The event marking the beginning of the Mourning Week and the 100 days of commemoration is attended by President Paul Kagame and First Lady Jeannette Kagame where they laid wreaths on mass graves.
Different officials attended the event alongside diplomatic missions representing their respective countries in Rwanda.
Also the representatives of genocide survivors organisations laid wreaths unto the graves.
At Gisozi, President Kagame and first Lady Jeannette Kagame lit a torch of hope.
Kigali Genocide Memorial is resting place to over 250,000 genocide victims.
This year’s commemoration is taking place under the theme “Remember, Unite, Renew”
The events continue with remarks from different officials.
Musoni was recently reported in a scandalous adultery incidence where he allegedly impregnated another man’s wife and wrecking the entire family.
In a statement signed by Prime Minister, Dr. Eduard Ngirente, President Paul Kagame replaced Musoni who has rarely appearing in public since the scandal was reported.
Gatete who replaced Musoni was also replaced in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) by former state minister for economic planning in MINECOFIN, Dr. Uzziel Ndagijimana.
Kagame also appointed Dr. Claudine Uwera, the State Minister for Planning in MINECOFIN; Evariste Rugigana the Director of Cabinet in the Office of the Prime Minister.
Also appointed is the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry in the Office of the President, Alphonsine Mirembe; the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, Doreen Kagarama.
Yvonne Makoro was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of National Career, RwandAir.
Also appointed is Charles Karakye, the head of Government Action Coordination Unit (GACU) in the office of the Prime Minister; and Michelle Byusa teh Vice-head GACU in the Office of the Prime Minister.
Vrooman was appointed as envoy to Rwanda last October, replacing Erica Barks-Ruggles who had been in Kigali since December 2014.
He was sworn-in as new US ambassador to Rwanda on March 26. During his swearing-in, Vrooman said that he will work towards the strengthening of bilateral relations between both countries with an agenda focusing on inclusive education and activities promoting women and girls.
Vrooman has extensive diplomatic experience in the region. Prior to the new appointment, he served at the U.S. Embassy in Ethiopia, as deputy Chief of Mission from July 2014 to August 2016 and as Chargé d’Affaires from September 2016 to July 2017.
Inaugurated on Thursday, the centre is part of eight planned sanitation centres being developed in different districts under the funding of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Isuku Iwacu activity.
The programme is being implemented by SNV in collaboration with World Vision and Water for People.
Speaking at the event, SNV Country Director, Phomolo Maphosa said that the centre will support the government’s efforts to attain sanitation targets by 2020.
“Our target is that through district sanitation centres, people will access services and hygiene materials. For example, private investors will be showcasing, from this centre, different hygiene and sanitation materials that can be used by households,” Maphosa said.
Sheikh Hassan Bahame, the Director General in charge of Social Affairs and Community Development at the Ministry of Local Government, said that hygiene should be a culture among Rwandan people.
“The Government of Rwanda targets to take sanitation activities to all people by 2020. That is why we should challenge ourselves by asking who the government is? The government is people,” he said.
He urged Rwamagana community to grab the centre’s services and solve the problem of lack of proper toilets among over 8,000 residents in the district.
The new facility will serve over 300,000 people. It will host trainings, provide a wide range of sanitation technologies and products, and oversee the district’s growing access to sanitation services like improved latrines and home hand-washing facilities.
Liberata Mukamana, a resident of Gishari Sector of Rwamagana District said that through Isuku Iwacu activity in their village, they have started construction of decent latrines.
“We are happy to have this centre close to the population; it will facilitate us to access sanitation services and materials,” she said.
The inaugurated centre has three sections which are a training area, a selling point for a local entrepreneur where residents can purchase sanitation products and showroom for visiting households and professional contractors to see various sanitation and hand-washing facilities.
It is expected that the centres of its kind will be established in Districts of Kayonza, Nyanza, Ruhango, Nyabihu, Ngoma, Nyarugenge and Kicukiro.
The USAID Isuku Iwacu activity is a four-year Rwf9.2 billion project. The overall goal of the project is creating sustainable access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene services, especially for country’s poorest households.
Security forces will intervene after six months of a sensitisation campaign aimed at getting beggars off the streets and the government supports them in starting out small businesses.
The decision was announced yesterday in a meeting that brought together city officials and 400 persons living with disabilities.
The CoK Vice-mayor in charge of social affairs, Patricia Muhongerwa pledged the government’s support but urged beggars to stop begging and acquire business skills.
“We are going to collaborate with security agencies. It is fine for those who have stopped but the remaining are going to face problems as security forces are going to exercise the power upon them,” she cautioned.
She said that begging practices tarnish the image of Kigali City, reminding that Rwanda’s capital city continues to lead others in security and hygiene as Rwanda also remains among the most secured and cleanest Africa’s countries.
“It is a shame to see a Rwandan begging; it doesn’t honour you or the society and the country. This begging mindset can’t help people develop good thinking but keeps them in poverty,” she said.
The Central Region Police Spokesperson, SSP Emmanuel Hitayezu said that begging is a crime in Rwanda’s Penal Code.
The article 690 of Rwanda’s Penal Code states that a person found begging faces a sentence from eight days to six months in prison.
“It becomes worse when a beggar puts pressure on people and sometimes with troublesome acts,” he said.
The President of the National Council for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD), Romalis Niyomugabo said there no reason anyone should live on begging because the government has different programmes aimed at supporting people with disabilities.
“There are many people who get out begging but if they had to approach the government institutions or our union, we would advocate for them and get financial support that would help them live better,” he said.
The Council of ministers is an organ governing the trans-boundary collaboration of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the promotion of wildlife conservation and tourism development of the Greater Virunga Landscape which is home to the endangered mountain gorilla.
Speaking to media after the meeting in Kigali on Thursday, Uganda’s Minister of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu said the three countries have national parks which share borders and the parks are homes of a variety of wildlife that doesn’t recognise borders.
“Consequently, those are resources which our countries share; we need to protect and manage them effectively,” he said.
“The three partner states’ meeting intends to review what the secretariat has been doing, to give strategic direction of the secretariat, approve their budget and their programmes and then set the sustainable roadmap.”
Kamuntu said that they will have regular meetings to review the programmes.
The Chief Executive Officer of Rwanda Development Board, Clare Akamanzi, said that one of the most important outcomes of the meeting was the establishment of a governance framework in addition to the treaty’s provisions.
“We were able to review the performance of this institution (GVTC). We saw the needs and their budgeting; we were able to give them oversight and guidance,” she explained.
“We discussed how we are going to run it in the next two years, reviewed the institutional performance and devised ways for better performance.”
She said the collaboration helps the member states as Gorillas don’t know the borders while moving around Virunga.
“It doesn’t matter how they move from Rwanda, Uganda and DRC. They move around freely depending on what they need. One of the collaboration overseen by this framework is when a gorilla moves from one country to another; we have a revenue sharing mechanism,” said Akamanzi.
Citing an example of the impact of the collaboration, she said that a group of gorillas came from DRC six years ago and Rwanda returned $1.2 million to DRC between 2012 and 2017.
“This kind of revenue sharing practice is possible because we have an organisation like this which helps collaborating and monitoring daily how the gorillas are moving between our countries,” she added.
Park’s conviction brings to close a corruption scandal which gripped South Korea, upending the country’s politics and implicating some of the country’s most powerful figures.
“The President abused the power which was given to her by the citizens,” the judge said, adding a tough sentence was needed to send a firm message to the country’s future leaders. Prosecutors had asked for Park to receive a 30 year sentence.
Park, 66, was found guilty of 16 of the 18 charges she faced, related to a massive influence-peddling case that removed her from office last year. As well as the prison sentence she was also fined $17 million.
The former president was not in the Seoul Central District Court to hear the verdict. Park and her lawyers refused to participate after the court decided to live broadcast the judgment, the first time this has happened in South Korea, after a law was passed last year to enable it.
Park lawyer’s are expected to appeal her sentence.
Outside the court, hundreds of supporters of Park had gathered to watch the verdict on a large screen, waving Korean and US flags and calling for the former president’s release. Older, conservative South Koreans, who remembered the dictatorship of Park’s father fondly as a period of strength for the country, were her electoral base and a common sight throughout the impeachment process.
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South Korea’s first female president, and the daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, Park Geun-hye was arrested in March 2017 shortly after she was stripped of her office by the country’s Constitutional Court, which upheld a parliamentary vote to impeach her.
That vote came after millions of South Koreans took to the streets over a period of several months to demand Park’s ouster, after revelations of the alleged massive influence wielded by her adviser and confidant, Choi Soon-sil.
Choi, the daughter of a cult leader once accused of having “complete control over Park’s body and soul during her formative years,” held no political office but is accused of using her influence over the President to funnel money to organizations she controlled and get her daughter a place at an elite university.
Park was accused of being unduly influenced by Choi. The court which upheld her impeachment agreed with accusations that Park had abused her authority in helping Choi raise donations from companies for foundations she had set up.
In February, Choi was sentenced to 20 years in jail on 18 charges including abuse of power, coercion, fraud and bribe, and fined $16.6 million.
Also implicated in the scandal was Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong. The 49-year-old billionaire was found guilty of bribery and other corruption charges last year and sentenced to five years in prison, but in February a higher court reduced his sentence and suspended it for four years.
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The one day consultative meeting that took place in Upper House of the parliament brought together senators, the National Commission for the Fight Against (CNLG), the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) and local government officials among other partners.
The sites targeting the World Heritage list are Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre in Gisozi, Ntarama Genocide Memorial Site in Bugesera District, Murambi memorial centre in Nyamagabe District and Bisesero Genocide Memorial site in Karongi District.
Speaking at the meeting, Senate President, Bernard Makuza said that definitely, genocide memorial centres have evidence of genocide history and must be well-preserved.
“As a country, we established that there are some genocide memorials that should be included in the World Heritage sites and help in telling genocide history as consequences of bad leadership founded on bad politics and hatred,” he said.
“Four genocide memorials were chosen to be included on the World Heritage list, the World has the opportunity to learn from genocide history that Rwanda shares with the World as well as picking lessons and particular messages,” he added.
He said that the first lesson the World should learn from such history, is that the genocide is not an accident, it is planned and executed.
Makuza added that evidence and history in memorial centres betray deniers and people who say that the genocide against the Tutsi was not prepared.
He said that genocide memorials are among evidence that proves how the genocide was prepared and executed due to the bad leadership and bad politics.
“This process of listing genocide memorials to the World Heritage and the battle against denial of genocide against the Tutsi is not for Rwandans only, it is an exercise which requires national and international partnership,” Makuza explained.
Speaking at the meeting, CNLG Executive Secretary, Dr. Jean Damascene Bizimana said that much has been done towards meeting the requirements for the four genocide memorial sites to be included on the World Heritage list.
He said that they documented history of the districts where memorial sites locate from, uniqueness of the memorial sites, demographic and topographic data about the sites and sites environment.
They also prepared plans for the memorial sites targeting the list, sites plans and their buffer zones as required by UNESCO among others.
A cabinet meeting of May 2nd 2012 reccommended that the four genocide memorial sites are included among the World Heritage Sites
Nduhungirehe said in a tweet yesterday while responding to Israel based newspaper’s article saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the New Israel Fund, a US based human rights organization was behind Rwanda’s decision to pull out of agreement to deport asylum seekers from there to Rwanda.
Nduhungirehe said that he was surprised with the statement and added that Rwanda doesn’t even know what the fund is about.
“I am extremely surprised by this statement. My surprise comes less from the fact that Rwanda doesn’t even know what this New Israel Fund is all about, but more from the assumption that a foreign NGO can successfully impose any pressure on a sovereign government named Rwanda Government,” the tweet reads.
He noted that there was no deal between the two countries in the first place.
“We didn’t cancel any deal with Israel for the simple reason that there was no deal. The open door policy of Rwanda towards African migrants has a basic requirement that Israeli’s proposal didn’t meet: the migrants must be willing to come to Rwanda without any form of constraint,” he added.
About Netanyahu’s statement
Earlier this week, Netanyahu officially named Rwanda as a “third-party country”. In a Facebook post, he said that New Israel Fund and the European Union pressured Rwanda and backed out the agreement.
It was the first time for Israeli government official to claim so.
“For the past two years I have been working with Rwanda so that it will serve as a third-party country to absorb the infiltrators expelled there, even without their consent,” he said.
Netanyahu explained that he had been forced to seek out a deal with the UN.
“Rwanda agreed to this and we began deporting people there,” Netanyahu continued.
“In recent weeks, due to the tremendous pressure on Rwanda from the New Israel Fund and the officials in the European Union, Rwanda backed out of the agreement and refused to accept any more infiltrators from Israel,” he said.
Ingabire was speaking yesterday on the occasion of TI Rwanda presentation of findings and recommendations from the Auditor General’s Report on districts performance as well as the City of Kigali for the financial year ended 30 June 2016.
The AG report identifies performance shortcomings that include; unsupported expenditures; wasteful expenditures; overstated expenditures; fraudulent expenditures; unrecorded transactions for Non-Budget Agencies (NBAs) as well as non-respect of laws and procedures among others.
The report indicates that the government suffered loss of Rwf99.57 billion in 2015/2016 financial year up from Rwf27.26 billion in 2014/2015.
The report reveals that mismanagement of public tenders continue to be the top cause of losses to government.
Ingabire observed that for the nation to terminate embezzlement and misuse of government resources, they need to first terminate impunity.
“It requires ending a culture of impunity and whoever mismanaged or embezzled government resources should return them. Many culprits are acquitted by the justice system as innocent,” she said.
She said that in the tendering process, bidders do not report circumstances when they encounter impropriety because when they do, it affects them from winning future tenders.
Speaking at the event, the Deputy Ombudsman, Clement Musangabatware said that different concerns reported must be responded to by the local government authorities and the City of Kigali.
“Actions must be taken to avoid such weaknesses,” he said.
Using an example of the just concluded national leadership retreat, Musangabatware said that the government has put in place measures in terms of laws, institutions and capacity building to put an end to the weaknesses in financial management.
The last National leadership Retreat recommended the strengthening of strategies to fight corruption in all public and private institutions, fast track recovery of embezzled public funds and put in place measures for compliance with the Auditor General’s recommendations.
