The Government of Rwanda has put in place new strategies to recover Rwf3 billion owed by different individuals who lost litigations with government. The strategies include entering an agreement between the Ministry of Justice and 37 professional court bailiffs, in which the latter will recover the money awarded to governments in over 280 court rulings. Justice Minister Johnston Busingye said that the new measures follow several reminders to those who owe money to government but remained adamant. Some of the debts have taken decades. “Of course it is always difficult to have people to peacefully pay the money they owe government. That is why we are putting in place more strategies to make sure the amount owed in from court awards is paid back as soon as possible,” he announced. Busingye has also previously pointed to the misguided mindset that no one pays government once they lose in litigation. The bailiffs will recover the money and earn their respective commissions on each judgement executed. The bailiffs will earn five per cent on the money recovered. Other measures, Busingye said include availing the bailiffs with the full identification details of the debtors to make their work easy. “We used to publish partial identities, but we have worked with the National Identification Agency to get their full details. We have also published them on our website so that you (the media) can also have access to them,” said Minister Busingye. So far, the list on the justice ministry website has 2,416 convicts of which 1,958 have full identification details. They are in three categories; those convicted for corruption, those convicted for embezzlement and others for drug related crimes. “Some of the debtors change the names of their companies to mislead our search, that is why we work with other stakeholders to detect all of those tricks,” the Minister added. The other stakeholders working with the ministry include public institutions like Rwanda Revenue Authority, the Office of Ombudsman, Rwanda Investigation Bureau, National Unity and Reconciliation Commission among others. Caveats have also been attached on the debtors’ properties as another measure to ensure they do not sell them off. The minister who doubles as the Attorney General disclosed that 1,269 plots of land registered on 264 debtors have been slapped with caveats, the same to 29 vehicles belonging to five debtors. This is the second time the government is enlisting the support of special professional court bailiffs after the first group which was assigned in July 2017 managed to recover Rwf238,580,499. Caritas Nyiragasana, one of the bailiffs hailed the initiative which she said will go a long way in ensuring rule of law. “This will help us trace those debtors, instead of running after low income earners who owed little money to the government, we are going to run after those who owe much more,” she commented. On the list, some of the major debtors include a one Emmanuel Habyarimana, who owed Rwf470 million, and has so far paid Rwf77m. According to information from the ministry, the government in total is owed Rwf10.9 billion. The other cases include un-recoverable debts, old cases or others whose judgments are not yet found, among others. Click here to download the full list
