Rwanda continues to be desperate as Uganda continues to keep businessman Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa in the country as he does his business.

The government through the RPF owned paper The New Times online version claims the businessman is a fugitive even though it presents no evidence to that claim.

The regime in Kigali says Rujugiro Ayabatwa is involved with ‘a group’ that has declared war on Rwanda’s legitimate government and to tarnish the leadership of Rwanda in a string of unchallenged claims and allegations.

The regime seem not to be happy with Sunday Vision of March 17, for running the businessman’s interview. “In a question and answer newspaper interview, normally the journalist interjects with probing, insightful, researched questions as a check against a subject using a newspaper – or magazine, or other news medium – as a platform to air their misinformation,” says Grace Kamugisha who wrote what seems to be a paid-up article and yet claims Sunday Vision’s article was paid for and planted by Ugandan state actors.

“The man merely says everything that serves him (and his partners in the highest levels of the Ugandan government) to misinform the public about the true nature of his; and by extension his Kampala partners’, problems with Kigali. We shall come to that. A good interview strives to show there are two sides to a story. In this one the Sunday Vision has thrown balance completely out the window,” he cries.

The writer who seem to be writing on behalf of the Rwandan government seem to have other reasons why Rujugiro left Rwanda other than on principle and mistreatment where government took over his commercial properties and the like.

“The facts are that Rujugiro left Rwanda because his business practices – the ones that have made him successful in a number of African countries including Uganda where he has a tobacco processing plant in Arua – were completely incompatible with Kigali’s anti-corruption and graft-intolerant ethic in running its state affairs,” he says.

The record shows that wherever Rujugiro has worked and his businesses succeeded, those countries are characterized by high levels of graft. It is the kind of countries that regularly score poorly on Transparency International indices, he alleges.

He alleges Rujugiro left Rwanda in 2010 after repeated issues with the administration because of his ‘shady business practices’. “He did not like to pay taxes. He expected that because he had contributed to the liberation struggle he would be exempted from paying taxes. When that did not happen he became very unhappy,” he says.

The website says he would constantly offer kickbacks to policy makers to exempt him from the rules of doing business that applied to all other businessmen and women. “He found out that graft like that had no place in Rwanda,” he says.

“Rujugiro’s methods had worked well in Burundi – where he cut his teeth in the business world – and other places like Uganda where stories of monstrous scams have dogged Museveni’s rule from day one,” he alleges.

He alleges that as a smuggler of cigarettes in Bujumbura, and then rose during the administration of Jean Baptiste Bagaza from the mid-1970s to late 80s. Rujugiro corrupted a number of officials to, among other things, avoid taxes and kill competition. “When Pierre Buyoya took power, he locked the Rwandan up for three years in Bujumbura central jail for the offences,” he says.

He says another country where Rujugiro’s corrupt practices landed him into big trouble was South Africa. In November 2006 South African Revenue Services (SARS) officials barricaded his cigarette manufacturing company in Wilsonia, Eastern Cape amid a 57 million Rand fraud case against Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa and his senior employees, he says.

News reports said agents of SARS swooped on the premises of the company, Mastermind Tobacco Company, sealing all its entrances.

Rujugiro, knowing SARS was on his case for his fraudulent activities had already fled SA, and couldn’t go back there. He was in Rwanda at the time. Reports are that President Kagame repeatedly advised him to clear his issues with South Africa and “to not tarnish Rwanda’s good name like that”.

He alleges that on October 13, 2008 London Police (Scotland Yard) arrested the Rwandan businessman at Heathrow Airport. “They acted on an Interpol red notice following an international arrest warrant put out by South Africa,” he alleges.

Scotland Yard would release Rujugiro – with a leg bracelet to monitor his movements – after he agreed to pay the South African taxman US$ 7.I million in arrears.

“But journalism was not the aim of the paper’s interview. The politics of Kampala’s antagonism against Rwanda was the aim,” he cries.

He alleges Rujugiro left Rwanda in 2010 with a vengeful heart, to fund dissidents fighting Rwanda including Kayumba Nyamwasa, boss of RNC – the rebel group that’s facilitated by President Museveni in plots to bring war back to Rwanda.

He alleges part of Rujugiro’s anti-Rwanda efforts is to finance RNC misinformation, such as paying one David Himbara, the rebel group’s chief propagandist that’s based in Canada. It is a matter of record that in September 2017 for instance, Rujugiro through Himbara paid the Washington DC lobby firm Podesta Inc US$ 440,000.

According to the writer, the aim was to buy access to the US Congress, for Himbara to level allegations of a nature to smear and tarnish Rwanda. In the interview, Rujugiro claims, “if he funded rebels against Rwanda, it would fall in six months. But his payments to Himbara, and to US lobbyist firms show he indeed is funding RNC.

The writer alleges Rujugiro, “channels through Himbara ample sums of money to go into RNC operations. “This renders his claim – that if he funded RNC the government of Rwanda would fall in six months,” he says adding that that was an idle boast.

He alleges Rujugiro’s tobacco company in Arua is not benefitting Ugandans. “A Kigali-based observer, speaking anonymously, comments that he would advise Ugandan lawmakers to immediately investigate that company, Meridian Tobacco Company, to ascertain whether it really is paying its tax obligations to Ugandans,” he alleges

Enter Gen. Saleh

The writer accuses Gen. Salim Saleh, President Museveni’s brother, as being a shareholder, with a fifteen percent stake in Rujugiro’s company. “Meridian Tobacco’s documents at the Uganda registry of companies show that. “The fact Saleh is involved already is a glaring red flag that this is a fraudulent company!” the analyst commented,” he alleges.

He alleges that Saleh has been involved in “hundreds of crooked activities he has perpetrated, or participated in down the decades his brother has been in power. It should also be noted that in all Saleh’s crooked activities, he has done everything on behalf of Museveni. “The hand of Museveni is never absent in Saleh’s activities,” he alleges.

“Rujugiro’s interview is peppered throughout with personal attacks on President Kagame. It however is a new kind of low for the Ugandan paper to allow Rujugiro drag the President’s family into a polemic they have nothing to do with,” he said.

“All that cannot obscure the fact Rujugiro is in partnership with the Ugandan authorities in the mutual goal to destabilize Rwanda. It also cannot take away the fact a renowned fraudster – that happens to be the chief financier of one of the main terrorist groups against Rwanda – is running a firm that only is a front for that group, with the partnership of Ugandan government officials,” he alleges.
Eagle Online couldn’t a comment from Gen. Saleh on the above allegations as he didn’t answer his mobile phone.

Uganda has denied accusations that it is hosting elements that want to destabilize Rwanda.

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Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Eng. Irene Muloni, is on Thursday expected to commission Isimba Hydro Power project.

The construction of the 183 megawatts project was launched in 2013, with the construction works beginning in 2015. The contractors, China Water and Electrical Company Limited are finalizing the construction process with the dam built and the generating equipment installed.

The Isimba Hydro Power project cost US$567 million with 85 percent funding from the Chinese government and 15 percent from Government of Uganda. The 47 months project period ends on 31 March 2019 and it will be inter-connected to the Bujagali power dam 42 km away in Jinja.

According to a statement released by the Chairperson of the Steering Committee of Isimba Hydro Power, Eng. Badru Kiggundu, the operational handover will take place at Uganda Electricity Generational Company Limited and there will be a defect liability period of two years within which if anything develops, it will be the responsibility of the contractor to rectify.

“During the defect liability period of two years, the contractor, China Water and Electrical Company Limited will construction a bridge across the river linking Kayunga to Kamuli Districts,” said Kiggundu

He said that the bridge will be in two spans; one from Kayunga to Kuva Island and the other from Kuva Island to Kamuli side. These are realistic developments and as a country, this is one of the flagship projects followed by the bigger brother Karuma.

“The project has been realized due to the good bilateral relations between Ugandan and Chinese presidents and said Ugandans should be proud of the project. Let us take advantage of the power that will be poured on the grid not just to light our homes but to establish factories; they don’t have to be very big so that we can realize some revenue out of this added power,” he said.

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