Popular ABC groups in countries such as Qatar, Oman, China, Uganda, and Tanzania have now opened a branch in Chic, MIC room, where buyers can find modern Bathx and Toto toilets.
In this ABC group branch, one can find taps of the Grohe type of Germany, Toto of Japan, and Bathx.
In an interview with IGIHE, the Director of ABC Group Rwanda, Ajay Kumar said that they have decided to open a branch in Rwanda after realizing that the country has the best security systems in the region, backed by the ease with which investors are facilitated to do business.
Kumar says the uniqueness of ABC Group is that it has affordable and durable products.
In ABC Group Rwanda you can also find Estonian bathtubs, Bathx, and Toto bathtubs. Porcelain, Ceramic, and Smart toilets.
Kumar says there are plans to expand its operations in the near future and add lighting and kitchen appliances.
ABC Group is the pioneer enterprise engaged in the field of building material industry with the purpose of helping people to transform their world. It’s committed to make the world a better place through an innovative business which provides inspiration for luxury living. It has the largest collection of high-quality tiles, sanitary wares, bathroom fittings, and allied building materials.
ABC Group started its journey in December 1998 from Taliparamba, Kerala, India. It has been taking the high road of success for the last 20 years.
The 66-year old, who faces 13 charges including terrorism, conspiracy to create an illegal armed group and murder, among others, preferred not to plead guilty or not stating that he would prefer to explain himself on each charge when the trial goes into substance.
The Prosecutors detailed the charges, dating back to 2009, when he allegedly financed former members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), with an aim of starting armed groups to fight the Government of Rwanda.
The prosecution stated important reasons as to why Rusesabagina should not be granted bail. Prosecutors said that his activities to wage war against the Government of Rwanda started way back in 2009, when he was the head of PDR Ihumure, where he was facilitating members of FDLR, through a one Col. Noel Habiyaremye.
Rusesabagina later worked with Gen. Wilson Irategeka, the leader of the FDLR breakaway faction, the National Council for the Democratic Renewal (CNRD), with the main purpose of forming armed organisations to wage war against the Government of Rwanda.
Prosecutors dwelled more on the activities of National Liberation Front (NLF), the armed wing of Rusesabagina’s Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD) coalition, highlighting the attacks carried out on Rwandan territory between 2018 and 2019, mentioning how the attacks left scores dead and many injured while homes were ransacked.
Prosecutors said they have letters detailing Rusesabagina’s activities, including some given to Rwanda by Belgian authorities, as well as chats involving Rusesabagina and others who were plotting to overthrow the Government of Rwanda, as well as money transfer evidence.
Prosecutors further mentioned money transfer details to support armed groups, including money sent by Mukangamije Tatiana, Rusesabagina’s wife, amounting to $970, in 2019, to Nsabimana Callixte, the NLF Spokesperson, who was in Comoros at the time, which was part of the support.
Furthermore, Prosecutors said Belgian Police shared many documents with Rwanda, detailing different fundraising and money transfer activities led by Paul Rusesabagina and his people, involving hundreds of thousands of euros and dollars, which were aimed at sustaining NLF operations.
Rusesabagina said that throughout his interactions with investigations and prosecution, he has been clear that if there are some bad actions that were committed by the groups he supported, leading to loss of lives, he regrets them.
“I regret these actions and I am seeking forgiveness from all Rwandans as well as the victims and all those who were affected by these actions,”
Regarding the 2009 claim by Prosecution that as President of Ihumure, he sent financial support to a one Col. Noel Habiyaremye, with the aim of starting an armed group, Rusesabagina said that at the time he wasn’t the President of PDR Ihumure.
At the time, he was the president of the Rusesabagina Hotel Rwanda Foundation and he occasionally supported Rwandan refugees financially, out of kindness, a claim which Prosecutors dismissed.
He, however, doesn’t deny sending the money, but by claiming that he was the President of PDR Ihumure then, Rusesabagina said that Prosecutors want to add more weight to the charge.
On sending money to CNRD’s Gen. Irategeka, Rusesabagina said it is true he sent 3000 Euros to the former but he sent it out of kindness after he pleaded to him for support; he also said that the amount sent to Gen. Irategeka of CNRD was to support him personally, in a charitable way but the money was not meant to finance the creation of an armed group or to NLF.
On the amount his wife sent to Callixte Nsabimana, he said it was also for ‘survival’ because his wife is known to Nsabimana since his mother originated from the same place as his mother.
Rusesabagina said that when the film Hotel Rwanda came out, many Rwandan refugees looked at him as a millionaire and often reached out to him for financial support and for those he supported, he did so out of kindness, not because he was financing their armed activities.
Prosecutors, however, punched holes in his claims, pointing out that the chats and correspondences, as well as pronouncements by Rusesabagina on media and other recordings, say otherwise.
On the alleged money transfers, he said it is true money from his end was sent to some individuals under NLF or other groups but out of the many names he was shown, he only recognized 2 people, a one Munyemana Eric and Marie Claire Ingabire, who were known to him but he was not the one initiating these transfers. His lawyer David Rugaza said that the documents from Belgium and those obtained from his computer or phone are not strong evidence to incriminate their client.
After lengthy deliberations, Prosecutors said that Rusesabagina would be a flight risk if released on bail, given the nature of charges he faces and the fact that he had eluded justice for a long time. They said he would do so again given another chance.
Rusesabagina told the court that he is not in good health and that he has been to the hospital 3 times since he arrived in Rwanda, pleading to the court to consider that and release him on bail. He emphasized that he is ready to continue with the legal process.
The hearing has been adjourned to Thursday, September 17, when the court will pronounce itself on the matter.
The Ministry of Health said that on Monday, September 14, 2020, 11 new cases were found among 1687 sample tests taken, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 4602.
The new patients include five people from Kigali City, three from Nyamagabe District while in Rusizi, Bugesera and Rulindo Districts each has recorded one new case.
With the new recoveries registered, the total number of recoveries has now reached to 2,773; 1844 are still active cases and 22 deaths.
Coronavirus symptoms include coughing, flu, and difficulty in breathing. The virus is said to be transmitted through the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract.
Rwandans are required to continue complying with government regulations, especially with frequent washing of hands and water and soap, wearing masks when leaving home or in public.
The decision to reopen was based on a health assessment and the level of Covid-19 prevention preparedness of people who work in the market, said the City of Kigali management.
In a statement, City of Kigali noted that reopening does not apply to wholesale traders or those selling fruits, vegetables, and potatoes; their work station will remain in Giti cy’Inyoni and Nzove markets.
On August 16 the Kigali City Administration decided to close the Mutangana market after days of widespread exposure to COVID-19.
The decision immediately went into effect, with vendors of perishable items asked to remove them, others were to keep their belongings properly stacked.
In a bid to avoid overcrowding that may lead to the spread of the virus, vendors without stands or those with stands that were not in the housing master plan are not allowed to reopen.
Like all other markets country-wide, only 50 percent of all workers of Nyabugogo Market will be allowed to work in shifts.
The decision to reopen Nyabugogo Market follows the recent reopening of Nyarugenge Market; both markets were closed for two weeks after a spike in Covid-19 cases in Kigali was traced to both markets.
The support was officially launched on Thursday, September 10, 2020. The girls who will be assisted are from the sectors including Munyaga where there are 60 girls and in Fumbwe with 40 girls.
Each of the girls will be trained in one vocational profession for six months, then provided with related equipment, as well as start-up capital. The girls will then be monitored for six months as they’re guided in how to apply skills they will have acquired.
Children of the teenager mothers will be educated from nursery to primary school, provided with health insurance, and receive the necessary school materials.
The director of Empower Rwanda, Kabatesi Olivia, said they initially started with 100 girls and their children but they will later move to other areas, especially those in the Eastern Province, as there are still a large number of unplanned teenage pregnancies.
She added that these girls will be helped to learn to save both in banks and for the future so that they have a secured future.
The support by Empower Rwanda will be will stay put for at least five years.
Rwamagana District Mayor Mbonyumuvunyi Radjab recently noted that census they have recently registered 412 young with mothers with children under the age of five and the organization support has come in handy.
“When a child is born at home it does not mean that life is stagnant, it has to continue with the life of the one who gave birth. The most important thing that Empower Rwanda is going to help us with is to analyze the problems they have and what caused them to give birth at home. Once we identify the problem we will know how to help them to find a way out.”
Mayor Mbonyumuvunyi called on pregnant girls to take advantage of the opportunities they have been introduced to and take care of their babies.
Some of the pregnant girls said they are ready to take advantage of the opportunities they had to get from Empower Rwanda’s vocational training and educating their children.
Empower Rwanda is a non-governmental and non-profit organization that started in January 2020, which will help girls who gave birth at home between the ages of 15 and 30 and also take care of their children.
The girls will be trained in tailoring and plaiting hair and will then be provided with tools to start practice what they learned, will be advocated for children’s rights, shown their children’s rights, taught family planning, training their families and much more to make them more successful.
Victor Okorafor of Empathy Manor Ltd has had a discussion with the Director General of the Rwanda Chamber of Tourism at the Private Sector Federation Frank Gisha Mugisha. The discussion is shared on their YouTube channel.
RCT was established in 2006, with a mandate of enhancing business opportunities through effective lobbying and advocacy for the tourism and hospitality industry in Rwanda. It is an umbrella of all other associations that are engaged in tourism and hospitality business. The Director General of the Rwanda Chamber of Tourism at the Private Sector Federation Frank Gisha Mugisha, Says member companies and associations of the RCT have a number of benefits that come with their affiliation.
“The benefits include advocacy where we act as the voice of all players in the tourism sector in relation to policies that do a favor or create a more enabling business environment. Also, the Rwanda Development Board, RDB, through the tourism office has done a lot to create a policy which facilitates investment in Rwanda. Here in Rwanda tourism is one of the biggest foreign exchange earners, contributing 10% of the Gross Domestic Product, GDP, [as per statistics for 2019] and also employing about 150,000 people mostly the youth,” says Frank.
He adds that whenever there is a policy that has been adopted by the government, the RCT review it with an ultimate purpose of harnessing it to ensure that it promotes vibrancy of tourism and hospitality sector other than stifling it.
Recently, RCT has initiated a number of programs to support members of the chamber to enable them recover from business shocks visited on them as results of COVID-19. Komeza Program is one such initiative. It was launched under MasterCard Foundation to help members recover from financial strain brought about by business hibernation and the associated loans. Another, “Hanga Ahazaza” one of the MasterCard Foundation’s programs aimed to empower youth and women but also to create jobs especially focusing on the tourism sectors.
Rwanda Chamber tourism creates relevant linkages to mobilize its members to apply to these grants and gives them technical assistance and guidance to apply to general grants that can qualify for the Komeza program.
“One of our key areas of focus is capacity building for our members. This is through identifying whatever missing in terms of skills, what is the gap and what could be done better to fill the gap,” he added.
He added that “We started a campaign of domestic tourism which now we are growing to regional and maybe later as various countries open their airspaces we can go also international. Someone who has been used to doing international marketing now it’s an opportunity to sit down and think of what he can do better t and even tap the potential with domestic and regional tourism.”
Victor went on to ask the basic guidelines of operations.
“One is to register your company to RDB and then go come to the chamber of tourism for orientation. In orientation is all about what, where, who can you network with to do your tourism business and join the Rwanda Association of tour operator,” said Frank.
There are several events organized by the tourism board. One of them is the Kivu Belt Festival is one of the events that happen out of Kigali. This brings together the conservationists. In the western part of the country, we have regions with tropical rainforests, hills, beautiful lakes, and Nyungwe national park (rich with Flora and Fauna).
“In Kivu Belt, there is always an event which we have been doing in connection with our partners to showcase what the region has in potential of attracting or promoting tourism. We have various community best tourism actors to showcase the products, packages, hotels around there which attracts people within the country, around neighboring countries, and also international.“
Post-COVID is still a big project for tourism. Starting from this month there is a business development program which will be stabled starting from this month to aiming at providing support to their members to stay strong and still resilient. This will be more of access to finance, reducing costs, grant proposal, business plan, and even reviewing or revisiting your input or output ratios to stay in business.
Frank says that people should visit Rwanda because it has many beautiful things that attract tourists such as magnificent hills stretching from south to east, mountainous gorillas, tropical rainforest, and many others.
Rwandan has empowered these sectors and various segments such as religious tourism which is being given a boost from the government. Talking of also sports tourism there is a cricket stadium, sports stadiums, and by next year we shall have one of the best gold stadium golf stadiums in the region.
Another segment that Rwanda has taken an advanced stage into excelling at is meeting or conference tourism. Since 2017, Kigali is considered ranked by the international conference association as number two, second from Cape Town to host conferences on the international events. We have Convention Center as a boost for international events, Kigali Arena for an international sporting event, and also Intare conference Arena. All those are venues for events with the capacity to host meetings of over three thousand people.
Above all happening in this hospitable and friendly culture from the Rwandan people, Kigali is regarded as one of the cleanest cities in Africa and over the world.
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The two have been widely quoted in discussions on Rwanda-Uganda relations as people who have continued to take part in activities aimed at undermining its security and seeking to destabilize it, through the organization they founded, the Self-Worth Initiative.
They are also accused of recruiting members to join Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC terrorist group, who are accused of being members of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) and accused of being Rwandan spies.
In July this year, a Ugandan citizen took to court Sulah Nuwamanya, Prossy Bonabaana, and Godfrey Chebet, accusing them of defamation, when they informed the security services that he was a Rwandan spy that he had a gun and was imprisoned for nothing.
Henry Mugisha has filed a lawsuit alleging that they fabricated charges against him and was imprisoned, investigation revealed that he was innocent and released. The charges against him were crimes that could result in the death penalty or life imprisonment.
The betrayal began as they shared a business through Lloyd FX, Sulah Nuwamanya, and Prosy Bonabaana and Mugisha became its shareholders. Problems escalated when at a March 23, 2020 meeting, Mugisha asked them about the disappearance of $ 35,000 of the organization.
Those who broke into Mugisha’s office took the company’s financial statements, stole $ 2,500, and filed a lawsuit in court. Realizing that their actions were illegal, they began to threaten him that if he doesn’t stop the allegations, they would hand him over to the security services.
One who provided information to IGIHE said that when Mugisha filed a complaint with the CID, he was intimidated by Prossy Bonabaana because he had police guards given to him by Museveni.
A letter summons Nuwamanya, Bonabaana, and Thomas Sankara of September 7, 2020, urging them to report to the police on Monday, September 14, 2020, for questioning on suspicion.
One of the analysts pointed out that Nuwamanya and Bonabaana ‘are plundering the bad relationship between Rwanda and Uganda. They are jobless so what they do is threatening to slander Ugandans or Rwandans who are going to take advantage of it but of course they also have people from the CMI who are working with them,” he said.
Another one b said: “The police investigation department is investigating, they have identified them and that is why they have called them. Even in the security forces, they know that they were giving false information and imprisoning people. ”
“These people could be imprisoned for years. The CMI is starting to realize that they have been misled a lot,” he said.
Sulah Nuwamanya became a journalist for The New Times Publications, studied in Rwanda, and has a Rwandan identity card, although she was a Ugandan, and came to the forefront of its security and persecution of Rwandans living in Uganda.
Sulah Nuwamanya works with RUD-Urunana who is assisting in the field of weapons, while Prossy is in charge of recruiting RNC members and withdrawing its members.
The handover ceremony was held at Kigali International Airport, attended by the Division Manager of Rwanda’s National Reference Laboratory, Dr. Emille Mwikarago, and the Deputy Chief of Mission of the Korean Embassy, Jongyun Choi.
The Director-General of the RBC, Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana thanked the Government of the Republic of Korea, saying their support was timely.
“We appreciate the contribution of the Government of Korea; indeed the masks will help us to stop the spread of COVID-19. The donation is a sign of concrete cooperation; a friend in need is a friend indeed,” he said.
Jongyun Choi said that global solidarity is important more than ever and assured that his country will be a close friend of Rwanda in its fight against COVID 19.
KF94 mask is equivalent to FFP2 mask in Europe and N95 mask in the United States.
As Rwanda continues to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been receiving international funding to help with the fight, with over 100 breathing machines recently provided by the United States and other medical supplies including masks, temperature testing equipment provided by the army of this country.
The death toll from Covid-19 in Rwanda has risen to over 4,500 so far, while the death toll has risen to 22.
On March 14, after the first Coronavirus patient was diagnosed in Rwanda, it was immediately decided that all schools would be closed and that all students would return home and instead pursue classes online.
REB DG9 Dr. Ndayambaje Irénée told IGIHE that by the time the schools are open, there will be a lot to change because the curriculum will be different from what it used to be focusing mostly on online classes.
“Another factor is related to the hygiene and sanitation in schools. While classrooms are being built, there are also special plans to build permanent toilets in our schools.” Said Ndayambaje.
“We also want children to develop this habit of washing hands because in addition to protecting people from COVID-19 it also promotes hygiene in schools and as we learn it in schools and in our homes, we will be able to reduce incidences of childhood-related diseases. It’s something people should expect.”
REB said that there is also a program to feed children at schools where they will all be provided with meals. In 2014, the Government of Rwanda launched a program to feed 9- and 12-year-old children in primary education to help them improve their level of achievement without losing their temper.
In the first four years, the program was given a budget of Rwf 5.5 billion, but in the previous fiscal year it reached Rwf 7 billion.
“We had a program to feed the children in the secondary schools; you find cases of a child studying in primary school having their elder sibling in their first year of high school; when it is lunchtime one would go to school for lunch when the other will have to pack their lunch or go home to eat.” He said.
Now the government has decided that all children will eat at schools, for it improves their performance.
Recent data show that at one center in Kigali City, parents are required to pay Rwf 12,000 per quarter which is Rwf 4000 per month. The state government pays Rwf56 per child per day.
Last year, the attendance recorded of student 9-12-years primary school were at 97.3%, Kigali City came on the top 100% attendance, North recorded 99.4% attendance, Western Province with95.2%, Southern 97.3 %, Eastern Province also had a turnout of 97.3%.
{{ Concerns about the rising of school fees}}
Some parents and caregivers who recently spoke to IGIHE pointed out that due to the preparations that will be made to prevent COVID-19 while schools are open; it is more likely that the cost will be higher than before.
Schools will be required to provide sanitation facilities, social distance system, increase the amount of water used for washing, building new classrooms, technology and more. It is expensive and more likely is expected to be paid by the student.
The institution will not build new schools or bring in new technology and when it comes to determining the tuition fees ignore all those expenses.
“You could say that the fact that the school bring water system. It means that the tuition fee is going to increase, but we have to go back and think to the cost we paid for the lack of water, the diseases and poor sanitation. Schools should not be afraid that this is going to be another burden so it should raise school fees, everything is counted, and water expenses are counted. We don’t think it is going to be very expensive but it’s something people wanted, it’s important to have It.” said Dr.Ndayambaje.
Information released on Thursday by the Ministry of Health indicates that 19 more people have been diagnosed with the disease, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 4479, of which 2, 352 including 27 new recoveries recorded.
Among the new cases identified were 16 from Kigali testing in a high-risk group, who were most affected by the attack, 2 in Gisaraga District, and 1 in Rubavu.
In the last 24 hours, 2838 sample tests were taken bringing the total tests to 454,246.
