South African based Rwandan billionaire and former Kagame confidante set to become latest victim
Johannesburg – A climate of fear among investors in Rwanda is hovering over the country after the Government's move to confiscate one of the top multimillion dollar private investments in the country.
Kigali plans to start with the confiscation of the mega Union Trade Centre at the heart of the capital's central business district claiming it is an abandoned business.
According to a letter sent to UTC proprietors by Rwanda's Prosecutor General, Mr Martin Ngoga, which Daily Monitor has reliably obtained, the government has ordered an immediate freeze of all the centre's bank accounts with Access Bank Limited.
Mr Ngoga's directive also orders for the freezing of bank accounts of UTC's primary stakeholder and Rwandan billionaire Tribert Ayabatwa Rujugiro and his wife Ms Nathalie Mukagatete.
Mr Rujugiro is the UTC founder and its largest shareholder.
Efforts to reach Mr Ngoga for a comment were futile as his mobile was switched off.
The Rwanda National Prosecuting Authority on 8 August instructed Access Bank to freeze the investor and his wife's 12 accounts allegedly to facilitate "ongoing criminal investigations."
However, the billionaire has dismissed the allegations as wild and ill-constructed.
In his first interview on the subject, he has expressed disappointment towards Mr Paul Kagame's government for such attacks on businesses.
"These actions by the Rwanda government are incomprehensible to me. UTC is an incorporated entity in Rwanda and a good corporate citizen since 2006. It pays tax and has not broken any laws," Mr Rujugiro told the Daily Monitor in an exclusive interview in Johannesburg, South Africa recently.
The $20 million Union Trade Centre is a business home to over 80 companies. Over 400 workers both local and foreign are earning a living from this investment located in Rwanda's Capital, Kigali.
The government is using the law enacted in 2004 to takeover property abandoned by individuals who fled the country after the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
Critics say the law provides a window for the government to expel any investor who is opposed to the government at will and confiscate their property as an abandoned business.
Ordinary Rwandans, according to Mr Rujugiro, are instead becoming victims as a result of this particular law.
"Why play strange games around the livelihoods of hard-working Rwandan businesses and workers? For me building successful businesses in Africa and in my native Rwanda is primarily about people and prosperity-creation," he said, adding that only then can Africans expand their resources base in order to cut down dependency on handouts from the west and east.
"That government wants to seize or destabilise it (UTC'S) is sad indeed. Actions such as this we are seeing in Rwanda of wanting to takeover an asset do not create prosperity, they destroy prosperity that is moreover created and grown from within. It is our people who suffer the consequences, not the government," Mr Rujugiro said, sounding a rude awakening to over 400 workers in Kigali whose jobs are on the line as a result of the Rwandan government's planned takeover of the UTC.
Mr Rujugiro, who now lives in South Africa, is a former advisor to President Kagame on entrepreneurship as part of Kagame's Presidential Advisory Committee alongside former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US Ex President Bill Clinton.
The Rwandan billionaire says he decided to migrate permanently to South Africa after realising the President's increasingly growing disapproval for opposing views.
Mr Rujugiro owns a chain of multimillion dollar investments across the continent in tobacco, cement, snack foods, tea, real estate and banking.
Mr Kagame, it is said, has increasingly become fearful of the billionaire's proximity to powerful Rwandan exiles such as Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa and Col. Patrick Karegeya both of whom are in South Africa, a link Mr Rujugiro vehemently denies.
Mr Kagame's attitude towards the business community and individuals opposed to his economic and political policies has raised concern of late, with some commentators saying it has become a big threat to the country's local and foreign investment.
"The government is abusing its own laws to stop independent investment. For instance the UTC in Kigali opened 12 years after the genocide and it is an excellent corporate citizen with five shareholders. For the Rwandan government to suggest it has been abandoned by its owners is laughable at best," Dr David Himbara, a Rwandan economist told Daily Monitor in an interview on Thursday.
Mr Himbara, a former senior advisor to President Paul Kagame on policy and strategy said such action by the Rwandan government to seize private property and businesses does not have a place in the modern age.
"It's illegal and unethical. The government neither notified Rujugiro of its plans to freeze the accounts nor did it allow for any legal recourse. This is the most ridiculous and unheard of decision by the government that I have ever come across," he said.
Meanwhile the World Bank's "Doing Business in the East African Community (EAC) 2013" report launched March this year ranks Rwanda among the top East African Community economies to introduce regulatory reforms that have improved the business environment between 2005 and 2012.
Globally, Rwanda is rated 52nd.
The World Bank report also highlights Rwanda's success in cutting red tape and encouraging private sector led growth. The report says "Rwanda's commitment to private sector development has facilitated growth in exports, domestic investment and foreign direct investment inflows—and the implementation of effective fiscal policies supported by structural and institutional reforms."
However, Dr Himbara disputed the report's findings. "Today you have a government terrorizing its investors and confiscating private property and business at will in Rwanda and tomorrow you have a World Bank report placing the country at the helm of investment destinations in Africa. How do you reconcile the two?"
He said unlike other countries, in Rwanda the power to open and close a business is entirely in the hands of the executive especially the President – and government investment structures such as the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) – are only mask institutions.
Repeated calls to the RDB Acting Chief Executive Officer Miss Claire Akamazi for a comment went unanswered. The Board, however, states on its website that "It is truly a one stop shop for all investors."
"The RDB is independent and influential," it says but quickly adds:"It reports directly to the President.
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