The senatorial plenary session yesterday adopted the Bill relating to the management of abandoned property that the President had rejected last year.

The Bill is expected to be sent back to the President for assent in a second attempt, before its publication in the official gazette.

The Abandoned Property Bill had been passed late last year by the Senate, only to be sent back by the President, on grounds that it had contradictory gaps which needed to be reviewed.

During yesterday’s session, Johnston Busingye, the Minister for Justice, said this would possibly be the last time the Bill has got to be examined in Parliament.

"All those gaps that existed have been fixed; that is all I can say,” Busingye said shortly after appearing before senatorial plenary that reviewed the Bill.

The draft law, once enacted, will regulate the management of abandoned assets within the country.

The property falling within the scope of this legislation shall be any immovable or movable property neglected by owners or unrightfully possessed by others due to the fact that the rightful owners: died without leaving a legally recognised heir, or those who do not reside in Rwanda for various reasons without having left behind a person legally authorised to manage their property.

Following the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the number of abandoned properties shot up.

Some of these properties belonged to people who fled the country after taking part in the killings, while others belonged to people who chose to stay in other countries following the Genocide.

However, with time these properties posed a dilemma in terms of their management, which prompted the Government to take the responsibility to manage them on behalf of the owners.

Why the President had rejected the Bill

Last year, the Attorney General told this paper that the Bill was not assented to because it seemed to create an autonomous legal entity within the Ministry of Justice with capacity to sue and be sued, receive, manage and account for funds.

Busingye clarified that the unit in charge of managing the abandoned properties was rather supposed to exist within the structure of the justice ministry.

"The President advised that to have two legal entities, one existing inside another, might be a contradiction and requested Parliament to revisit the issue,” Busingye said.

Sen. Marie Claire Mukasine, a member of the Standing Committee on Political Affairs and Good Governance — which previously examined the Bill, said yesterday that the basis of review was understandable, hence not requiring longer legislation procedures.

"The Bill had mistakenly given autonomous powers to the management unit within the ministry; we simply needed to correct that the management of the abandoned property fall under the Ministry of Justice, and then the ministry would design a unit among other units to manage such properties,” said Mukasine.

Management of abandoned property

Article 11 of the Bill states that, "without prejudice to other legal provisions, abandoned properties shall be managed by the State until the owners thereof show up.

"If the owners died with no heir, the abandoned property shall devolve upon the State and be managed by the unit,” reads the Bill in part.

It states that the responsibilities, organisation and functioning of the unit in charge of the management of abandoned property shall be determined by a Prime Minister’s Order.

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