While owning a home is an ambition for many, the journey to owning one is often characterized by trials and tribulations. A stalemate in a real estate investment project, Inzozi Hills, championed by some members of the Rwandan Community Abroad, has left many uncertain of their chances of homeownership despite making an investment.

The genesis

In 2015, Rwandans living in Arusha, Tanzania, came up with an idea to work together to acquire land in Kigali to construct houses in an estate where all investing members will acquire a home.

During the subsequent months, the project attracted the interest of Rwandans living in other parts of the world, mainly because its champion, Daniel Murenzi, was the Chairperson of the Rwandan Community Abroad.

They approached the City of Kigali for facilitation in identification of suitable land for the project, which the city did, getting them land in Nyarugenge District.

The Nyarugenge District Council at the time approved land in Gasharu, Nyamirambo Sector and a letter dated November 2017 from Nyarugenge District confirmed the approval of the expropriation.

A source at the City of Kigali said that at the time, the act to allocate land to a group without legal personality was in good faith. It was taken as a positive move that will help Rwandans living abroad own property back home.

As the project gained momentum, other Rwandans living here in the country embraced it and made their investments.

At the time, members say that they were required to pay $100 for membership and administrative costs and Rwf4,800,000 for expropriation to be able to own the land.

Considering that the entity did not have legal status, the funds and property were assigned to Murenzi with funds going to his personal bank accounts.

A city-based lawyer told The New Times that ideally, the investors should have set up a company for the process as opposed to holding the property and funds under an individual.

Meanwhile, some of the shareholders in the project told The New Times that in 2019, they received communication to contribute another Rwf105,000 allegedly to process land titles which they have not received to date.

Grievances

The investors said they have separately petitioned the Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) to intervene. The latest complaint was filed on Wednesday, February 3, by Dr Joseph Nkurunziza, one of the investors in the project.

According to Nkurunziza, among the concerns include continued lack of accountability considering the size of the group and the amount of money involved with requests for meetings and clarifications of pertinent issues going unanswered by Murenzi.

Nkurunziza explained that on some occasions, members raising concerns were intimidated or blackmailed.

Further grievances emerged on the revelation that while members originally paid Rwf4,800,000 for plot sizes that were meant to be 600 square meters, it later emerged that sizes had been reduced to 300Sqm, as communicated by Murenzi.

Another investor in the project working for an international humanitarian agency told The New Times that they are also accusing Murenzi of signing a sales agreement on their behalf without consultation.

This came about after a group of employees of the utilities regulator, RURA, a cooperative dubbed Real Estate Investment Cooperative (REICO) became part of the Inzozi project.

According to the cooperative, REICO reached out to Kigali City seeking land and was later advised to consider teaming up the Diaspora Community project because they had been allocated a big chunk of land. 

This ended up with the cooperative paying Rwf135,675,000 to Inzozi Hill Developers Ltd, a real estate company they were not aware of. RURA has since sought involvement in all deliberations of the project in the interest of its employees who paid.

"Murenzi signed a sales agreement on behalf of Inzozi Hills Developers Ltd, he charged land title transfer fees and never delivered. Furthermore, he put land title in his names without approval of the members," Nkurunziza said.

It is estimated that about Rwf1.3bn has been raised by members said to be 243 and the funds paid include membership fees, land acquisition fees, communication fees among others.

Meanwhile, the City of Kigali, in a letter written in July 2020 and addressed to Murenzi and all investors requested the transfer of land (UPI 1/01/08/02/1923) from Murenzi to a legal entity.

The New Times also understands that there has been a caveat put on the land by the Land Centre to avoid any transactions before resolution of stalemate.

Murenzi speaks out

When contacted, Murenzi said that on concerns about transparency, the project development is communicated through the General Assembly held annually and that the project did not and still does not have an office or guidelines on the frequent communication during the year.

On why the transfer of land to a legal entity was yet to be done, he said that on receiving the letter from the City, an interim committee had been set up to establish a legal framework and are expected to soon present findings to the general assembly.

He said that they have requested additional time from the district to undertake the process.

On the ownership of the land which is technically currently considered his property, Murenzi presented to The New Times a sworn affidavit attesting that the land is not personal property but one of the Rwanda Community Arusha-Moshi.

The affidavit, which was sworn before a notary, states that the title was put in his name in trust since the group did not have legal personality.

However, lawyers who spoke to this paper said that an affidavit does not give the holder the powers to transact on behalf of other persons. Doing that required him to have a power of attorney.

Enter RIB

Speaking to The New Times, the Rwanda Investigation Bureau spokesperson said that they had received complaints from multiple members of the project and investigated the matter.

The spokesperson, Thierry Murangira said that they had since commissioned an audit to establish if there was embezzlement of funds and if so, this will inform the next causes of action.

Asked if he was confident the audit will absolve him, Murenzi told The New Times that ‘if done professionally’ funds will be found to have been well used.

He however noted that considering that the project didn’t have an office, not all documentation (for an audit) of expenses incurred in the various processes and steps is available.

Among the expenses incurred he said include expropriation, development of a physical plan, environmental impact assessment, beaconing and topographic surveys as well as facilitation of the process.

He said that while Rwf1.2bn had been raised for the land acquisition, the value of the land was estimated at about Rwf1.5bn and that they had to negotiate to get the land.

What members want

Members who spoke to The New Times that an ideal end to the stalemate is handing over the Unique Personal Identifier of their respective properties.

The ongoing audit will reveal how much was raised by members, how much was spent on land acquisition, value of land acquired and if any funds were embezzled.