This archive report was first published on 14 October 2019.
On October 8, 2019, President Paul Kagame commissioned the Mara Phone factory in Kigali, Rwanda, which is expected to produce at least 1,200 smartphones daily for sale in Rwanda and abroad.
The factory, established at a cost of over Ksh 5 billion by the Bank of Kigali, directly employs 200 workers, 90% of whom are Rwandan and 60% female, to work in technology development, production, and assembly lines.
According to Ashish Thakkar, the Indian founder of Mara Group and member of President Kagame's Presidential Advisory Council, the company is in talks with regional countries, including Kenya, DR Congo, and Angola, to export and sell Rwanda-made smartphones.
Thakkar stated that producing smartphones requires significant technical skill and expertise, involving about 1,000 individual components in a complex manufacturing operation.
However, a media source alleged that the phones made at the plant are partially manufactured and partially assembled in Rwanda, using imported parts.
Thakkar denied the allegations, emphasizing that the factory is a manufacturing facility, not an assembling plant.
The Mara Phone factory produces two phone models, the Mara X and Mara Z, retailing for Sh 13,000 and Sh19,000 respectively, both pre-installed with Google's Android operating system.
