The event held on 17th May 2019 was preceded by laying wreaths at mass graves where 47,409 victims from neighboring sectors are laid to rest.
Wellars Kayirangwa, a survivor in the area said Tutsi were persecuted and deprived of their rights until the genocide plan was executed when Interahamwe set roadblocks to kill them.
Bank of Africa, Managing Director, Mr. Abderrahmane Belbachir said the Bank consoles with Rwandans especially Kamonyi residents to honor genocide victims.
“We are here to remember and honor victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi,” he said.
Bank of Africa Rwanda, a subsidiary of Bank of Africa Group has different initiatives to give back to the community.
Belbachir said in line with these initiatives the Bank provided a contribution to renovate the memorial.
“As Rwanda commemorates for the 25th time the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi we have donated Rwf1 million for the renovation of Kamonyi memorial,” he revealed.
The management of Bank of Africa also promised Rwf1 million support to a cooperative of genocide survivors in Kamonyi in development projects.
The vice president of IBUKA in Kamonyi district, Benedata Zacharie hailed Bank of Africa for joining the district in commemoration of genocide victims.
“It is of great value to see people supporting and condoling with us because we have needy orphans and widows in our district. This is what you have done today,” he said.
Last year, Bank of Africa donated funds for maintenance of Kigali Genocide Memorial.
In 2017, Bank of Africa provided a grinding machine to ‘Abarikumwe’, a group of 24 genocide survivors living in Gishaka village, Nyagasozi cell of Bumbogo sector in Gasabo district.
Bank of Africa Group has branches in 18 countries born from BMCE Bank based in Morocco.
It opened shop in Rwanda on 9th December 2016. It has so far opened 14 branches in the country.
Umubano Hotel was acquired in January 2017, by Marasa Holdings Ltd, a subsidiary of Madhvani Group.
With over 25 hotels and a hundred years of experience, the Madhvani Group is one of the largest diversified private-sector groups which has developed into a widely-diversified conglomerate and a wide geographical spread into the East-African region, the Middle East, India, and North America.
At the time, Marasa Umubano Hotel, which was built in 1979, was given two years for renovation but technicians realized that it required a lot of work compared to statistics gathered before.
Technicians established that $14 million was needed to complete renovations other than the $ 2.2 million that was proposed before.
As the renovation activities began, the management closed the left side of the hotel which has over 50 rooms.
Joel Uwizeye, Director Corporate Affairs at Marasa Holdings Ltd told IGIHE that RDB informed the hotel that it cannot receive clients while construction activities are ongoing.
On May 06th, 2019, the hotel received an official letter communicating that clients were given a period of 14 days until 20th May 2019, where they would no longer be received in the establishment.
The notification followed RDB inspection at the hotel, held on April 17th, 2019.
“RDB established that we should not host clients because we are still under construction. With regards to the request, we held an internal meeting on May 19th, 2019 and informed the staff that we were closing temporally,” said Uwizeye.
Marasa Umubano Hotel has over 140 employees with 20 conducting professional internships.
{{Kigali city halted construction activities
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Though RDB asked the hotel to halt services while waiting to complete construction activities, Kigali City halted the renovation and construction activities and requested the hotel to first meet construction requirements, following an inspection held on April 19th, 2019.
These include signposts to be erected at the construction site and the presence of an engineer on site.
“We wrote to Kigali city communicating that all requirements have been made available. We hope they will visit us soon to witness how we implemented regulations. We assure clients that we shall re-open because the contractor and engineers are available while necessary equipment was ordered,” said Uwizeye.
“We communicated to RDB of our wish to fix everything by April 2020 because we are aware of the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Rwanda in June next year. We want to be among members of the hospitality sector accommodating the CHOGM guests,” he added.
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Uwizeye says that the hotel had originally intended to renovate one part of the hotel and keep the other part operational, hence having the hotel’s staff working in shifts. After RDB’s decision, the hotel’s management decided to keep paying the staff, since the establishment believes in maintaining the staff and their families’ financial stability.
Uwizeye added that the hotel looks forward to the city’s go-ahead towards construction activities so to reduce the loss for the hotel, clients, and employees.
“Employees are not to be held accountable for this issue. It is rather a concern of the investor. Madhvani Group acknowledges that its employee’s welfare has to be maintained, thus why they were not stopped from work. We have agreed on providing their salary for specific months as we follow up on the issue,” he revealed.
If things go well, Marasa Umubano Hotel is expected to be officially launched at the beginning of 2020. Kim Kardashian, an American media personality, businesswoman, socialite, and model is among guests expected to grace the re-opening of the hotel.
Africa is home to a rich diversity of languages, but most of the voice-enabled technologies aren’t being developed in African languages. How are Africans expected to tell their own stories if they cannot do so in their native tongues?
In many ways, there is also a high risk of losing many local languages and dialects in this digital era due to the dominance of certain languages used in regional and global conversations.
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Mozilla’s Common Voice project is the largest repository of voice data in the world, and it’s free and open source. This means anyone can use it and the vast data is contributed by people all over the world who donate their voices and reading or verifying sentences that help to build this database that anyone can use.
All this is happening in large part because the monetization opportunities for large companies, that currently sell voice interfaces and datasets, are not available.
Mozilla is owned by a non-profit foundation, and as such, is not concerned with maximizing profit or shareholder value at the risk of a healthy, open and free internet. Therefore, building a platform that focuses on building a database that includes many languages from across the globe is well within its mandate.
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Considering that half the world remains unconnected to the internet, one of the biggest obstacles to the development of internet infrastructure in many countries is a lack of experienced network engineers. A critical mass of network engineers is needed to help shape the future of network infrastructure at both in Africa and global levels.
In a bid to address this gap, Mozilla Foundation, the Internet Society, and the Network Startup Resource Center have partnered to create a cohort of Mozilla Fellows focused on open internet engineering in countries with low internet penetration. Fellows will undertake transformational infrastructure-building projects to ensure efficient and affordable internet transit, working to develop municipal/community internet infrastructure, or establishing national data centers based on open standards and software.
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Last week, Mozilla, in partnership with Technology Service Providers of Kenya (TESPOK), held several Lean Data Practices (LDP) workshops in Nairobi following a workshop we held in Delhi in November. Lean Data Practice (LDP) is a framework that individuals should consider when giving their personal data away as well as for corporate and government organizations to think about when collecting and storing data.
“Lean Data Practices are important because they ensure that governments and companies collect only the data that is relevant and necessary for a particular process or activity. We are encouraging the government and companies to adopt the LDPs as a concept and as a practice,” said Alice Munyua, the Africa Policy Advisor for Mozilla.
Ms. Alice Munyua will be leading Mozilla’s policy activities in Africa.
The team at Mozilla feel that growing both the voice, human capacity, and proper data management facets will have a transformational impact on the way business is conducted, how governments operate and the way in which people interact with each other; giving rise to new business and operational models that will provide a wider scope for innovation in Africa. Mozilla is here for all that.
“Our main aim is to support the open internet, empower people to design their online life, stay safe and protected on the internet.” Ms. Katharina Borchert, Mozilla’s Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) at a panel discussion on Strengthening Innovation Ecosystems in Africa at the 2019 Transform Africa Summit held in Kigali, Rwanda.
Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, is a global community of technologists, thinkers, and builders working together to keep the Internet open and accessible, so people worldwide can be informed contributors and creators of the Web.
It is the first commemoration song Kizito produces featuring names of victims and remembered families.
Kizito has said he has received many people’s request to produce songs to remember their family members.
“I receive many requests to make such songs remembering particular families killed during Genocide against the Tutsi. I cannot afford to produce a song for every family but I will try to do it to the best of my ability. I draw much attention to songs about the current period in general,” he revealed.
Kizito explained that he produced the song for Rwandans living in USA to help them associate with people inside the country in this period.
In the new song, Kizito remembers his father Buguzi Augustin killed in Kibeho during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
“Bari beza” song lasts 14 minutes and 23 seconds. It is the third song Kizito Mihigo releases during the 25th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
Other similar songs released previously include “Kubabarira ntibivuga Kwibagirwa” and “Abarinzi b’amateka”.
The audio of the new song was produced by Producer Bob while the video was made by producer Faith Fefe.
This book was published in Paris, by {L’Harmattan}, on May 7th, 2019.
In an interview with IGIHE, Dr. Bideri observed that his book is a contribution to the preservation of the memory of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and a presentation of the political and cultural context of the tragic event, and a means of transmitting the history to the younger generations.
Dr. Bideri had the chance to leave Rwanda at the end of 1993 when all the signs already announced the prospect of a genocide that would target Tutsi. Thousands of civilians had already been exterminated in northern Rwanda and Bugesera between 1990 and 1993. Later after his departure, five months to the day, the genocide took away six members of his family, including his parents, his sisters, and brothers.
Even though he had left Rwanda, the massacre of his family was told to him by witnesses of his family who escaped from the genocide, they are the ones who speak in the book.
The title of the book, {The Color of Genocide} does not mean color in the first sense of the word, but rather “calamity”, “extreme misfortune”. Indeed, says the author, genocide is without “color”, a tragedy that man inflicts on man, […], the sum of the individual tragedies, that of the author, those of the other victims, is the color of the genocide.
The author shows that genocide is a crime that does not stop with the cessation of the massacres, its sequels continue to haunt the survivors several years later.
In his book, Dr. Bideri says that he knows in detail the massacre of his family, how his parents and his family members were killed by grenades thrown inside the house by soldiers: “the roof and the walls crumbled, […] my parents died shredded.”
They were killed on the 8th of April 1994 in Gisenyi, a few hours after the start of the genocide against the Tutsi.
One of her sisters was shot in Kigali neighborhood of Kigali, thrown into a trash bin and woke up when dogs began to devour the bodies. She was able to walk and reach the ICRC offices, less than 500 meters from the massacre site.
Dr. Bideri was born in the former commune of Mukingo, in northern Rwanda, today in the Busogo area. As the eldest son, his father told him the family story, especially the persecution and massacre of Tutsis since 1959.
His dad told him how he was arrested in 1963 and imprisoned in the terrible Ruhengeri prison. He will be released a few days before the execution of several Tutsi at Nyamagamba hill near the prison of Ruhengeri. Arrests and summary executions of Tutsi took place throughout the country, especially in Bugesera and Gikongoro.
In particular, the author recalls that in 1973, Tutsi were attacked, houses burned, and many fled to churches. He did not understand why the Tutsi were persecuted and hunted like animals. The ruling power was attacking the Tutsi as it saw fit.
From 1990, things took a dramatic turn, the call for the extermination of Tutsi was made in the open. Media of hatred, especially the RTLM, and the Kangura newspaper, openly called for the massacre of the Tutsi and even announced the month of April 1994 as the beginning of the genocide.
In this book, we read fear and arbitrariness. An omnipresent fear in the Tutsi who, by being Tutsi, is condemned to live in despair because he can suffer from any other fellow-citizen controls, arrests, imprisonment, torture, rape, death. Arbitrary responsible civil authorities who ignore the basic rights of any Rwandan citizen.
The author says that he never thought of writing a family tragedy, but that circumstances led him to do so. He wrote by duty of memory, to bring into the body of readers the unspeakable fear of the victims.
The author shows in several places that the survivors of his family were saved by soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front. It pays homage to the courage of these young soldiers who shed their blood to save lives.
It shows that even Hutu who were pushed by ex-FAR and Interahamwe to leave Rwanda and flee were saved in the bottom end of Zairian forests (now Congolese) by the Rwandan Patriotic Army. They were fed with biscuits, transported and repatriated to Rwanda voluntarily. Hutu civilians served as a human shield for escaping genocidaires.
After the genocide, life slowly resumed, with enormous difficulties. His two younger sisters succumbed to the consequences of genocide, trauma and pain had the last word. They were marked by genocide, their broken inner balance.
In his interview, the author insisted a lot on the memory: “let everyone know what happened, never forget, that they were women, men, and children, all of us, in any corner of the world.”
Dr. Bideri has already published in 2008, at l’Harmattan, another book, Rwanda 1990-1993, the massacre of Bagogwe, a prelude to the genocide of Tutsi.
The Color of a Genocide will be launched very soon in Kigali on June 14, 2019.
With over 10 years’ experience, 600 employees and a turnover of about 35 million USD in 2018, VSONE is currently providing a variety of products and services in the public sector (E-Government), Banking, Financial and Insurance solutions, E-health and hospitality E-services as well as automation of manufacturing across various countries in Asia.
VSONE AFRICA being a tier one partner of HP and other major IT companies such as Oracle, SAP, and others will leverage its parent company broad experience, expertise, products and services to create Made in Africa, by African Solutions.
“Our strategy is to build an African company using our learning from Asia to boost the continent huge talents through strong local partnerships. I am a strong believer on the continent potential”, said VSONE Chairman, Mr. Prabodha Sumanasekera.
He further indicated that VSONE sees Rwanda as a central location from which the company will cover the continent as plans to expand to Kenya, Mozambique, Angola, and DRC are underway. By the end of the year, VSONE will also be operational in the South and West of Africa.
Rwanda has been a leader in the deployment of IT solutions for development, education, and health. It is now building a modern regional airport hub and a strong airline with constant economic growth of over 6%. Therefore, establishing VSONE Africa Headquarters in Rwanda will enable the company to benefit from all these positive factors.
Nkubito Manzi Bakuramutsa, the Africa CEO, mentioned that it is an exciting time for the continent. Africa has 1.2 billion population, 60% of whom are young, full of creativity and talent. We are Inspired by President Kagame quote at the Transform Africa 2019:
“Everything we need for transformation is in the room or represented in the room. VSONE is looking to participate in moving the continent from a consumer of content to a producer of content and a key player in the 4th Industrial revolution. We want to align our business strategy, to the AU and Smart Africa visions.
Kanyankole is accused of soliciting for and receiving illegal benefits in order to offer a service and favoritism when he was the CEO of BRD between July 2013 and December 2017.
The prosecution launched an investigation against him in 2017 leading to his arrest on 2nd October 2018 when his file was sent to court.
Kanyankole and co-accused Kalema Juvenal have appeared in Nyarugenge High Court for trial on alleged crimes.
Kanyankore appeared in court with his three defense lawyers including Butare Godfrey, Umulisa Alice, and Rukangira Emmanuel while the co-accused Kalema was represented by Gariyo Eric.
The trial started around 9 am when the judge asked Kanyankole and his defense lawyer to provide explanations on favoritism related to the loan worth USD $ 3,433, 200 offered to Trust Industries in 2017.
Kanyankole explained that by the time he joined BRD in 2013, the bank had 25% shares in the plant which had received loan three times.
It is said that the previous loans were used by the plant to buy machinery. When Trust Industries sought another loan, credit analysts said the plant was not qualified.
BRD as one of the shareholders with responsibilities to advice partners requested the bank to seek the loan from other banks which also denied offering the loan for various challenges. Following the failure, BRD offered the loan.
The prosecution alleged that it was illegally approved by Kanyankole.
Kanyankole has explained that there was no favor for the plant because he offered a loan that has to be refunded and done to protect the interests of the bank as a shareholder.
The prosecution explained that according to the bank’s regulations, a loan beyond Rwf 600 million has to be offered after its assessment by a team of credit analysts and handing it to the CEO of BRD. The CEO also has to present the proposal to board members for approval.
The prosecution alleged that the procedure was not respected because Kanyankole never presented the report to board members but rather released the loan immediately. The prosecution said this serves as evidence pinning Kanyankole for favoritism charges because he offered services that are not shared to other clients seeking loans.
Me Rukangira said that the prosecution doesn’t explain clearly if failure to comply with regulations of loan delivery relates to favoritism.
He asked the court to acquit his client that there was no favoritism while offering the loan because the case didn’t implicate two plants competing for the loan. Me Rukangira said the prosecution doesn’t show the loss incurred by the loan offered to Trust Industries.
On the other hand, Karema co-accused with Kanyankole for receiving illegal benefits in order to offer a loan to Good Harvest and Primary School denied receiving gifts saying they are forged accusations.
Karema’s defense lawyer, Gariyo Eric said his client should not be a victim of forged accusations and requested his acquittal.
The prosecution said provided explanations are enough to pin Kanyankole and requested the court to hand Kanyankole seven years sentence and pay Rwf 100 million fine. The prosecution also requested that Karema be handed five-year sentence and pay Rwf 100 million fines.
After hearing both sides, the court announced that the ruling will be read on 13th June 2019 in Nyarugenge High Court.
CD4 shall support livestock farmers grouped in different cooperatives in Rwanda through training on cooperative management to acquaint them with local and international competencies.
The project will be funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
During the launch of the project; CD4 project manager, Willy Nyirigira revealed that the project strives for the development of cooperatives. The latter began operations towards the end of 2018 and will be implemented until 2023.
She explained that CD4 project training will start with maize cooperatives in Rwamagana district, Horticulture cooperatives in Bugesera district, both in Eastern province districts and Dairy cooperatives in Gicumbi district- Northern Province.
Nyirigira emphasized that Land O’Lakes specializes in dairy processing and animal nutrition.
She revealed that Land O’Lakes has been in Rwanda since 2007 where they have implemented various projects including dairy one.
Nyirigira said that Land O’Lakes and partners are aware that a large number of cooperatives already received Government support like the provision of equipment and building milk collection centers among others. She, however, explained that cooperative members can’t get good yields to reap from those businesses without proper management.
“Under this five-year program, we will draw emphasis on building the capacity of cooperatives in terms of leadership, financial and resources management, building competencies at the market, and working with financial institutions among others,” said Nyirigira.
The support will be provided in areas of priority based on outcomes of discussions with cooperative members.
Nyirigira unveiled that they will assess the performance and capacity of each beneficiary cooperative annually to ensure it emulates best practices.
“During the assessment, we first identify the area of priority in need of support and do it annually. This will help us to identify whether a cooperative has matured or not to expand the support to others,” she stressed.
CD4 project will also support cooperative agencies in Rwanda to improve the quality of service delivery.
Hakizimana Pierre Celestin, the president of IAKIB cooperative that brings together farmers in Gicumbi district involved in the dairy business said they expect increased income after acquiring training.
He said the training will enable members to realize their dreams of transforming the cooperative into a well-managed company.
“We have already benefited from Land O’Lakes support to meet standards of supplied milk,” revealed Hakizimana.
The Managing Director of Rwanda Cooperatives Agency (RCA), Prof. Harelimana Jean Bosco said the project of Land O’Lakes is expected to enhance cooperatives’ management and improve productivity.
“This five-year project is promising to bring transformations in the cooperative. You have seen that livestock owners in Gicumbi district have started demonstrating good performance. We want Cooperatives to catalyzing economy,” he highlighted.
The five-year project will support 220 Cooperatives.
According to figures from RCA, Rwanda accounts to over 9,000 cooperatives with more than 5 million members.
The Vice Chancellor at UTB, Dr Kabera Callixte said that the MoU is putting emphasis on knowledge sharing in areas of their expertize, job creation, and innovations, among others.
“The MoU will enable us strengthen cooperation between both institutions with mutual sharing of knowledge. The cooperation opens doors for students to carry out research on both sides and getting deeper insights about Government’s programs,” he said.
Gasamagera Wellars, RMI Director General said that it is part of agreements the institution has with different universities.
“We chose partnership with this university because it offers courses and imparts specific skills needed at the labor market. We will especially collaborate in research,” he said.
UTB was established in 2008. It has over 6000 students of who the majority are based in its Kigali campus while 1900 attend courses from the Rubavu campus.
The agreement was signed yesterday at Rwanda Development Board (RDB).
Planned to be operational in less than two years, the high-tech multi-million euro factory will directly employ over 100 people in the district and indirectly employ over 300. In the first phase of production, 9,000 square meters of tiles will be produced daily and this will be doubled in the second phase targeting both the domestic and regional market. Subsequent phases will focus on other ceramic products on demand.
Speaking at the signing, Francesco De Martino, Group CEO, Milbridge Holdings the parent company of Africeramics Ltd expressed special thanks to RDB, the Ministry of Trade and Industry and Nyanza District for the support given us to achieve the important milestone.
“We were extremely impressed by the quick, proactive partnership that we received from all government institutions. We chose Nyanza as the base of our plant because it is strategically located where we can source high-quality inputs such as clay, granite and other alloys needed for ceramics,” he said.
The Mayor of Nyanza District, Erasme Ntazinda noted that the district is excited to attract the mega investment and has high expectations for this project.
“This accelerated process showed that all the parties were interested in ensuring the successful commencement of the project. I thank Africeramics Ltd for investing in our district a boost to our local economy. We commit our support to this project,” he said.
In his remarks, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Rwanda Development Board, Emmanuel Hategeka said that this investment fully aligns with our domestic market recapturing strategy and will go along the way ‘to reduce our import bill on construction materials, generate exports while at the same time generating jobs.’
“Being located in Nyanza district presents an added advantage of distributed development uplifting the rural economy. Today, all ceramic tiles in the country are imported yet studies show that we have some of the best quality clay for ceramics in the world. We applaud Africeramics Ltd for spotting the opportunity in the district”, he added.
