Hotel owner decries its demolition

District authorities have demolished part of Palm Beach Hotel building in Rubavu District worth Rwf715 million, according to its owner. The hotel belongs to a Kigali based businessman, Barry Ndengeyingoma. District officials said the Hotel did not meet standards spelt out within the town master plan “What we want is a structure that goes with the town plan. It is not only his building we demolished, there are others. He still has his plot but he must follow district standards,” Evariste Bizimana, Rubavu vice mayor told The Sunday Times by phone yesterday. “We have written to him several times, there is a letter we wrote to him in February asking him to demolish that old building but he did not heed our correspondences.” “That old building had become a hide-out for bandits and it had caused poor hygiene in town. It is a continuing process to make our town look better,” Bizimana insisted. Contrary to the Vice Mayor’s comment, Ndengeyingoma said district authorities had not been helpful and only went ahead to demolish his structure without communicating to him. Ndengeyingoma said he had lured an Italy businessman to invest into the hotel that sits on the shores of Lake Kivu. He said that Italian had earmarked at least $5m (Rwf 2.7bn) as initial investment to improve the standards of the hotel. “I had showed the District my plan and it appreciated it but now they have turned around and halted the process. They are not telling me what the problem is--- they only told me they don’t want that old building,” Ndengeyingoma lamented. “I had actually renovated it and what was remaining was putting up other buildings to have a complete Hotel. I surely don’t know what the District wants up to now because they have never told me anything.” Ends