IGIHE

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  • The collapse of Rwandatel: What went wrong?

    The Rwandan Commercial Court recently announced the appointment of a special administrator, Richard Mugisha, a prominent Kigali Attorney, to manage the beleaguered Libyan owned telecom, Rwandatel. At the request of MTN Rwanda, Judge Bwasisi Mugabo Germain, ordered Mugisha to assess Rwandatel’s financial status, ensure the safety of assets and report back to the court on May 31, 2011 on whether to liquidate the company or try to sustain it.

    The Rwandan Utility and Regulatory Agency (RURA) announced earlier this month [April 5th] that it had permanently revoked the Rwandatel’s mobile voice & data license. The Registrar General followed the license revocation by applying for a court order to declare the firm insolvent and appoint the temporary administrator to oversee the firm’s continued fixed line operations and the likely liquidation of assets. Rwandatel’s major creditors include Huawei, a China based telecommunications equipment provider and MTN Rwanda to whom Rwandatel has racked up a millions of dollars in debt from interconnection fees for calls made across networks.

    “The company was mismanaged and their liabilities far outweigh their assets. Their books are negative RWF 38 Billion” Rwandan Registrar General Louise Kanyonga said Wednesday, “This has been a real learning experience for our government. We need to ask how this happened.” Kanyonga said that she did not feel that the action taken by the Rwandan Government would worry other investors. “Many parties have already expressed interest in the license”, she added but was not able to be specific. Others familiar with the Rwandatel story feel the handling of the telecom is part of worrisome trend for the region’s ICT landscape.

    In 2004, Greg Wyler, a young American IT entrepreneur came to Rwanda and invested millions in his firm, Terracom, which attempted to establish a fiber-optic network in mountainous, landlocked country, previously dependent on expensive and unreliable satellite based internet connections. He traversed the countryside in shorts and sandals and was famous for his ambitious attempt to retrofit an aging radio tower atop Mount Karisimbi, a 14,787 foot volcanic peak, to create an elevated telecom station bringing voice and broadband internet to the rural masses.

    In 2006, Wyler’s group was asked to take control of Rwandatel, Rwanda’s sole PTT (Public Telephone & Telegraph) company and— according to a former Terracom-Rwandatel finance executive, who asked not to be named ; Terracom bought the asset on very agreeable terms and eventual price of $20 million. It is unclear how much of that price was ever actually paid.

    In 2006, Chris Lundh, an American telecom executive with more than 15 years of experience working with African technology companies, was named CEO of the new firm but says that Rwandatel was overstaffed and in a financial mess. “We tried to clean up the place. Much of the technology was quite outdated. We decided to bring in a mobile technology called CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) which is something that in the States, Verizon and Sprint have used. We built a state of the art CDMA network—both voice and data—and at the time the data services were arguably the best in Africa in terms of internet speed,” Lundh said Tuesday.

    Lundh told IGIHE.com that after their group retrenched redundant employees, repaired Rwandatel’s tattered balance sheet and invested heavily in the latest technology, the Rwandan Government wanted the asset back.

    According to the Rwandan News Agency, the new owners had not held to their agreed investment and payment schedule and had fallen short of fiber-optic networking goals.

    In June of 2007, the investors held negotiations with government representatives and accountants to establish the value of the company and agree on a buy-back price. The Americans asked for $40 million. The Government of Rwanda insisted it was worth just $12 million.

    “I remember very well the chairman of RURA at the time, Colonel Mudenge, approached us. Mudenge turned to me on the last day of our negotiation and said : you take this offer or tomorrow I’ll send in the troops. I just laughed. But he repeated himself and the second time around I took him quite seriously.” Last July, Col. Mudenge—still head of RURA at the time— was arrested after allegedly pulling a gun on a farmer over financial dispute.

    By September 2007 the Libyan investment firm, LAP (Libyan Investment Portfolio) Green, acquired the telecom from Rwanda for several times the price the government had paid just 60 days prior. An initial investment of $100 million and a promise to invest another $177 million over the following 5 years as well as an agreement to meet wireless voice and data roll-out goals gave LAP Green 80% of Rwandatel, the remaining 20% stake went the Social Security Fund of Rwanda.

    The wireless voice—or cell-phone—component of Rwandatel never quite took off and was easily overwhelmed by competition when, in 2009, the country’s third telecom, Tigo Rwanda, began operations behind Rwandatel and the wireless voice leader, MTN Rwanda. But the wireless data offered by Rwandatel— with its advanced equipment—continued to dominate the market and the other carriers found it difficult to compete. The most recent report from RURA on market share shows that Rwandatel held 69% of the wireless data market through 2010.

    When asked about the accusations of the former CEO and the discrepancy between the $12 million acquisition and the $100 million dollar sale less than two months later, Rwandan Government officials have been quiet. Regis Gatarayiha, the Acting Director of RURA says he was not involved with the previous transaction and knows little of it. Loiuse Kanyonga is also unaware of details surrounding prior transfer. The Ministry in the Office of the President in charge of ICT has not yet responded to inquiries regarding Rwandatel.

  • Rwanda Investment Projects Decline 30%, Development Board Says

    The total value of investments in Rwanda declined 30 percent in the first quarter, the Rwanda Development Board said.

    Investments declined to 52 billion Rwandan francs ($86.6 million) in the three months through March, from 75 billion francs a year earlier, John Gara, the chief executive officer of the Kigali-based board, told reporters yesterday in the city. The number of projects more than doubled to 30, he said.

    The total doesn’t include a $65 million pharmaceutical- manufacturing facility planned by CSM GlobalPharma, a partnership between India’s Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and the U.S.-based Holtzman Group, Gara said.

  • Umubano Hotel operations normal-Caretaker

    After the enforcement of the UN resolution which declared a freeze of funds, financial assets and economic resources owned and controlled by the Libyan authorities, the government has taken full control of Hotel LAICO-UMUBANO and rebranded it to UMUBANO HOTEL.

    In an interview with Igihe, the caretaker of the hotel, Rosemary Mbabazi, noted that operations at the hotel remained normal as the government seeks a professional firm to run the establishment.

    “We want to tell the public that the hotel is running well as usual and will remain operational, and in any case, we aim to offer better services,” Mbabazi, who is also the chairperson of the Board said.

    Sources privy to the ongoing saga affecting the Libyan investments in the country indicate that even before the UN move, the Libya Africa Investment Company commonly known as LAICO had failed to honour its pledge to raise US $25million to renovate the hotel and increase room capacity from 100 to 166.

    The sources further indicated that LAICO had been financially crippled even before the UN resolution, as the government of Rwanda sought for another investor to take over the operations of the hotel.

    Laico Hotel Entrance View

    LAICO took over the running of the hotel through SOPROTEL SARL, a joint shareholding with the government of Rwanda. The Libyan government held 60 percent of shares while the Rwandan government held the remaining 40 percent.

    As the majority shareholder, LAICO took over the management of the Hotel with Mr. Hussein Omrani appointed as SOPROTEL’s Managing Director while Mr. S.Hameeuw, was appointed as the Managing Director of the LAICO management Company. The two people have since been relieved of their duties since the government effected the the UN resolution.

  • Prosecution recommends ten year jail term for exiled Rwandan journalist

    Prosecution in a Kigali court has recommended a ten year jail term in absentia to Rwandan journalist Jean Bosco Gasasira.

    The Umuvugizi chief editor, who is currently exiling in Europe, is accused of the offences, which include incitement aimed at destabilising national security, publication of articles that disrespect the President and violation of several media laws.

     This latest development was a result of an appeal by the prosecutors after an intermediary court in Kigali proved him innocent late September last year. The prosecution argues that the court had not fully scrutinised evidence associated with the cases.

    In this respect, the prosecution gave evidence, which was not given much consideration. Quoting article 69, for instance, the prosecution argued that the local tabloid compared the ruling party Rwanda Patriotic Front to Mugabe’s Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe. The latter has reportedly been accused of oppressing the country’s opposition, which is not case in the Rwandan context.

    Usually, the Umugizi chief editor uses international media like BBC to react to court rulings against him but in this particular occasion, Gasasira has yet to respond. The final judgment will be read by the Supreme Court on 27 May 2011.

    Recently, the Media High Council suspended the local tabloid for a period of six months, after the journalist ignored a number of warnings by the media control body. Subsequent to the suspension, the paper went online without changing its editorial line and cases of media law violations are still eminent on its website version. 

  • SFAR boss says bursary scheme now well evaluated

    When the government scrapped the controversial bursary loans scheme for university students last year, a lot of disorientation arose since there were no proper laid down mechanisms to know determine bona fide beneficiaries, yet the monthly Frw 25,000 bursary fund, popularly known as “bourse” specifically targeted the neediest students to cater for accommodation and food expenses among others.

    However, even among the needy students who are set to benefit, there are those who claim that they are yet to receive the bourse from the Students Financing Agency of Rwanda (SFAR) since the start of the current academic year.

    In an interview with IGIHE.com, the Director General of SFAR, Emma Rubagumya clarified that the agency had decided to first conduct an assessment among the students to determine genuine beneficiaries from imposters.

    “We had to first make a proper evaluation before we could release this money since a lot of mistakes were made when we were implementing this,” Rubagumya observed.

    She disclosed that the evaluation had been conducted by local authorities and other departments in charge and a final list submitted to the SFAR offices on Monday (April 27, 2011). She added that in less than two weeks, beneficiaries would receive the bursary funds in their accounts.

     “We have delisted some students who were not meant to receive this money and they will have to refund it,” the SFR boss cautioned.

    Rubagumya revealed that some of the false beneficiaries were eating from restaurants and renting accommodation facilities on credit, claiming that they would clear the credit upon receiving the bourse. She warned those who may have misguidedly obtained the funds that they would have to reimburse the money to such creditors.

    She announced that the situation was regrettable especially among innocent traders, adding that such students would have to service the arrears and still be delisted from the bursary scheme.

  • SFB students accuse varsity’s administration of insensitivity

    Students at a local university, School of Finance and Banking (SFB) in Gikondo, Kigali, have accused the varsity of poor administration and failure to call assembly meeting to address their grievances.

    “How can the institution spend an year without holding a meeting with students ? They should do something, otherwise we are also human beings, we think and can act,” a student who requested for anonymity told IGIHE.com.

    Others who we interviewed raised issue with the administration’s failure by the Ministry of Education stipulation that students be allowed to work to help finance their studies and upkeep after the government’s removal of the students’ monthly allowance of Frw 25,000, popularly known as bourse.

    According to students, many of them had sought for employment since they had no alternative source to fund their tuition fees. This has however meant that class attendance levels would be affected due to clashing of working and study hours. The institution stands by its policy that if a student attendance status is below 75 percent, this would lead to an automatic year’s repetition of the affected course.

    The students allege that answer sheets in the ongoing exams at the institution indicate that those who did not attain the requisite attendance ratio of 75 percent are separated from those who did. This has resulted in tension and fear that many of those who failed to satisfy the requirement risk repeating the academic year. This further implies that those in their final year would not graduate and will have to re-sit the affected course accompanied by a fee worth RWF 55.000 per course.

    The SFB students also complain about the way the attendance issue is being conducted by the varsity’s administration. They suggest that roll-calls for attendance should be done daily according to the institution’s policy but this does not happen as regularly as expected.

    “How can the authority in charge of roll calls hold them only two or three times in a semester and compute this into a percentage ?” one of the students asked, terming the method as unfair.

    ”We need to do something or else the ministry of education needs to intervene,” said another student who also sought anonymity.

    The students said they had petitioned the Vice Rector in charge of Academics, Dr. Papius Musafiri Marimba, several times to discuss the controversial issues but they claim he has since turned a deaf ear.

    Efforts by IGIHE.com to contact the Public Relations Manager of the institution Mr. Elias Kiyaga were fruitless as the call could not get through by press time.

     

  • ISOKO Theatre relives the genocide through drama

    There’s a scene near the end of The Monument, Colleen Wagner’s searing 1995 drama about wartime atrocities, when a young soldier is forced to remember in detail the 23 women he has raped and murdered. “I killed a girl named Mini. Fifteen. She had a sun-burned face,” he recalls. “A girl named Sara. She wore glasses. She was short and chubby… Eva. She was a swimmer in training for the Olympics.…”

    The list goes on and, as it does, the anonymous, half-rotten corpses in a mass grave begin to take on names and, however rudimentary, identities. It’s an act of resurrection and reclamation that lies at the heart of Wagner’s Governor-General’s Award-winning play. And it becomes the resonant centrepiece of the touring production by Rwanda’s ISÔKO Theatre, which closes Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage season.

    As the soldier, Stetko (Jean Paul Uwayezu), recollects his victims, he draws their personal effects from amid the exhumed bodies – a bracelet, some pimple cream, a crucifix, a bra. Each item is snatched away in turn by a pair of female phantoms (Solange Liza Umuhire and Ruth Nirere) clad in dresses the colour of dried blood. We’re in Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide. But we’re also in Bosnia, the original setting of Wagner’s play, and these personal items – the most poignant touch in director Jennifer H. Capraru’s stark staging – may also remind you of the ones that were raked from the ashes of the Nazi ovens.

    Wagner’s play begins with suggestions of a revenge fantasy. Stetko, about to be executed for his war crimes, is offered a reprieve by a mysterious older woman named Mejra (Jaqueline Umubyeyi). The catch is that he must obey her for the rest of his life.

    After slicing off one of his ears and nearly beating him to a pulp, Mejra turns Stetko into her slave and torments him with mind games concerning the fate of his virgin girlfriend. But it turns out she desires something more than vengeance – it’s that famous casualty of wartime, the truth.

    Leaving aside the characters’ east European names, it would be easy to believe The Monument was originally written about the systematic rape that occurred during the Rwandan genocide, with Stetko as a Hutu fighter and his victims as minority Tutsi. The play’s truth-and-reconciliation theme also jibes with Rwanda’s postwar policies. Capraru, a Canadian, obviously recognized these parallels when she founded ISÔKO a few years ago in Kigali. Her production originated there and has toured Rwanda prior to its North American debut at World Stage.

    The dialogue – performed in Kinyarwanda, with English surtitles – stays faithful to Wagner’s text, but the trappings are entirely East African. The show, in Harbourfront’s flexible Brigantine Room, is presented as intimately as a village storytelling, with the audience seated in a circle around the candlelit playing space. The Rwandan cast members are musicians as well, and there is a cappella singing and drumming during scene transitions. The drums also furnish the few sound effects – Stetko’s beating, a gunshot – while Sandra Marcroft’s subtle lighting does most of the scene-setting.

    The acting is spare and intense. Stetko is Wagner’s variation on the banality-of-evil theme – he’s the Devil as the boy next door – and the lean, handsome Uwayezu brings out the confused and immature kid under his soldier’s swagger. It’s Umubyeyi who most impresses, however. Her Mejra is a fierce enigma for much of the play, regarding Stetko with cold eyes. When at last she unfetters her grief, like a modern Andromache, it’s heart-rending.

    Capraru – who is also artistic director of Toronto’s Theatre Asylum – favours a stylized approach that de-emphasizes the play’s violence and physicality. Instead, we often feel like we are watching an ancient, cathartic ritual. That was probably the best way to offer the play to Rwandan audiences for whom the subject matter alone is bound to be painful. This is a chance to re-appreciate Wagner’s regrettably timeless tale from a fresh perspective.

    ISÔKO is a new intercultural theatre company founded July 4th, 2008 in Kigali, which creates contemporary theatre for human rights. ISÔKO contributes to civil society, social development, and creative economy in Rwanda. The company is founded in the spirit of exchange, to celebrate Rwandan artists and to further global peace building, while promoting equality for women and girls.

    ISÔKO THEATRE is a local NGO based in Rwandaand is partnered withTheatre Asylum, Canada. We are members of Theatres Against War, Dramatool, and Theatre Without Borders, and collaborators each year in the Centre x Centre Kigali International Theatre Festival at Ishyo Arts Centre.

    The Monument

    • Written by Colleen Wagner
    • Directed by Jennifer H. Capraru
    • Starring Jaqueline Umubyeyi, Jean Paul Uwayezu, Ruth Nirere and Solange Liza Umuhire
    • Produced by ISÔKO Theatre and presented by World Stage

     

  • Kagame in New York for Time 100 Event

    President Paul Kagame is in New York where he will, this evening, join a host of celebrities and media personalities at the annual Time 100 Gala at the Lincoln Centre.

    The event honours past and present nominees to the annual Time 100 list, which profiles the most influential people in the world, including artists and activists, reformers and researchers, heads of state and captains of industry.

    President Kagame was nominated to the list by Pastor Rick Warren in 2009, who said that he was “the face of emerging African leadership. His reconciliation strategy, management model, empowerment of women in leadership and insistence on self-reliance are transforming a failed state into one with a bright future. ”

    Rwanda ’s rapid improvements have impressed the rest of the continent and Kagame’s influence is exponentially greater than the size that his small country might warrant.

    Paul Kagame is one of few leaders who has successfully modelled the transition from soldier to statesman. During the atrocities of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, the world watched in horror, but did nothing. Kagame, with no outside help, was solely responsible for ending the slaughter that murdered over a million citizens in 100 days.

    When his best friend was killed, Kagame was forced to assume the leadership of the Rwandan exiles that ended the killing spree. He was hailed as liberator by his countrymen, but wisely refused the presidency at that point.

    “What we needed most was unity”, he said, “and I had not been elected,”

    After the genocide, the nation was in shambles. Kagame and other began the slow process of rebuilding. But the process moved into hyper drive when he was elected president in 2000.

    He launched a series of reforms and reconciliation strategies that have caught the attention of investors worldwide.

    He has since taken Rwanda from division and devastation to unity and stability, fostering a social and economic recovery unimaginable 15 years ago. Even his critics respect his accomplishments.

    Ranked 24th in 2009- the highest ranked African- President Kagame outpolled global luminaries such as Russian Premier Vladimir Putin (35th), Morgan Tsvangarai (32nd), Oprah Winfrey (98th), Australian PM Kevin Rudd (114th), UK’s Gordon Brown (132nd), recently elected South African President Jacob Zuma (180th) and, even more surprisingly, US President Barack Obama, who was ranked 37th.

    What is the TIME Magazine 100 most influential people in the world list ?

    The Time 100 is an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, as assembled by TIME. Developed as a result of a debate among several academics, the list has developed into an annual event.

    The list was started with a debate at a symposium at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center on February 1, 1998 with panel participants CBS news anchor Dan Rather, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, former New York governor Mario Cuomo, then-political science professor Condoleezza Rice, neoconservative publisher Irving Kristol and Time managing editor Walter Isaacson.

    The list was first published in 1999, when Time magazine named the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.

    Based on the popularity of the installment, in 2004 Time magazine decided to make it an annual issue, listing the 100 people most influencing the world. Making the list is frequently mistaken as an honor ; however, Time makes it very clear that people are recognized for changing the world, for better or for worse.

    Those recognized fall in one of five categories : Leaders & Revolutionaries, Builders & Titans, Artists & Entertainers, Scientists & Thinkers, and Heroes & Icons. Within each category, the 20 most influential people (sometimes pairs or small groups) are selected, for a grand total of 100 each year.

    Selection criteria

    In 2004 Time’s editors “identified three rather distinct qualities”, when choosing the Time 100 explained TIME’s Editor-at-Large Michael Elliott :

    First, there were those who came to their status by means of a very public possession of power ; President George W. Bush is the pre-eminent example. Others, though they are rarely heard from in public, nonetheless have a real influence on the great events of our time.

    Think of Ali Husaini Sistani, the Grand Ayatullah of Iraq’s Shi’ites, who in effect has a veto on plans to transfer power from those who occupy his country to its people. Still others affect our lives through their moral example.

    Consider Nelson Mandela’s forgiveness of his captors and his willingness to walk away from the South African presidency after a single term.

    In the 2007, Time 100 list managing editor Richard Strengel explained that the Time 100 was not a list of the hottest, most popular or most powerful people, but rather the most influential, stating :

    Influence is hard to measure, and what we look for is people whose ideas, whose example, whose talent, whose discoveries transform the world we live in. Influence is less about the hard power of force than the soft power of ideas and example.

    Yes, there are Presidents and dictators who can change the world through fiat, but we’re more interested in innovators like Monty Jones, the Sierra Leone scientist who developed a strain of rice that can save African agriculture.

    Or heroes like the great chess master Garry Kasparov, who is leading the lonely fight for greater democracy in Russia. Or Academy Award winning actor George Clooney who has leveraged his celebrity to bring attention to the tragedy in Darfur.

     

  • Primary court judge nabbed obtaining bribe

    A judge was recently caught red-handed in an act of corruption through a clever scheme masterminded by the Police. Liliane Maombi, a Judge at a primary court in Kanombe, Kicukiro District of Kigali, was allegedly caught accepting a bribery of Rfw 100,000 from one Francoise Nyirabihogo.

    The latter was alleged to have committed a criminal offense in a case, which through the progression of the trial did not seem to be turning in her favour .

    This may have perhaps precipitated Maombi to ask for a bribe to alleviate the punishment that Nyirabohogo would potentially receive or better yet to turn the case around and exonerate her . This act of treachery prompted the defendant to take matters into her own hands and consult the police on the issue.

    This led to the formulation of a plot orchestrated by the police that would require Nyirabihogo to go along with this conspiracy.

    The scheme was initiated Wednesday 27 April at around 1.15p.m. after the court’s hearing. Nyirabihogi went on to hand out the money to the accused. On receiving the amount, police officers immediately intercepted the money thereby catching her red-handed. Upon suspicion, the judge reacted by throwing away the bag containing the money, in a pretentious act of rejection.

    Witnesses within the vicinity confirmed the real intents of the accused, some of whom were insiders in the intrigue.

    Maombi is presently apprehended at the Kicukiro Police station awaiting a trail. We shall continue tp update you on this story as details emerge. 

  • Five year ICT plan in services sector underway

    Plans to improve the services sector through the National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) programmes are in progress. This was announced during a one-day conference that brought together officials from the Ministry of ICT along with stakeholders in the information technology sector at Umubano Hotel today.

    The plan follows the first and second NICI’s programmes, which dealt with environment and infrastructure, respectively. The Permanent Secretary in the ministry of ICT, David Kanamugire, highlighted that the plan would give a principle guide towards the country’s ICT programmes in the next five years, adding that the plan would also improve service delivery.

    “We want to make learning easier in schools, for instance, through the use of latest technologies like online studies. In banks too, we want to improve the network connection where one would conduct their transactions at ease, Mutuelle de santé should be automated where a patient can access their medical history in any health centre,” he remarked.

    He encouraged the private sector to work closely with the government in implementing some programmes since they also benefit their business. Kanamugire, however, noted that capacity building matters a lot saying that the private sector’s role was needed.

    “An investor in Kirehe District, for instance, can manage an IT centre and then the government would assist in maintaining the computers,” he alluded.

    Among the main clusters to be considered during the third NICI includes development of skills in ICT, and equipping the private sector with knowhow that enables competitiveness through new technologies. Community development would also be essential especially in transforming societies through improved access to information and services. This also goes hand in hand with e-government, which improves operational efficiency and service delivery.