By Nana Yaw Barnie
As delegates to the annual Africa Public Relations Association (APRA 2019) conference in Rwanda, we touched down in Kigali after 11:00 pm on Monday, May 13, 2019, on board Rwandair. Personally, I was quite expectant in view of the stories I had heard about the country regarding its uncommon cleanliness and the fact that they do not entertain plastics, a fact which compelled me to send my pepper sauce, “shito”, to Nkulenu Industries in Accra to be canned.
For seven days in the capital, Kigali, we really witnessed the Rwandan story and lived its experience. At the hotel, I realized the housekeeper who sent my luggage to my room had left my door ajar, so I exclaimed, “Please, mosquitoes will enter the room!” His quick response was, “There are no mosquitoes here”, as if to ask me, “Don’t you know our city is the cleanest in Africa?”
You could really see awe-inspiring things happening there. You cannot believe that a country which was literally reduced to ashes through genocide could get up its feet and do such amazing stuff after just 25 years as of 2019. You could not but admire their unparalleled cleanliness.
Is it not a sad commentary that Rwanda has a National Airline with a fleet of 14 aircraft as of 2025, yet Ghana has none? A classmate of mine, who is a retired General of the Ghana Armed Forces, described Rwanda as the Singapore of Africa, and I think that is an apt description of what we saw.
Throughout the period, I did not set eyes on heaped refuse or anything close to it, not even in a local market at Chimirongo, comparable to markets in Accra which are engulfed in filth. We did not find refuse outside the market either, only the visible signs that the place had just been swept clean. We could see a bunch of brooms lying on the floor and wheelbarrows parked by cleaners. The gutters were squeaky clean.
As you are driven along the streets, all you find is greenery. Lawns are consciously well kept, hedges properly and beautifully trimmed, trees deliberately planted, giving you fresh breath and clean air. It is just incredible. Even in a suburb, compared to say Mamprobi or Kaneshie, you could never find filth, no matter how hard you try.
It takes five days, and even sometimes three, to obtain a land title certificate. Ghana, where did we go wrong?
“OKADA”
They also have their own version of commercial motor bikes, “Okada” which they call “moto”. The rider of the “moto” is called “motari”, but they are well regulated with uniforms of red, green, and yellow, depending on the Cooperative a “motari” belongs to. Every “motari”, I mean every one of the riders belongs to a cooperative. Each “motari” carries two helmets, end of discussion! Not carrying two helmets as a “motari” is treated like a driver not wearing a seatbelt which attracts severe sanctions. I was told that if a “motari” carries only one helmet, it is assumed that he is not working. This picture shows the writer sitting behind a “moto” from CHIC, a popular shopping mall.
