The government of Rwanda has been paying an entity called the William Davidson Institute US$ 343,000 (Frw 185,220,000) a year, supposedly for it to turn the Mburabuturo-based School of Finance and Banking into a center of academic excellence, "an internationally accredited business school that is recognized as a leader in the East Africa region."

While rector Krishna Govenda and WDI run SFB as mercenaries, Board chairman John Rwangombwa and Education Minister Daphrose Gahakwa do nothing to defend the Rwandan interests.

What has happened instead is exactly the opposite-SFB, not a renowned learning institution in the first place, now risks becoming a true centre of mediocrity.

The William Davidson Institute (WDI) is based at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, USA. It describes itself on its website as a non-profit independent research and educational institute dedicated to developing and disseminating expertise.

This description is exactly what Rwandan authorities wanted in a consulting institution to turn SFB into a high class incubator of future local and regional business talent to take up leadership positions and to staff private and government institutions nationally and beyond.

In June 2006 the government signed a contract with WDI to take over the running of SFB. But right from the word go WDI began to display what one can only call mercenary behavior; behavior that representatives of Rwanda's interests such as John Rwangombwa the secretary general of the Ministry of Finance and also chairman of the SFB Board of Directors, and Romain Murenzi the education minister at the time shouldn't have allowed to go on for even one month.

First of all according to the 'Strategic plan for the School of Finance and Banking' that WDI presented to the Ministry of Education, they were "to recruit qualified candidates to fill three critical leadership positions to coordinate the required activities for future improvement of the school." The positions were rector, vice rector for academic affairs and vice rector for administration and finance.

But WDI did not do this.

For almost a year they brought in no permanent rector. Rather they brought in a lady from the US called Gerlinda Melchiori as interim rector to replace Uzziel Ndagijimana, a government appointee. No one made it very clear exactly what Ms. Melchiori's credentials were either.

In the meantime WDI also did not honor its commitment to fill the other two leadership posts.

Days came and went and John Rwangombwa raised not a voice of protest about this glaring discrepancy. That fell upon the new education minister Jean d'Arc Mujawamariya who had replaced Romain Murenzi. The new minister took a look at the SFB situation and became very unhappy.

In email exchanges Focus has seen, Ms. Mujawamariya insists WDI do what it said it would and in an email to Mr. Rwangombwa she suggests he take action as chairman of the board.

In another email-dated May 9 2007-to the executive director of WDI Robert Kennedy, Ms. Mujawamariya writes, "Dear Robert, it has been a long time without any news about the appointment of the new rector for SFB and the school has only an acting rector who you have told us will be here for a short period. Dear Bob (Robert) patience has come to an end and we do not expect to get something interesting from WDI."

She continues, "Remember you promised to be fast to provide a rector; the rector was supposed to join SFB in January 2007, now we are in May 2007."

Kennedy reacted by protesting that Ms. Mujawamariya wasn't being diplomatic, but promised a new rector was on the way. It turned out none was.

Ms. Mujawamariya was determined to take WDI to task to do their contracted work, whatever they would say, and in another email to Kennedy she wrote, "Dear Robert, why do you keep postponing? We have no more time to waste please."

In all this Mr. Rwangombwa was a passive citizen, a Ntibindeba of the first category.

Being the board chair from the start he had been observing the actions of WDI long before Ms. Mujawamariya became education minister. Mr. Rwangombwa would chair board meetings, see what was going on, say exactly nothing and cheerfully sign away more than Frw 185 million of scarce tax payer's money knowing very well this is in return for no value.

In May last year Ms. Mujawamariya wrote Mr. Rwangombwa an email in Kinyarwanda, a small part of which we translate: "John, I think you can see these people (WDI) really are not serious. You can also see they have taken much money and produced nothing."

If the minister expected the man to get out of his cocoon and do anything she must have been sorely disappointed. Mr. Rwangombwa carried on with business as usual.

We tried to get in touch with him for a comment but when he learnt what it was we wanted him talk about he declined. I sent the Minecofin secretary general a text message, "Sir, you are chairman of the SFB board; we would like to know why WDI is running the institution like a bunch of mercenaries and what you are doing about it. Thanks." No response. I tried again later, "Afternoon Sir, did you receive my message concerning SFB this morning?" No response up to now.

WDI sells us air

Learning conditions at SFB were bad before WDI took over management of the institution. They have gotten much worse after they came in.

WDI signed its contract with the government promising many wonderful things which they listed in their so called strategic plan for SFB. What they did instead is what Ugandans call "selling air."

When they finally did hire a rector-in June 2007, fully a year after the Michigan-based organization signed its contract with Rwanda-it was a South African, one Prof. Krishna Govender. Mr. Govender's being a South African shouldn't have been a problem-except that WDI had made everyone believe they were bringing American academic expertise and research methods to SFB.

As it turned out, Mr. Govender looks like the perfect candidate to carry on with the mercenary methods of his bosses. To fill the post of vice rector for academic affairs the new rector sourced one Prof. Erasmus Kaijage from neighboring Tanzania.

Well, at least he is a professor and technically his credentials suit him for that post but for sure one thing he and WDI haven't done and haven't began to do is what they promised in a vice rector of academic affairs. This is: to evaluate SFB curricula in relation to that of top business schools in the US and to develop a plan for the development, recruitment and retention of high quality faculty.

But it was Mr. Govender's hiring of one local staff, Nathan Gashaija as the rector for administration and finance that erased any doubts as to the scam-like operation of WDI at Mburabuturo.

Nathan Gashaija definitely wasn't qualified for the post they gave him; the man is an undergraduate of Butare University with no teaching experience whatsoever, let alone university administration.

Mr. Govender's little scam in hiring Mr. Gashaija is truly comical when one learns that part of Mr. Gashaija's job description is to evaluate a program at SFB administered by the Maastricht School of Management (in the Netherlands). This is a program in which Mr. Gashaija himself happens to be a student.

When asked to explain, Mr. Govender fell back to the default position of his WDI bosses whenever they decide to give posts to non-qualified personnel: Mr. Gashaija was only there in an acting capacity. Mr. Gashaija's job has only recently been re-advertised-meaning he has been there an entire year, long after the stipulated maximum of three months for anyone in an acting position.

All this goes on and individuals supposed to be representing Rwanda's interests raise not a squeak of protest; not since Ms. Mujawamariya was made gender minister and a new lady, Daphrose Gahakwa, took over at Mineduc anyway.

Ms. Gahakwa's response when we asked her whether she now is familiar about the goings on at SFB (which she should since she took over her new duties six months ago) was truly puzzling. The lady answered her phone and as soon as I mentioned the words WDI and SFB she cut me off. I tried calling again; the phone rang and rang but there was no answer.

Near student riots at SFB

To go to SFB and look around is to feel great pity for the students. The classes are badly overcrowded-one teacher told us in certain cases there are 500 students in one class so that the instructor has to use a microphone, but even then the acoustics are so bad what he says is barely understandable.

There are next to nothing internet facilities for the students; local teaching staff-who are the overwhelming majority of the staff-are very discontent; there is an atmosphere of enmity between the rector and staff, stemming mainly from low pay for heavy workloads and so on.

Sometimes lecturers get overwhelmed by the amount of work they are supposed to mark and grade.

One part time lecturer, Serge Musana, almost caused a riot when he couldn't produce graded results of students in May this year. Mr. Musana taught two papers in two classes-respectively quantitative techniques of business 1 and 2-and he taught a total of 1400 students. He had only two weeks to mark the work. He couldn't.

SFB administration blamed the near riot from this incident not only on Mr. Musana but also on the school's head of the finance department, Lillian Kyantengwa whom Mr. Govender decided to relieve of her duties for "failing to manage that case."

Ms. Kyantengwa threatened to sue saying if a lecturer was so overloaded that he couldn't properly mark work that couldn't be her problem but rather an issue of staff numbers. The rector re-instated her.

But the marking incident wasn't the only one to almost cause a student riot. Second year students discovered they had been taught only 28 percent of the Quantitative Techniques paper and furiously demanded that it be re-taught. So the entire class repeated the paper.

"We complain about these and other problems to the rector but instead of trying to find solutions he only resorts to intimidation and hopes that through fear the staff will do everything with unquestioning obedience," said Eldard Rwamatungo the representative of the SFB academic staff.

Mr. Rwamatungo is coming off a suspension he deems unfair and that he has decided to contest in court. Mr. Govender told Focus he suspended Mr. Rwamatungo because "he was insubordinate and that he refused to teach some classes he is supposed to."

Mr. Rwamatungo says his problem is that he raised a complaint on behalf of the academic staff to the vice rector academic affairs, Erasmus Kaijage. "When I finished talking, Kaijage began telling me he did not want to listen to my nonsense and rubbish," says Mr. Rwamatungo. "I told Kaijage never to insult me again; I think that is what they call insubordination."

Mr. Rwamatungo's suspension was for one month without pay.

"We have told Rwangombwa of our problems but have gotten no help from him," said the representative of the academic staff.

In an email to the WDI executive director, we asked him what, if anything, they intended to do about the appalling situation at SFB. Kennedy wrote back a set of platitudes about the great work they have done improving SFB, and plans they have to transform the institution into a center of academic excellence in the near future.