Rwanda plans to restocks Oreochromis Niloticus, also known as Nile Tilapia in her water bodies. And for this the fishing sector has set aside a tune of Rwf12 billion worth of investments in the industry for a period of six years, that will see it produce 20,000 tones of fisheries by 2012. Officials say that the money has been secured from the African Development Bank (ADB).
According to the officials commercial fishing in the country started in 1950s and had seen a steady rise in production before it was hampered by the 1994 genocide. Fish rearing has been an alternative source to increase production with over 1,200 fish ponds which industry pundits want to increase to 8,000 ponds by 2011.
The fish project coordinator Gregoire Dusabemungu expressed that in the last few years, the production of fish has been registering a steady increase due to the government programmes to protect and conserve lakes as well as controlling soil erosion. He informed that there is no official exportation of fish because the quantity is not enough that is why we import. But we should focus on reduced importation by increasing our local production.
