By Spy Uganda Correspondent
Zimbabwe and Rwanda yesterday signed three more collaborative frameworks increasing the areas for partnership to 22 as the countries continue excellent working interchanges in many areas.
The growing cooperation between the two is built on President Mnangagwa’s vision of advancing economic interchange to improve people’s livelihoods and that is anchored on attaining an upper middle-income society by 2030.
President Mnangagwa witnessed the signing of the agreements at State House. Zimbabwe was represented by two Cabinet Ministers, while visiting Rwandese Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Vincent Biruta represented his country.
Pacts signed include the extradition treaty, a memorandum of understanding on immigration cooperation and another memorandum on cooperation when investigating civil aircraft accidents and serious incidents.
For Zimbabwe, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Ambassador Frederick Shava signed the MoU on cooperation for investigating civil aircraft accidents and serious incidents, while the other two agreements were signed by Minister of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Kazembe Kazembe.
After the signing ceremony, the Rwandese Government said their partnership with Zimbabwe is mainly to deal with trade and investment between the two countries for the benefit of both their peoples.
“There are many sectors, I talked about trade and investment, which is a huge area which comprises agriculture, energy and many other sectors, said Mr Biruta. “We have MOUs in place so we just need to implement them and start working.”
President Mnangagwa early this year opened the Zimbabwe-Rwanda Trade and Investment Conference in Harare, where he stressed the need for the two countries to boost trade and cooperation as a way of improving livelihoods.
“Zimbabwe and Rwanda enjoy an excellent relationship, and we have many other MOUs, 19 of them,” said Minister Biruta.
“Some have started being implemented, and these ones also need to be implemented and we need to come up with action plans between both governments to implement the MOUs and the agreements that we have signed.
“All these MOUs, the agreements that we are signing are just a framework to be able to work on various issues. We signed an extradition treaty and this is a very important instrument to be able to deal with criminals who could be here or in Rwanda who committed crimes here,” said Minister Biruta. (Xanax)
This year, Rwanda has started recruiting Zimbabweans to fill critical skill gaps in its education sector, exploiting the good bilateral relations that exist between the two countries.
The hiring of Zimbabweans is a consummation of the professional memorandum of understanding signed last year that allows the two republics to exchange educational personnel and expertise.
