Let’s stop treating Burundi like an upcountry cousin and invest in it

Last week the usually lonely Bujumbura international airport was not its deserted self. Besides the daily Kenya Airways plane that flies in from Nairobi en route to Kigali and back to Kenya, there were several other aircraft parked around.

And powerful ones at that. These were the luxury jets of the other East African presidents.

Besides the summit of the EAC leaders, there was a lot more important regional business taking place in Bujumbura. An extremely important event was the Lake Tanganyika Basin Development Conference.

It sought to unlock the massive potential of Lake Tanganyika so that the unique water body can play its rightful role in regional development.

Now, this lake shared by Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia is one of the great wonders of the world.

Measuring a mere 50km wide, it is extremely deep, reaching one and a half kilometres at places.

As such it contains many times more water than the much larger Lake Victoria whose deepest point is only about 80 metres.

But what is mind-boggling is Lake Tanganyika’s potential for promoting intra-Africa trade.

Can you imagine the cheapest form of transport connecting five countries! And already, two major cities, Bujumbura and Kigoma, are sitting there on the lake. Shared by Congo and Tanzania, the lake is therefore a link point between the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans.

Watching the presidential luxury jets taking off, the Barundi must have felt like an upcountry cousin whose wealthy relatives are returning to the city after the Christmas festivities. And I think this is where the attitude of the EAC leaders needs a drastic re-orientation.

They must stop looking at Burundi as an upcountry relative whom you visit, show some love and forget about until next festive season.

The EAC needs to invest deliberately in faster growth for Burundi than in the other four territories. It will be for everybody’s benefit in the end.

I know a bit of all the five EAC countries — their national characters and official systems — and I think a deliberate investment push in Burundi and the Barundi would not be regretted.

We all claim to be friendly, warm, welcoming nations blah blah blah.

The Barundi don’t proclaim it because they actually are.

In our four other countries, I have seen heavy doses of the opposite, whatever the tourist brochures say, but not so with Burundi.

Why for instance can’t EAC revive East African Airways based in Burundi? If a revamped KQ works for Kenya and ET works for Ethiopia after the collapse of African national airlines, a revamped EAA can work for the region (as KQ conquers the rest of the continent).

We could trade in those luxury presidential jets for medium sized commercial passenger planes and re-kick off the EAA.

The Queen of England does not have a jet for her exclusive use, and I suspect she is more important and respected than East African presidents, whose governments depend on hers for budget support anyway.

But she manages to travel — and keep time for that matter.

I think our presidents would not die for lack of a luxury private jet parked somewhere 99 per cent of the time. Let us trade in those vanity birds and invest the proceeds in Burundi and Lake Tanganyika.

Joachim Buwembo is a Knight International fellow for development journalism. E-mail: [email protected]