Focus Media (Kigali)
8 July 2009
opinion
In his most recent press conference, President Kagame was unsparing in his criticism of members of the local media.
Journalists in Rwanda, said the President, are themselves corrupt. Speaking slowly and deliberately the President launched further criticisms. Journalists do not do thorough or proper research of whatever they write or say, he said. "They do not look for information, expecting instead that it will come to them." "How do you expect someone to bring damning information about himself to you?" asked the President. "You have to diligently look for that information yourself."
The President clearly is not impressed with us, and he let us have it. And events in recent days, when a couple of journalists and a third accomplice were arrested allegedly trying to extort half a million francs from a businesswoman seem to have buttressed what Mr. Kagame accuses journalists of, at least as far as corruption is concerned.
But in his displeasure Mr. Kagame seems to have forgotten the golden rule when you are criticizing any group of people: the condemnation can't be blanket. And that goes even for Rwandan journalists.
I will be the first to agree that the local media indeed is in a parlous state, and lack of professionalism is way up there as one of its main problems.
But even among members of our Fourth Estate there are a few exceptions here and there; there are those who endeavor to do their job well and who every now and then present an honest, balanced, well-researched news report despite many odds (the best example I can give is Orinfor employees who work under the most thankless conditions - dilapidated studios and offices, bad salaries, appallingly poor management that is an added factor in their misery, management that cannot ensure reporters have even the most basic equipment such as microphones or recorders, or even studio makeup, leave alone decent cameras - but bring the news to Rwandans morning, day and night).
I am sure the President would not for instance go as far as saying that Rwandan cabinet ministers are a corrupt, incompetent and lazy lot even as evidence is there to support the assertion if he made it. Why? 1) Because the criticism would be unfair, for there are good, honest, competent ministers in our government, and 2) it would collectively diminish the dignity of these public servants if the Prez decided to publicly unload on them.
And neither would the President make the following statements about members of the judicial system: our judges are corrupt; our prosecutors take bribes; they are incompetent and they will lock up people before making a thorough investigation, etc etc. All of which statements are true by the way, but cannot apply to all and sundry.
Yes, we have problems in the Fourth Estate, but scathing criticism from the Head of State will not help solve those problems (much as Mr. Kagame is at the forefront of efforts to develop a better media in the country).
The bottom line is the media we have in Rwanda is a true representation of all other institutions in the country, both in the public and private sectors.
Corruption (which, one cannot forget to mention, Kagame is fighting tooth and nail), and incompetence are everywhere you look. Dashed or botched government plans, unattained promises, unreached goals are ample evidence of lack of capacity and required human resources in all our institutions.
The media happens to be in the firing line only because by its nature it happens to be the most publicly visible sector (who else after all is on national television every month interacting with the President?).
But we will become better as the country grows, as the private sector (the existence of a vibrant and sizable private sector being the essential precondition for a strong, vibrant media) grows and as pay scales in the industry improve to attract and retain talent.
The Remera plot grab and the possibility the President has been misinformed about it
Among the issues raised at the press conference was a story we published in this newspaper on 11 May headlined 'Mutsindashyaka, Nyinawagaga give an old man grief.'
We reported in the story that former Kigali City Mayor and now State Minister for Primary and Secondary School Education Theoneste Mutsindashyaka conspired with Gasabo Mayor Claudine Nyinawagaga to grab the plot of one Camille (we prefer to use the Kinyarwanda spelling of his name, Kamiri) Batsinda.
When a journalist, referring to our story, asked the President what he would do about the offending officials, the President replied that he had different information from what he had read in the media (meaning in The Rwanda Focus).
Mr. Kagame however did not say whether his information contradicted ours in its entirety, whether it was only in part, or what it was we had gotten wrong, or right for that matter.
I was taken aback when in the next breath the President then launched his criticism of journalists as corrupt and as people who write things without properly researching them or going to the pains of looking for the right information.
Was he implying that we made up the story out of whole cloth? I asked myself.
Was he implying (by talking about corruption) that, Kamiri Batsinda had corrupted us to write the story? (In which case, I asked myself as I sat there listening to the Head of State, since he says he has information on the case and so he knows about Batsinda, maybe he would ask himself why a journalist would go looking to be corrupted by a semi-peasant old man who lives in Gahanga? I mean there are richer pickings chez Nyinawagaga or Mutsindashyaka, that is if you are inclined to be corrupted to write stories).
We agree that at this newspaper we are not perfect; there is much that even we look at and see which indeed falls far short of the ideal professional standards. And every now and then we get a story wrong, in which case we welcome corrections which we publish in their entirety as required by the law.
But one criticism we at The Rwanda Focus will not accept is that we do not look for information before we publish. We certainly won't accept it in the case of Nyinawagaga and Mutsindashyaka's plot grab.
Here is what I did when I embarked on that story: I packed a pen and notebook and drove to Remera and saw the plot which is at the Sonatubes (Sonatibe) junction; I went to Gahanga, listened to Batsinda's story and saw (and got copies) of the following documents from him: the fiches cadastrale and autorisation de batir, both documents that prove the house belonged to one Emile Butera who was Batsinda's brother and who died during the Genocide. I talked, on phone, to an old woman called Felisita Kasine, a sister in law of Batsinda's (who, to be more precise, was a sister in law of the late Butera) and she said indeed Batsinda is the head of the family and it is him the custodian of Butera's property. Batsinda inherited the plot and the house on it from Butera and they are (were) his property as per our laws.
I also obtained a copy of a demolition order form signed by Theoneste Mutsindashyaka (headed in ungrammatical English thus: ORDER OF DEMOLISHING FORM and in proper Kinyarwanda, ICYEMEZO CYO GUSENYA) on the 18th of November in 2004.
I got copies of letters signed by Nyinawagaga addressed to Batsinda directing him to give up his plot. I went to the Ombudsman's office and got copies of reports on the disputes on the plot. I tried to get in touch with Mutsindashyaka on the phone (I was only doing my duty as a journalist, but anyone (rubanda rugufi) who has ever tried to raise Mutsindashyaka on the phone knows it is a practical impossibility to get this distinguished gentleman via that device. I will admit the thought crossed my mind to go to his office ask for an interview, but life it too short to go trying to get appointments with Mutsindashyaka; I learnt that lesson one time in 2007, when the man was governor of Eastern Province, when I spent half a day waiting in the lounge despite the fact his personal assistant had arranged an appointment.)
I talked to Nyinawagaga. I talked to neighbors of Batsinda's plot. I talked to the new owner of the plot, businessman Augustine Bizimana. I consulted a copy I have of the law on expropriation of land in the public interest (Law no. 18/2007 of 19/04/2007).
In short I left no stone unturned to make sure I got the right information.
With all due respect Mr. President, whatever information you have on this case, Mutsindashyaka and Nyinawagaga's involvement in depriving Kamiri Batsinda of his plot is downright fishy. No, it stinks. It stinks to the high heavens.
One who knows this case may ask why I am so sure since it is almost impossible to determine where the truth is what with the tangled mess of administrative letters and letters of appeal and copies of checks purporting to have been made in payment for the plot, and letters disputing this, and letters disputing that...and Batsinda saying this and Nyinawagaga and Bizimana saying that, to the point you may become totally confused.
Well in such cases you begin with the simplest questions. In the case of Batsinda's plot there are some truly elemental questions with the most elemental answers.
For example who is Augustin Bizimana? A relative of Butera's? No. Butera does not even know the man. A big time investor? Not unless you count going to jail on suspicion of doing shoddy work on public tenders (see our page 1 story) as being an investor. Did Batsinda want to sell his plot? Not unless he is lying. He is categorical: he did not want to sell his plot to Bizimana and does not want to. And even now when the plot has been taken over by Bizimana he has hired a lawyer to try to get his property back.
From these primary questions we can move a little bit higher up and consult the law. Are there circumstances in which someone can be made to sell their land against their wishes? Yes. The state can expropriate land in the public interest - to build a road for instance, or put up a hospital, a school, a factory and any other development of a nature to be beneficial to the general public.
Can an individual force another to sell him his plot? It can be done, through state, or local authority.
If the individual desiring to buy a plot convinces, say a district administration, that he or she is an investor going to set up a school, a hospital, a factory, a development that will benefit many people AND THAT IS NOT EASILY FOUND IN THE AREA, the administration may take on the project as its own, get in touch with the owner of the plot and make him sell the plot to the investor at the going market rate.
Now listen to Nyinawagaga: she says her district expropriated the plot to enable Augustin Bizimana so that he would set up inyubako nziza zibereye umujyi (setting up a building that is in line with what should be in the city). She doesn't talk about any investment of benefit to the public. This is the same lady who a few breaths back had been telling me Batsinda actually is a liar and the house and plot don't even belong to him but to Kasine (the sister in law of the late Butera?)
You just get the feeling these people are just casting around, looking for official ways to rob the old man.
Also, let us think for a moment about that "order of demolishing form" that Mutsindashyaka wrote Batsinda in 2004. In the form Mutsindashyaka makes not a single mention of an investor. All he says is that Batsinda has no authority to build his "kiosk"; that Batsinda has no fiche cadastral; that Batsinda has built on a plot reserved for government usage; that the "kiosk" is built over Electrogaz or Rwandatel equipment; that he has constructed the house without an approved plan etc etc. Now this document of Mutsindashyaka's is breathtakingly dishonest; it is so dishonest one can only look at it and shake his head in despair. These are the people running our affairs?
The tone of the document is such that one would think Batsinda was only then building a house on the plot. But as the Autorisation de Batir indicates, the house was constructed in 1982. Why then does Mutsindashyaka want to give the impression in 2004 that Batsinda is building a house? So that he can say nothing was on the plot in the first place? But he contradicts himself when he says there is a "kiosk" on the plot - and here the choice of language is consistent with someone fishing around for justifications to do something wrong. There was a house on the plot, photographs of which are available and you can only call it a kiosk to make the case for razing it more convincing. And the claim that it was built over Electrogaz and Rwandatel equipment? This is the most cockamamie justification to demolish a house in Kigali; everyone knows the city was built haphazardly, helter skelter with all sorts of village improvisations along the way. If you want to demolish something because it is built over Rwandatel equipment why not begin with half Kigali?
Those are the small dishonesties. The big one is this: Mutsindashyaka's demolition form refers to Batsinda's plot as plot no. 10184, yet all the legal documents for the plot refer to it as plot no. 1348. Now get an earful of this, plot no. 10184 is the adjacent plot and guess who is its owner? Augustin Bizimana, that is who. There are some other baturage whose plots were expropriated for the benefit of Bizimana. Unfortunately for Mutsindashyaka and Nyinawagaga, Batsinda knows his rights and he wasn't giving up his plot without a fight.
But back to Mutsindashyaka's demolition form, why did he call plot no. 1348 plot no. 10184? Was it so it would make it even harder for Batsinda to claim the plot was his after the house on it was demolished (which Nyinawagaga finally succeeded to do in August 2008)? In any case Mutsindashyaka's "order of demolishing form" ruse did not work and none other than the Police, when the bulldozer first came in 2004 to raze the house, stepped in and stopped it.
Now we are told Batsinda had to sell his plot to make way for someone putting up better buildings.
And none other than the Ombudsman Tito Rutaremara endorses this, recommending in a report he wrote to President Kagame - submitted on 18 Nov 2008, a copy of which we have - that Batsinda should give up the plot to Augustin Bizimana who has all the rights to do as he says he would on plot no. 10184.
We cannot go into the details of the Ombudsman's report; we can only summarize it: it purports to be a breakdown of the disputes between Batsinda and Kigali City Council and Gasabo District to the point where Rutaremara seems to unwittingly mislead (we say seems because we aren't sure whether Rutaremara himself wasn't misled) the President, that there was proper expropriation work on the plot and so city authorities had the authority to forcefully move Batsinda, demolish the plot, hand it to Bizimana and order Batsinda to go to KCC to collect his payment.
The simple question to ask here is whether Mr. Rutaremara has read the expropriation law, and if he has whether he asked what the nature of the project Bizimana wants to put on the plot is.
I asked Bizimana what he is going to build and he said it is an etage, a normal commercial building. He said it would have some shops on the ground floor and it would also contain office space for rent. So in what way is that going to be of benefit to the public? After all Remera is full of shops and other etages with office space; what makes Bizimana's special? No one has made that clear.
No, this case is stinky, and the closer one comes to it the stinkier it becomes.
In one paragraph of the Ombudsman's report it states that Augustin Bizimana on 24 June 2004 wrote to the Kigali City administration asking for the plot and he got it the following day, on 25 June 2004. Now this is truly breathtaking. Bizimana applies for and gets a plot within one day, a plot with too many unresolved disputes.
Everyone knows when you try to get a plot in Kigali and have it within a year you must congratulate the bureaucrats for having displayed unusual efficiency in their work. If you get it in six months, consider that to be a minor miracle. In 3 months? Unheard of. In one day?
Something possibly criminal was going on between Mutsindashyaka and Bizimana his jailbird sidekick? Go figure.
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