Rwanda: Realism needed for a country with wonderful hides and skins

Note: This correspondent requested anonymity.

I read the Pill concerning the tannery park project in Rwanda. I fully agree with Sam Setter!

Please allow me to share my mostly fantastic Rwanda experience.

My first visit to Rwanda was back in 1981 where I met the MD of the Rwanda Leather Industry tannery at the outskirts of Kigali and the MD of a hide and skin collection centre. It was the start of my dealings with the hide and skin sector in a beautiful and peaceful Rwanda, which produces the best hides and skins in the East African region. Step by step I became more and more involved and before I knew it, I more or less ran a small hide and skin collection centre in Kigali. The company traded nearly all available hides and skins from Rwanda to Europe, the Indian Subcontinent and China. Then the terrible genocide took place from April 7th till July 4th, 1994, in which many of my Rwandan friends were murdered among which, right on the first night, the warehouse manager, his wife and their two young daughters.

After these events the tannery remained more or less idle, so it was an opportunity for the collection centre to start doing some contract wet blue tanning of goat- but mainly sheepskins in the RLI tannery until 2004 when the government prohibited the export of raw materials blocking the available raw stock from export. The stock was suggested to be sold to the tannery for less than peanuts, which was of course refused. I asked for an audience at the EU Commission in Brussels where I explained the problem of not being able to export the collected stock, which was fully paid for, causing hence a big loss. The EU Commission contacted the Rwandan government, and the matter was resolved peacefully permitting the available stock to leave the country after which the collection centre was closed. Meanwhile the tannery was fined for polluting the area as it had no effluent treatment plant. In reality due to rapid expansion of Kigali, the value of the land on which the tannery was located increased exponentially and the tannery was demolished to make place for apartment buildings and a mall.

As mentioned, Rwandan hides and skins are the best in the region, but creating a leather hub in the country doesn’t seem viable, as much as I’d like to see this happen. The available quantities of hides and skins are too small. Like before 2004 one single tannery is realistic, but a leather city as such is just wishful thinking.