More Gov’t employees held over suspicious wealth

KIGALI - Three employees from the Internal Affairs and Infrastructure Ministries have been arrested after they failed to explain how they accumulated their wealth, The New Times has learnt.

Monday, April 06, 2009
CID Boss Christophe Bizimungu

KIGALI - Three employees from the Internal Affairs and Infrastructure Ministries have been arrested after they failed to explain how they accumulated their wealth, The New Times has learnt.

The employees whose identities could not established by press time were arrested a week ago according to police sources.

The sacked employees, according to our source had been under investigation after it emerged that they had accumulated wealth beyond their means.

The head of CID, Christopher Bizimungu, confirmed the development when contacted last Friday.

"Investigations have proved that they were not transparent. We got useful information against them,” Bizimungu said by phone.

"We have already prepared their files and the prosecution has now taken over.”

The trio, according to police had lied that they received money from relatives and acquired loans from banks.

But money from relatives and loans all put together could not still amount to material wealth accumulated.

Cases of employees whose wealth did not match their earnings had been forwarded to CID for investigations by the Ombudsman’s office last year.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs had in the past sacked eight employees for failure to explain how they accumulated their wealth.

Penelope Kantarama, the ministry’s Permanent Secretary said then those who had been sacked included senior directors of prisons in Ruhengeri and Gikongoro. Others were accountants and storekeepers.

The office of Ombudsman has asked government institutions to discipline their employees suspected of dipping their fingers into public funds.

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