A future when Van der Merwe is a Rwandan minister

An elevated rail transport system and autonomous auto air-taxis, hovering and buzzing, dominated the Kigali skyline even more than the forest of concrete and glass skyscrapers.

He agreed to the interview to mark the 40th anniversary of the genocide that ripped apart Rwanda in 1994 and took hundreds of thousands of lives, of both Tutsis and Hutus.

This year is also the 40th anniversary of the end of apartheid and the accession of the ANC to power in South Africa. But the stories of the two countries could not be more different.

Rwanda is the fastest-growing economy in Africa and in the top five globally. Although there have been exports of uranium and diamonds, Kigali has established itself as the Silicon Valley of Africa and is now the world’s seventh-largest producer of personal communication devices. The technology hub in Kigali was established in the mid 2020s by South African refugees, bringing with them their skills as their country’s economy imploded.

We asked Kagame why South Africa had been a failure.

“Firstly, it was the corruption. The ANC has that in its DNA. And South Africans seem to accept that because the organisation is still in power.

“Then, there were so many different voices in the ruling party. Here we had one voice – mine. People need leadership, not confusion.”

At this point, Kagame pulled up a holographic screen showing images from a meeting of the Rwanda parliament the day before. A large white man was speaking, announcing that Rwanda would be sending food aid to South Africa to help alleviate the current famine.

“This man – Piet van der Merwe – is our agriculture minister. He came here as a refugee in 2021 after his farm in South Africa was expropriated without compensation.

“Within three years, that farm had collapsed and returned to bush. But here in Rwanda, he set up farming cooperatives with his fellow refugee farmers from South Africa and we became the biggest exporters of tea, coffee and fruit to the European Union.

“I then asked Piet to set up a national farm co-op which has helped us totally eliminate poverty here. He and his friends were already running small-scale co-ops for indigenous farmers.

Kagame went on: “Eventually, Piet and his Boers joined our party.”

The former president chuckled: “And almost the best of all is that I got to discover koeksusters. They’re amazing and I am addicted!”

Kagame said the problem with South Africa was its ambitious politicians and the silly love for the old ideology of socialism.

“They are still doing that, even though the hospitals have collapsed under their NHI, there is electricity for only three hours a day and the private sector has all but vanished.”

There is one similarity between the countries, Kagame added.

“We started with a tragedy caused by humans and grew from that. South Africa started with the apartheid tragedy caused by humans. But it didn’t move on from that … and the result is another tragedy caused by humans.