Rwanda National Police (RNP), on Saturday, September 23, has announced the detention of Adeline Rwigara, Anne Rwigara, and Diane Rwigara over offenses against state security and forgery.

During ongoing investigations, police uncovered credible evidence linking the trio to offenses against state security.

This was in addition to the behavior of the suspects during preliminary investigations, particularly their consistent refusal to cooperate with the police and publicly revealing information that is, by law, supposed to be confidential.

A police statement says “The Criminal procedure law gives investigators powers to detain a suspect for a maximum of five days in order to conclude investigations and decide, based on the evidence, whether or not to forward the case to prosecution.”

On the evening of July 7, 2017, the National Electoral Commission approved 3 candidates – Frank Habineza for the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR), the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) Inkotanyi’s incumbent Paul Kagame. An independent candidate former journalist Philippe Mpayimana also qualified after fulfilling all requirements, including 600 signatures of citizens who hail from 30 districts of the country.

This was a requirement for three other independent candidates – Gilbert Mwenedata, Barafinda Fred Sekikubo and Diane Shima Rwigara. A detailed report read to journalists at the event by NEC chief Prof Kalisa Mbanda shows the three candidates who were rejected lacked several documents. For example, Barafinda had no single document that confirms he is Rwandan by nationality. But when it came to Diane Rwigara, her dossier carried more shocking pieces.

When NEC officials analyzed her 600 nomination signatures using the national ID systems, three people, who are recorded as deceased, appeared. In addition, they all came from the Gasabo district.

“One of the ghost signatures belongs to a person who died at Kibagabaga hospital on April 16, 2016, and buried in Busanza cemetery,” said NEC officials while announcing the list of approved candidates on July 7, 2017.

The Revenue Protection Unit (RPU) has in the last nine months recovered taxes worth over Rwf1, 217 billion, its Commanding Officer (CO), Senior Supt. Alphonse Businge, said.

The money accrued from recovered taxes and penalties levied on intercepted smuggled goods between January and September this year.

At least 70 percent of the seized smuggled goods were second-hand clothes locally known as caguwa, according to the CO of the Rwanda National Police unit – RPU – attached to Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) to fight fraud and smuggling, among others.

Following the increase of taxes on second-hand clothes from $0.5 to $2.5 per kilogram, as part of the national program to promote locally produced goods under the brand ‘Made in Rwanda’, fraud and smuggling of caguwa has shot up.

Between February and May alone, RPU intercepted over 80 tons of second-hand clothes, according to statistics.

“Besides caguwa, Ibitenge – traditional attire – soft and alcoholic drinks especially expensive liquors, cooking oil, powdered milk, and vehicle spare parts are other commodities that are commonly seized,” SSP Businge said, attributing the success to information from the people.

“We have intensified operations, checkpoints along mapped routes but also increased awareness which has strengthened our working relations with the people through information sharing, either from the loading points even in neighboring countries where the illegal practices are orchestrated or at the final destination where they are noticed as they are being off-loaded,” Businge said.

It is said that bundles of second-hand clothes are concealed in rice, maize, and cassava flour sacks.

“We are able to know all these tricks because of the good partnership with the people.”

The CO also warned traders, who attempt to evade taxes by under-valuing goods or manipulating electronic billing machines, where less of the sold goods are billed.

Emmy Mbera, the coordinator of Electronic Billing Machine (EBM) in RRA, appealed to the public to always demand receipts owing to the fact that taxes or Value Added Tax is paid by the end-user – the buyer.

“The end-user is the one who pays VAT not the seller; the seller is just like a broker between the buyer and the government. If the buyer doesn’t demand the receipt, then he or she is not sure if their financial contribution in national development has been delivered. These are public funds that should just be delivered, because contrary to that, it’s more like embezzlement, which you will be forced to pay with other penalties as the law states,” Mbera warned.

Article 24 of the law on VAT, obliges all VAT registered taxpayers in Rwanda to acquire and use EBM to issue tax invoices to their customers on every transaction they make. Failure to comply is a tax crime that attracts penalties.

The same law states that any person required to use EBM but sells goods or services without issuing an electronic invoice faces a fine of ten times the value of the evaded VAT. However, the fine is doubled if one commits the offense for the second time.

In article 200, any person with uncustomed goods shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding five years or a fine of 50 percent of the dutiable value of the goods involved, or both.

Additional penalties include the closure of business activities for a period of thirty days and being barred from bidding for public tenders, among others.

Under the East African Community Management Act, in article 199, the driver caught for fraud or smuggling goods, is slapped a fine of US$5000 while the vehicle and the goods are auctioned.

Currently, RRA is auctioning vehicles and goods that were intercepted in such fraudulent acts, over the past years.

Owing to the fact that the City of Kigali constructed seven modern health centers at a tune of about Rwf1.9 billion, it means that the recovered taxes can construct about five other health centers.

“When you buy a product, know that you have paid VAT but not the seller. Demand a receipt and ensure that all that you bought is accounted for on the receipt, that way you will be sure that your contribution will be delivered.”

Robert Mugabe, the Deputy Commissioner for Revenue Investigation & Enforcement Department, also said that the increased operations by RPU have significantly minimized revenue losses by deterring, detecting and preventing smuggling, and tax evasion. src: RNP

France has assigned magistrates to investigate allegations that banking giant BNP Paribas was complicit in the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi minority in Rwanda, a source close to the case told AFP Monday.

In June, three non-governmental organizations filed a lawsuit accusing the bank of financing the purchase of “80 tonnes of arms used to carry out genocide” by the Hutu regime, even though “the bank had to have known the genocidal intentions of the country’s authorities”.

The Paris judiciary confirmed Monday that it opened an investigation for “complicity in genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity” on August 22, and asked the Paris genocide and war crimes division, which is already handling 25 other cases linked to the Rwandan genocide, to run the probe.

The lawsuit was filed in France by Sherpa, which defends victims of economic crimes; Ibuka France, a Rwanda victims’ association; and the France-based Collective of Civil Parties for Rwanda, which pursues claims against genocide suspects.

The NGOs say BNP authorized the transfer of $1.3 million (1.1 million euros at current rates) to the regime in June 1994, one month after the United Nations had placed an embargo on weapons deliveries to Rwanda.

BNP is France’s biggest bank and among the world’s top 10.

The plaintiffs allege that BNP authorized the transfer of the money that was held by Rwanda’s national bank (BNR) to an account held at Swiss bank UBP by Willem Tertius Ehlers, a South African intermediary who owned an arms-dealing brokerage called Delta Aero.

The 100 days genocide led to the massacre of more than 1,000,000 people.

Kigali has repeatedly accused Paris of having a hand in the genocide and of being slow to prosecute some of its kingpins living in France.

The case is the first time a French bank is under suspicion of being involved in the genocide.src Igihe

Rwanda has re-entered the Top 10 list after having just missed it the past two years, according to Rand Merchant Bank’s latest “Where to Invest in Africa report for 2018“, released on Sept.18.

The theme for `Where to Invest in Africa 2018’ is “Money Talks” and this edition “follows the money” on the African continent to evaluate aspects crucial to each country’s economic performance.

In this edition of Where to Invest in Africa 2018, RMB’s Investment Attractiveness Index, which balances economic activity against the relative ease of doing business, illustrates how subdued levels of economic activity have diluted several scores on the index when compared to last year, resulting in some interesting movements within the Top 10.

According to The Independent, The report focuses on the main sources of dollar revenues in Africa, which allows it to measure the most important income generators and identify investment opportunities. The 2018 report also balances economic activity against the relative ease of doing business.

Rwanda came in at 8th position in a report in which the East African region managed to capture four of the top ten spots.

Kenya, Tanzania, and Ethiopia were the other countries which made it into the top ten from the East African region.

Uganda was, however, the only surprise absentee from the East African region since South Sudan, Somalia, and Burundi are war-ravaged basket case economies.

The report, for example, points out that countries like Botswana, Mauritius, and Namibia that are widely rated as investment grade economies, they do not feature in the report’s Top 10 mostly because of the relatively small sizes of their markets.

Germans vote in a national election on Sunday that is likely to see Chancellor Angela Merkel win a historic fourth term and a far-right party enters parliament for the first time in more than half a century.

Merkel’s conservative bloc is on track to remain the largest group in parliament, opinion polls showed before the vote, but a fracturing of the political landscape may well make it harder for her to form a ruling coalition than previously.

File image of German chancellor Angela Merkel. APFile image of German chancellor Angela Merkel. AP
With as many as a thirds of Germans undecided in the run-up to the election, Merkel and her main rival, centre-left challenger Martin Schulz of the Social Democrats (SPD), urged them on Saturday to get out and vote.

“We want to boost your motivation so that we can still reach many, many people,” the chancellor, 63, said in Berlin before heading north to her constituency for a final round of campaigning.

In regional votes last year, Merkel’s conservatives suffered setbacks to the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which profited from resentment at her 2015 decision to leave German borders open to over one million migrants.

Those setbacks made Merkel, a pastor’s daughter who grew up in Communist East Germany, wonder if she should even run for re-election.

But with the migrant issue under control this year, she has bounced back and thrown herself into a punishing campaign schedule, presenting herself as an anchor of stability in an uncertain world.

Visibly happier, Merkel campaigned with renewed conviction: a resolve to re-tool the economy for the digital age, to head off future migrant crises, and to defend a Western order shaken by Donald Trump’s US election victory last November.

Both Merkel and Schulz worry that a low turnout could work in favor of smaller parties, especially the AfD, which is expected to enter the national parliament for the first time. On Friday, Schulz described the AfD as “gravediggers of democracy.”

An INSA poll published by Bild newspaper on Saturday showed sliding support for Merkel’s conservatives, who dropped two percentage points to 34 percent, and the SPD, down one point to 21 percent — both now joined in an unwieldy “grand coalition”.

The anti-immigrant AfD, rose two points to 13 percent — a result the poll showed would make it the third-largest party.

Should she win a fourth term, Merkel will join the late Helmut Kohl, her mentor who reunified Germany, and Konrad Adenauer, who led Germany’s rebirth after World War Two, as the only post-war chancellors to win four national elections.

The AfD’s expected entry into the national parliament will herald the beginning of a new era in German politics that will see more robust debate and a departure from the steady, consensus-based approach that has marked the post-war period.

Coalition building after the election will be an arduous process that could take months as all potential partners are unsure whether they really want to share power with Merkel. All major parties refuse to work with the AfD.

Electoral arithmetic might push Merkel to renew her grand coalition with the SPD, or she might opt for a three-way alliance with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and environmentalist Greens. src :Reutes

World bank says, to ensure sustainable export growth, the Rwanda Economic Update highlights some policy considerations including maintaining a competitive real exchange rate by avoiding exchange rate mismatch, focusing on agriculture as a strategic sector that provides raw materials for emerging agribusiness, and continued commitment at the regional level to identify and remove non-tariff barriers within the EAC region. ” Africabusinesscommunities”

Rwanda’s economic growth has been slowing down since mid-2016, resulting in a 6 percent growth in 2016 and in 4.2 percent annualized growth in the first quarter of 2017.

The report also noted improvement in macroeconomic policy environment in 2017 with inflation decelerating to below 5 percent by June 2017 down from the peak of more than 8 percent recorded in February. Depreciation of the exchange rate has also alleviated the pressure on foreign exchange reserves and is expected to contribute to the narrowing of external imbalances.

“Although Rwanda’s export sector is still small, the progress made in the past decade sends a clear message that an export-led growth is within reach for Rwanda, and country’s long-term growth strategy should continue to focus on strengthening economy’s capacity to produce exportable goods and services, “said Aghassi Mkrtchyan, World Bank Senior Economist.