The Untold Stories: Are the Rwandan Mayors Corruption Guinea Pigs?
The Most Dangerous Job in Rwanda today is becoming a Mayor. The Rwandan Head of State announced yesterday in a press conference that these Mayors do not voluntarily resign they are rather forced to resign because according to President Kagame , “Abo bose rero kuvuga ngo beguye bisa nk’aho ari ku giti cyabo cyangwa nibo bahisemo kwegura, ntabwo ariko biba byagenze. Begura kubera ko bafite ibibazo badashobora gusubiza.” Literally means those who say they resigned on their personal reasons, it’s not true they fail to answer some questions on various issues concerning their performance.
Kagame with some mayors who met the target of so called development
The president further said that the mayors are not only suspended because they fail to fulfill their contracts performance but they use the local resources to enrich themselves, “ Iyo ufashe uburyo bukwiye kugeza abantu kuri iyo mihigo ukabukoresha nabi cyangwa ukabukoresha ku nyungu zawe ntubukoreshe ku nyungu z’abaturage mu kugera ku mihigo, ikibazo kiravuka.”
In 1906, George Bernard Shaw published a play called The Doctor’s Dilemma about a scientist who had discovered a cure for tuberculosis. Its fervid introduction referred to bacteriology as a “superstition,” inveighed against “the perils of inoculation,” and impugned the value of animal research.
A few years later, Shaw described in an essay the “folly which sees in the child nothing more than the vivisector sees in a guinea pig: From there, scientists have been using guinea pigs as scientific tests for various diseases. In the early 20th century, scientists used guinea pigs to find the cause of scurvy. (Like humans, guinea pigs can’t make their own vitamin C.)
Kagame is using Mayors as a test for anti- corruption and will deliver speeches and call press conferences to show the Rwandans and the international community that Rwanda is a corruption free or it doesn’t tolerate corruption.
Bernard Kayumba and Jean Baptiste Habyarimana, the mayors of Karongi and Nyamasheke districts who resigned. yes we can not tell corruption by physical appearance but how did they end up in power?
According to Kagame, corruption belongs to the mayors, however, this is not true ,corruption should be rooted out in all levels of leadership not just a few young officials just to show off and lobby international support and buy off some votes from local citizens who don’t know the billions of francs swindled by Kagame’s family and his officials.
When you talk to any lay person on the streets of Rwanda or any international visitor will tell you that, according to Transparency International Rwanda is by far the least corrupt country in East Africa. The international anti-corruption watchdog calls it “incidents of bribery in Rwanda are negligible”
The big incidents that the International anti-corruption watchdog will not see will go unnoticed and unreported, why? because the people involved in these big scandals are pro- Kagame or under direct orders from Kagame “ money for their big companies under the umbrella of crystal ventures”
For example, the Rukarara II Micro-Hydro Power plant was funded to the tune of 9.7 million euro but the biggest part of this money ended up in the pockets of the agents of president Kagame on behalf of big super business empire the crystal ventures. When it was discovered that all the biggest part of the project was in the hands of the Kagame Empire, the mockery investigations were carried out by the parliamentary committee on the Public Funds.
When the parliamentary investigations were closing on to the syndicate of Kagame, they were all forced to drop the investigations and some were told to apologize, that report died a natural cause like all other investigations that lead to the Urugwiro Village (The Official Office of the President).
Furthermore, the Rwanda Development Bank (BRD) scandal, the former director Mr. Theogene Turatsinze was forced to resign when he refused to falsify the RPF operations in which billions of Francs had been emblazed by the Kagame’s agents of corruption. He later went into exile in Mozambique; he was later found murdered in the waters of Indian Ocean on the outskirts of the Mozambique Capital Maputo. Mr. Turatsinze was thought to have “had access to politically sensitive financial information related to certain Rwandan government insiders”, relating to the disappearances of funds from the Rwanda Development Bank (BRD).
Again the murder of the employee of Transparency international official Mr. Gustave Makonene was a conspiracy of the RPF. The details of his death were described as “gruesome”. “The details of Gustave Makonene’s death are gruesome” the Human Rights Activist Wenzel Wichalski.
The Rwandan Prosecution and the ministry of justice have never publicly told the Rwandans who were the people behind the murder of the Mr. Gustave Makonene. Neither have these people been brought to justice nor the relatives of Makonene informed of the cause and motives of the murder of their loved one. These are not politically motivated cases but corruption cases in which the Kagame agents try to conceal corruption cases of senior RPF officials.
Charles Onyango –Obbo a re- known journalist in East Africa described the RPF as the richest party on the Continent with assets worth US 20 billons dollars in 2010. He further reveals that “the party’s local and international assets could be equal to or larger than Rwanda’s gross domestic product.” A classic example of Fascism!
Mr. Charles Onyango-Obbo shed more light into the Lake Kivu “energy” investment, which he said that the locals will not reap a cent. Because the investment is a joint venture between RPF, a British and an American firm with RPF as the best beneficially.
We all know who is the top Managing Director of all these RPF companies, but more and more have developed since Mr Onyango-Obbo made that interview in 2010. RPF Companies like COTRACO, HORIZON, and REAL ESTATES, just to mention a few have mushroomed. Therefore, all these business put Kagame in the direct serious conflict of interests. We have again and again said on numerous occasions that the much praised development in Rwanda is simply for the benefit of a very tiny minority. Corruption is deep but runs undetected due to the absence of a civil society. Beyond the façade of wealthy elites, the majority of Rwandans are dirt poor and the government has done almost nothing to improve their lives.
Jacqueline Umurungi
Brussels.