Prosecutors have requested judges at Nyarugenge Intermediate Court to hand a seven-year prison sentence to Felix Nshimyumuremyi, the Director General of Rwanda Housing Authority (RHA) in a case in which he is accused of corruption. In the same case, the state sought six years for his co-accused, local businessman Emile Alex Mugisha, during a trial that took place on Tuesday, September 29. The duo is accused of colluding to solicit a bribe from a local real estate firm in order to benefit from a government subsidy earmarked for developers of affordable housing projects. Both clad in the pink prison uniform, Nshimyumuremyi was accompanied by three lawyers while Mugisha had two. The prosecution was represented by two prosecutors; Antoinette Mukeza and Donath Habimana. According to prosecutors, the defendants committed the alleged crime early this year when Mugisha who acted as an intermediary, solicited for a Rwf240m bribe from the contractor called See Far Housing Ltd to secure Nshimyumuremyi’s endorsement for the government subsidy. Upon his endorsement, prosecutors said that the company, which was represented by one Eric Salongo Kalisa, who also later acted as the whistle-blower, would get Rwf8bn worth of incentives for the affordable housing project located in Kabeza, Kicukiro District. Upon his arrest, Mugisha was caught with $10,900 out of $15,000 as a down payment he allegedly received from Kalisa which he said was supposed to be delivered to Nshimyumuremyi. Prosecutors said that there is various evidence such as audio recorded by Kalisa, Whatsapp chats, and Simcard they used registered to Mugisha’s son among others to show the conspiracy in committing the alleged crime. The prosecution requested court to evaluate and consider all submitted evidence and convict the defendants. For Nshimyumuremyi, besides the seven-year sentence sought, prosecution asked for him to be slapped with penalties equivalent to five times the bribe involved while Mugisha should be ordered to pay three times the amount. In this case, according to prosecution, Nshimyumuremyi should pay Rwf1.2bn while Mugisha should be asked to pay Rwf720m. However, in their defence, the duo denied the crime saying they were set up. Mugisha claimed that initially, he admitted the crime after being tortured and coerced to implicate Nshyimuyuremyi. He claimed said that the money he was caught with ($10,900) not a bribe but part of his payment from See Far Ltd for some consultancy he had done on their construction project. He took the opportunity to apologise to Nshimyumuremyi saying that during the preliminary proceedings, he lied about everything implicating the latter due to the conditions he was in. On other hand, Nshyimyumuremyi also said that the case is a lie created by people who wanted to embezzle government resources. Nshimyumuremyi explained last year, See Far Housing Ltd officials told RHA that they had failed to complete the project due to financial constraints, and had officially withdrawn the request for the government facility, after failing to meet the required criteria. However, he said he was surprised to receive the company’s request on February 7 at 7 PM yet Kalisa – the alleged whistle-blower – had reported the case of alleged bribery earlier on the same day at 9am. He said he found this to be planned. After listening to all parties, the presiding judge said that the ruling will be delivered on October 14.
