Veteran journalist Andrew Mwenda has denied allegations that he was paid US$200,000 by the Rwandan government for running adverts in his independent Magazine in 2008.
A document circulating on social media indicates that the money was paid on Mwenda’s personal account in Barclay Bank in London, information which he says is fake as the money should have been sent to the company’s account.
“Can’t you see it’s a fake? How can one pay an ad in a newspaper as a classified “operation”? And how can GoR pay for ads on the basis of a letter not an invoice? And to a personal bank account instead of a company account? He responded when asked about the purported transaction.
The journalist who has a close relationship with both Presidents Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame wondered how a magazine that launched in December 2007 could be able to get an advert worth that huge amount of money by March 2008.
“If anyone wanted to forge a document they could have forged a headed paper for the independent or at best an invoice! And they would have stamped the document,” he said.
However the Rwandan government advertises in his magazine and that he said cannot be a secret, more so that the publication is not a charity. He added the government of Ugandan advertises in the Independent six or seven times more than that of Rwanda.
The document started circulating yesterday two days after Mwenda wrote about the current Uganda-Rwanda border stand-off and Rwanda’s accusations that Uganda was hosting enemies of the Kigali regime.
In the article Mwenda said Uganda has not listened to Rwanda’s concerns, which has not gone well with a section of Ugandans with some responding to him in equal measure.