Minister Auajjar made the remarks on Sunday after a delegation he leads visited Gisozi Genocide Memorial Site where they paid tribute to 250,000 victims laid to rest there.
Minister Auajjar and his delegation arrived at Gisozi Memorial Site, accompanied by the Executive Secretary of the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG), Dr. Jean Damascène Bizimana.
At Gisozi, the Moroccan delegation was shown a documentary film about the bitter times Tutsi went through in the 100 days that left more than a million lives lost in Rwanda.
They visited different parts of Gisozi Genocide Memorial Site as they were explained the history of divisions which led to the 1994 genocide.
Auajjar said what happened is beyond human imagination and efforts should be made to ensure it never happens again.
“My delegation and I were very much touched by what we saw at this site. It was a time to be witnesses of bitter times Rwanda went through but which Rwanda left behind and rebuilt the unity among Rwandans on a foundation of human values, culture, peace and human rights,” he said.
“What President Kagame did here [in Rwanda] makes us Africans proud of his generosity, Rwanda’s strength and capacity in rebuilding itself in a very short time after the genocide. It is a great human, social, cultural and economic success,” he observed adding that Rwanda’s jucidiciary needs to add more efforts in searching for genocide suspects still at large around the world.
Mohammed Auajjar will hold special bilateral talks with Rwanda’s Minister of Justice, Johnston Busingye on Monday January 21 seeking to enhance bilateral partnership in the justice sector.
Currently, salaries of teachers in public nursery schools are paid by parents.
“The Ministry of Education plans that teachers in nursery will be paid salaries by the Government starting with next fiscal year. Efforts by parents are not enough. When the Government doesn’t pay them salaries, there are no planned means to follow them up and train them,” Dr. Ndayambaje said adding that the number of certified nursery teachers is still low and unless the Government sets ways to treat them well, they can’t deliver expected results.
Rwanda Government projects the number of children between five and six years pursuing nursery education to increase from 24% to 45% in the next seven years.
According to the Education Ministry figures of 2017, there were 3,186 nursery schools of which 455 are public with 1,484 being public-private whereas 1,247 schools are private.
In 2017, there were 6,039 nursery school teachers in Rwanda.
The Business Excellence Awards took place on the night of January 18, 2019 amidst pomp and spectacle.
The categories that were awarded this year were; Investor of the Year, Emerging Investor of the Year, Exporter of the Year, Emerging Exporter of the Year, Innovator of the Year, Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Made-in-Rwanda Enterprise of the Year, Emerging Made-in-Rwanda Enterprise of the Year, the Service Provider of the Year and the SME of the Year.
The Investor of the Year Award was given to the I&M Bank Rwanda, while the Emerging Investor Award was given to Afriprecast, a factory that manufactures precast concrete products.
The Exporter of the Year Award was given to the Africa Improved Foods. Last Year, the Food processing company scooped the 2017 Investor Award. The Emerging Exporter of the Year was awarded to Garden Fresh Ltd, a horticulture exporter in Rwanda, which grows and sells fresh vegetables and fruits to international buyers in the UK and Europe.
The Small & Medium Enterprise of the Year is Pascal Technology Limited, a Rwandan software company that provides ICT Solutions to developing countries in Africa, while the Service Provider Award was allocated to Legacy Clinics.
Officiating the event, Rwanda Development Board CEO, Clare Akamanzi noted the importance of the awards, to celebrate the contribution of the private sector, especially when good results have been registered. Ms. Akamanzi highlighted the milestones reached in 2018.
“RDB for the first time registered investments worth US$ 2.006 billion, an increase of 20% when compared to those registered in 2017. Of the total investments registered in 2018, an estimated 26% represents export-oriented projects,” Akamanzi remarked.
“Correspondingly there was a major highlight in the Doing Business performance where we hit our Vision 2020 target of being in the top 30 globally. The World Bank ranked Rwanda 29th globally in its 2019 Ease of Doing Business Report, and 2nd in Africa,” she added.
All these great results, she said, were made possible through strong partnerships.
The Minister of Infrastructure who was also the Guest of Honor at the Business Excellence Awards, Amb. Claver Gatete applauded the results of the Excellence Awards and observed that “when these awards keep getting bigger and better it is a sign that the private sector is growing”.
According to a communiqué released after a High Level Consultation Meeting of Heads of States and Heads of Governments held yesterday in Addis, the participants “attending the meeting concluded that there were serious doubts on the conformity of the provisional results, as proclaimed by the National Independent Electoral Commission, with the votes cast.”
“Accordingly, the Heads of State and Government called for the suspension of the proclamation of the final results of the elections,” the communiqué reads.
The meeting which was chaired by President Paul Kagame also the Chairperson of the African Union agreed to urgently dispatch to the DRC a high-level delegation comprising Kagame and other Heads of State and Government, as well as the Chairperson of the AU Commission, to interact with all Congolese stakeholders, with the view to reaching a consensus on a way out of the post-electoral crisis in the country.
Felix Tshisekedi was announced winner of the presidential elections with 38.57% according to provisional results released by the Congolese National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI).
Martin Fayulu who followed him with 34.83% of votes denounced the results and filed an appeal in the Constitutional Court demanding a manual recount of the votes.
DRC outgoing President Joseph Kabila didn’t attend the meeting that was attended by a number of Heads of State and Government or their representatives from SADC, the ICGLR, ECCAS, ECOWAS, IGAD, EAC, the African members of the UN Security Council, among other officials despite the invitation by President Kagame.
“In arranging for this meeting, I also contacted the President of DRC, President Joseph Kabila, in fact I extended the invitation to him as well. He told me he had wished to participate but because of that exact situation he may not be able to travel,” Kagame said.
In 2016, Col. Always Simba requested for his early release as he had ended the 2/3 of his sentence.
However, the Government of Rwanda opposed his request as it would be against interests of genocide survivors.
In its submission to the Mechanism, Rwanda provided a detailed opinion from an expert in the trauma of genocide victims, who personally interviewed some survivors and reviewed statements from others.
She described how Simba’s release would cause untold trauma for survivors of Kaduha Parish and the Murambi Technical School, where children saw their parents murdered, and parents saw their children murdered. “But Judge Meron somehow overlooked all of this to offer Simba leniency.”
According to a statement released by the Ministry of Justice on Thursday, Judge Theodor Meron who was President of International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MICT) released [Aloys] Simba with utter lack of transparency and the release occurred last week in secret.
The statement says that Judge Meron has yet to make his order public, and he shielded it for days from the rest of the Mechanism. Rwanda was also kept in the dark. Such unchecked, underhanded unilateralism has no place in the administration of international law.
“Judge Meron is aware of Simba’s responsibility for the massacre of more than 40,000 Tutsi children, women and men at Murambi Technical School. Likewise, he knows that at Kaduha Parish, Simba put traditional weapons, guns and grenades into the hands of mass murderers and ordered them to “get rid of this filth” before they converted what should have been a place of refuge into a human slaughterhouse,” it says.
“He should have served his entire prison term,” the statement notes.
Judge Meron was named by the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres as President of the UNNICT for an additional six months mandate slated to end on January 18th, 2019.
The Government of Rwanda says that during his tenure as President of the MICT, “Judge Meron has consistently reversed convictions, considerably reduced sentences on appeal, and released early genocidaires responsible for the worst massacres with no regard for the victims and survivors.”
In his last days as President of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, the statement says, Judge Meron cemented his legacy of undermining international criminal justice by releasing Aloys Simba in the dark of night, eight years before the end of his sentence.
The Government of Rwanda says it cannot know whether Judge Meron released Mr. Simba for health concerns, something the Government of Rwanda might not necessarily oppose. “Kept in the dark, however, it cannot know whether this is the case.”
The Government of Rwanda urges the next President to take more seriously the law and the facts, when reviewing applications for early release.
“We likewise urge the next President to operate in an open and transparent manner, so that the Government of Rwanda and others with an interest in the cases pending before the MICT have notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond to pleadings and orders,”
Col. Aloys Simba, 81, served as Presidential Advisor on Security in former Gikongoro and Butare Prefectures before the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi.
Adding to the initial funding which was worth 146.9 million Euros, the entire funding to the program is now 261.9 million Euros.
The financing is to cover water supply infrastructures in Rutsiro, Karongi, Rubavu, Nyabihu, Ngororero Kamonyi, Muhanga, Ruhango Nyanza, Bugesera, Ngoma, Kayonza, Gatsibo, Nyagatare and Musanze Districts including sanitation facilities to ten schools.
Water access in these districts is currently averaged at 45 percent, 40% lower than the national average which stands at 85%.
About more than 1.5 million people will get improved water supply services with 700,000 of them living in rural and peri-urban areas raising the total number of beneficiaries of the whole project to 5.4 million at completion in June 2023.
“This funding will improve the quality of life and socio-economic development of the people and promote economic growth and transformation,” said the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning after the signing of the agreement.
The AfDB Rwanda Country Manager Mrs. Martha Phiri said, “This additional financing increases the on-going Bank support to the water and sanitation sector in Rwanda to €282 million, demonstrating the Bank’s desire and readiness to match the Government of Rwanda’s ambitions to achieve speedy socio-economic transformation.”
As per objectives of the National Strategy for Transformation one (NST-1), Rwanda projects that by 2024, all households, schools and commercial facilities will have reliable access to clean water and sanitation services.
The meeting slated to be held tomorrow on January 17th, 2019 will see 16 Heads of State and Government at the African Union (AU) headquarters convene in Addis, Ethiopia.
The meeting will be preceded by the emergency meeting of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) in which Kagame also was invited in.
The Democratic Republic of Congo held provincial and presidential elections on December 30th, 2018 after which the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) in DRC announced Felix Tshisekedi the winner.
Martin Fayulu, a presidential candidate, dismissed the results and filed an appeal at the Constitutional Court.
In a hearing on Tuesday, the Prosecutor told Court that Fayulu had no ample evidence supporting his allegations that elections were rigged hence demanding the manual recounting of votes.
SADC also advised the DRC to verify the votes proposing a unity government comprised of sides of Martin Fayulu and Félix Tshisekedi in a bid to avoid violence and restore peace.
News of Kayibanda’s abduction was released by the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and East African Community Affairs, Amb. Olivier Nduhungirehe who said Kayibanda was kidnapped in Kampala, Uganda by the County’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) agents.
In a tweet, Olivier Nduhungirehe posted two pictures of Kayibanda and said: “This is Rogers Donne Kayibanda . He arrived in Kampala, Uganda on Thursday 10 January 2019 to attend the civil wedding of his brother, which took place the following day Friday 11 January 2019.”
“He was kidnapped after the ceremony in Kisasi, Kampala suburb, by CMI [Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence] operatives,” Nduhungirehe’s tweet continues.
News of Kayibanda’s kidnapping follows several other kidnappings faced by Rwandans in Uganda with some of them subjected to torture.
On Sunday, following the abduction of Fidel Gatsinzi, another Rwandan citizen who was also arrested in Uganda, one Rama Isibo asked what the Government of Rwanda is doing about the ‘illegal detention of Rwandans in Uganda” to which the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Dr. Richard Sezibera replied: “[Rwandan] Government is doing all that is feasible to bring Rwandans home …and asking them to be prudent in harm’s way.”
During the 23rd edition of the annual special prayer breakfast themed “Transformative Leadership” held at the Kigali Convention Centre, the President particularly reminded those present that Rwanda cannot be people who need to be taught values continuously: “Like a watch you have to keep resetting or a ball with a hole that you have to keep inflating.”
“What mindset will we take home? How will we take what we have learned and apply it to what we do? Instilling godly values in leadership means those values have to be part of who we are,” Kagame urged those present.
The president advised leaders to be defined by unity, thinking big and accountability for their responsibilities as leaders.
“Being a team is about bringing people together. We are one team working for the country, fulfilling our responsibility and thinking big. We have to think beyond the next day, think about the generations ahead and what we want to accomplish. Accountability is about the discipline of work, upholding the values that define us,” President Kagame noted.
Casting light on what would elevate one beyond petty actions, the Head of State advised on reflecting on one’s actions and evaluating each other honestly. “This is what will allow you to practice the values that should define us,” he said
“Let us uphold the right values and give ourselves the respect we deserve,” he added
President Kagame also warned that Religion should not be seen as an anesthetic that allows one to be numb to the hard challenges one must face.
“I don’t think there is any other continent that prays more than the African continent. But prayers must be met with action. Actions towards what we want to accomplish and our goals,” President Kagame advised.
Organized by the Rwanda Leaders Fellowship (RLF), the prayer meeting brings together leaders in top positions for fellowship around a breakfast, to reflect on the milestones that the nation has achieved praying for the nation and its leaders.
Initiated in 1995, the RLF is attended by cabinet members, lawmakers, members of the judiciary, police and military top brass, private sector and civil society, including church leaders.
Dr. Livingstone Byamungu and his four children, twin boys Calvin Ngabo and Caleb Nziza, who were 17 years old, Carl Manzi, 15 and Bless Chelsea Uwase who was four years old passed on following the car accident that occurred in the night of December 30, last year.
Byamungu died on spot with his children after his car collided with a trailer in a crash that involved three cars.
Dorcas Mukagatare, wife to Byamungu and mother to the deceased four children survived the accident with her brother Dan Rutaremara who was driving the car on the fateful night.
The accident took place in Lwengo on Masaka-Mbarara road in Uganda where they had gone for festive holidays to visit Byamungu’s mother who lives in Uganda where Byamungu was born in May 1968.
In her sad testimony, Dorcus Mukagatare who was left alone in her 7-people family after losing her husband and her four children- with the oldest daughter who had died in March 2018- said she felt she had no reason to keep living and if it had not been God, she would have committed suicide.
“I am alive only because I know God. Hadn’t I known God, I would have taken pills to kill me. Knowing God lives helped me understand everything happens for a reason,” she said.
“God left me to thank you in the name of Dr. Livingstone and live with you while Ngabo, Nziza, Manzi and Bless [Chelsea Uwase] are not around,” she said crying adding: “Please bear with me, I would not have wished to be here without those people I have just mentioned but the Lord’s plans differ much from human’s.”
She said: “Except the days we laid our brothers and sisters who died in the 1994 genocide against Tutsi to rest, I have never attended a funeral of three, four people who died together.”
“Dr. Livingstone [Byamungu] was a very good and responsible husband. We had been together as wife and husband for almost 20 years. He loved me and our children very much. He helped me study and graduate. I have nothing to tell you or blame you. Only, rest in everlasting peace in Lord.
“I had very good children who loved God and people. They helped me and they have been at my side even after our first born passed away.”
Mukagatare told a story that brought many to tears when she recounted how she gave birth to her last child, Bless Chelsea Uwera.
She said Uwase was born 12 years after she had decided to stop giving birth and said she was born for a reason. “I am very much sad she is not here today with me.”
“After our first child who was a girl passed on in March last year, my sons told me Bless had been born in her place as she came later being a girl. I was very shocked that God took Bless away from me but he knows why. For me, I would have wished to have gone with them all where I would be together with them but it didn’t happen like that,” she said with a slow sad voice crying leaving a minute of silence before she emphasized to say “Lord knows the reason.”
Mukagatare said what happened to her also happened to Lord’s servant Job and he remained faithful to God.
“Like Job, I want to let you know today that Almighty God will always be my God in the good and the bad and he reigns eternally,” she said.
Mukagatare promised to the mother of his husband, Livingstone to be her daughter though she can’t fit in his son’s shoes.
In other testimonies told about Dr. Livingstone Byamungu, he was described as an ardent follower of God and had contributed to construction of St Peter Anglican Church house in Remera, reason why he was bid last farewells inside that church.
“He always told me the ‘best is yet to come’ and it was the word on his WhatsApp profile picture,” said his younger brother who now lives in Uganda.
Dr. Livingstone Byamungu was the Chief Investment Officer at Development Bank of Rwanda (BRD) after having served several other roles in Private Sector Federation (PSF), Health Poverty Action, World Vision and German Agro-Action.
