said he was proud to open the facility, which was proposed in 2005 but only saw a five-phase period start in 2018.
The delay was largely due to disagreements over elements of the generation capacity.
"I think the political and bureaucratic leaders in Africa must wake up. Otherwise, they will be overtaken by the people’s demands because they want development and transformation. The potential is there, but those in charge are not seeing it," he cautioned.
The low-head, run-of-river, 16-megawatt HPP includes dams and a short headrace and tailrace founded on vastly varying ground conditions south of the border town for which it is named.
He indicated that there had been disagreements about the plant, mainly around which country would use the most electricity generated by it.
"If Tanzanians want to use all the electricity, let them take all of it. What are we quarrelling about? They will pay for it," Museveni said.
He pointed out that on a user-pay principle, there shouldn't be any issue about which one of the two countries get to consume most of the power from the HPP.
