The Rwanda Revenue Authority will auction more properties belonging to the embattled Rwigara family as it seeks to recover Rwf6 billion ($6.9 million) it says it is owed in taxes.
The taxman will put up for sale equipment from the family-owned Premier Tobacco Company on Monday, its auctioneer Mr Vedaste Habimana said.
The tobacco processing machines will be sold at the factory in Gikondo Industrial Park on June 11 at 10am (0800 GMT), Mr Habimana said, adding that “everything else will be revealed on Monday.”
Anne Rwigara, the family’s business representative, claims the auction is illegal and another form of witch-hunt by the government.
In March this year, the revenue authority auctioned nearly 8,000 cartons of the company’s processed tobacco for Rwf512 million (about $600,000).
Ms Rwigara, who was present at the public sale, protested that the stock valued at over Rwf1 billion was sold for half the price.
The family alleges that their woes with the taxman are politically motivated, partly due to the decision by Diane Rwigara, the eldest daughter, to contest for the presidency in the August 2017 elections and they also question the circumstances in which their father died.
Diane’s bid was unsuccessful after she was disqualified and charged with forgery and inciting insurrection. Her mother, Adeline Rwigara is also facing charges of inciting insurrection and promoting sectarianism.
Diane and her mother have been in jail since September last year.
Their trial is set to resume on July 24.
Rwanda is a house of cards. I keep telling my good friend @obienga na hasikii.
How many Rwandan opposition leaders have been assassinated? They have been killed in Belgium, South Africa, Kenya… you name it. The scary thing is that it’s members of the Tutsi community who are now oppossing the regime.
Something will have to give. Kagame has only a small window left to return the country to a better path but kazi yake is paying millions of dollars to sponsor Arsenal football club.
Seems like Kagame is not ready to let others vie for the Presidency or erode his influence in the public space, he needs to look at Zimbabwe, everything has an end. Rwanda will be better off if he begins to wean them off the benevolent dictator prescription and that starts by allowing real competition in the political arena.
How can anyone arrest those cute Rwigara girls. I hereby offer them political asylum at my place, no visa required. All the drama aside, I am absolutely in love with Tutsi women. Pure perfection.This is the result of centuries of old strict hardline Tutsi aesthetic idealism that prohibited mixing with dim-eyes.
If discipline is rule by fear then Rwanda is a big success. It’s not sustainable, however. Just ask any dictator in history. Even in authoritarian states, governments must obtain a certain level of consent from the people. They must have some legitimacy.
Singapore and Japan have been ruled by a one party since independence / end of WWII but the governments deliver and people are very happy.
Rwanda is a powderkeg waiting to happen. A minority group will not rule over 85% of the population without some sort of legitimacy. Rule by fear only works in the short term.
Just go to Nyamirambo in Kigali and talk to wanainchi, then you’ll realise the gravity of the situation.
I know some of that guys family. They have been shut down literally. Some are even afraid and they live abroad coz wanajua kagame works 24/7. Ask the guy who went to SA for asylum.
Sometimes I feel like I am brainwashed but then I ask myself, what have we done with all the freedom, democracy and empty-talks since independence in 1950s? Probably dictatorship isn’t the right way, but then what is the right way? Probably white people have plundered all our resources, sponsored wars in Congo, middle East, Nigeria etc, but then why are we so stupid to allow this to happen? Why do we have to keep justifying the mess and bullshit that is African continent today. We must rise up, style up, get our shit together and build our countries. After all, we have all that it takes!
When we try to free ourselves from the tight grip you know what happens. The fate of Thomas Sankara, Muamar Gaddafi etc tells you how determined they are not to lose Africa.
We all saw what they did to Zimbabwe (crippling economic sanctions) for allowing Mugabe to take back mashamba.
Right now we have a tiny window of opportunity pried open by China. They have tried propaganda to close it but Africans have refused. Don’t think the Kibaki’s look East policy sat well with them. IMF needs to control economic policy of Kenya and Uhuru (by mistake or deliberately) brought us right back to it.
Blame Africans for ignorance and the outsiders for sabotage.
Ama?
That’s actually another twist to the whole story. We clearly do not have patriotic leaders. A leader may be lacking in capacity to foster development, but when he/she lacks patriotism, then we’re doomed. There are leaders who are sponsored by outsiders to get power through whichever means regardless of the cost to their mother country. People die, resources are plundered and the country remains divided only for them to be in power!
