Nyarugenge Intermediate Court handed a five-year jail sentence to Felix Nshyimyumuremyi, the Director General of Rwanda Housing Authority (RHA).

He was also given a fine of Rwf20 million.

In the same case, his co-accused, local businessman Emile Alex Mugisha, was sentenced to five years in prison and Rwf 5 million during a verdict pronunciation that took place on Friday, October 28.

Nshimyumuremyi was convicted of corruption and being an accomplice in soliciting a bribe.

The duo was being prosecuted for soliciting a bribe from a local real estate firm in order to benefit from a government subsidy earmarked for developers of affordable housing projects.

In delivering the judgment, the presiding judge said that the prosecution case is valid, and ruled to convict the defendants.

Previously, the prosecution had requested a seven-year sentence for Nshimyumuremyi, with penalties equivalent to five times the bribe involved while Mugisha was to be ordered to pay three times the amount.

According to the prosecution, Nshimyumuremyi was to pay Rwf1.2bn while Mugisha was asked to pay Rwf720m.

Case details

During the hearing, according to prosecutors, the defendants committed the alleged crime early this year when Mugisha, who acted as an intermediary, solicited for a Rwf240m bribe from the contractor -See Far Housing Ltd- to secure Nshimyumuremyi’s endorsement for the government subsidy.

Upon his endorsement, prosecutors said that the company, which was represented by one Eric Salongo Kalisa, who also later the whistle-blower, would get Rwf8bn worth of incentives for the affordable housing project located in Kabeza, Kicukiro District.

Upon his arrest, Mugisha was caught with $10,900 out of $15,000 as a down payment he allegedly received from Kalisa which he said was supposed to be delivered to Nshimyumuremyi.

Prosecutors said that there is various evidence including audios recorded by Kalisa, Whatsapp chats, and a sim card registered to Mugisha’s son among others, that show the conspiracy in committing the alleged crime.

However, in their defence, the duo denied the crime saying they were set up.

Mugisha claimed that initially, he admitted the crime after being tortured and coerced to implicate Nshyimuyuremyi.

He also claimed that the money he was caught with ($10,900) was not a bribe but part of his payment from See Far Ltd for a consultancy he had done for their construction project.

He took the opportunity to apologise to Nshimyumuremyi saying that during the preliminary proceedings, he lied about everything implicating the latter due to the condition he was in.

Nshyimyumuremyi also went on to say that the case is a lie created by people who wanted to embezzle government resources.

He explained that See Far Housing Ltd officials told RHA that they had failed to complete the project due to financial constraints, and had officially withdrawn the request for the government facility, after failing to meet the required criteria.

However, he said he was surprised to receive the company’s request on February 7 at 7pm yet Kalisa – the alleged whistle-blower – had reported the case of alleged bribery earlier on the same day at 9am. He then said to have found this to be planned.