Officials of the Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC) who are being prosecuted for flouting of procedures by awarding a multi-billion tender to their fellow employee have told court that they were not aware that he was working for the same institution.

The seven officials including James Kamanzi, the former Deputy Director General of RBC, were arrested late last month are alleged to have awarded a Rwf3 billion tender to a company owned by their counterpart Fidele Rwema in 2020.

According to the public procurement law, employees of the procuring entity are prohibited from bidding for tenders, since such can lead to favouritism in the process.

Other suspects include Fidele Ndayisenga, Jean-Pierre Ndayambaje, Leoncie Kayiranga - members of RBC’s RBC procurement committee.

On Thursday, December 8, they were arraigned before Kicukiro Primary Court and charged with flouting of public tender procedures and making decisions based on favouritism.

During the hearing, the prosecutors said that in 2020, RBC’s procurement committee awarded Rwema’s company with a tender worth more than Rwf 3 billion to procure for them biomedical equipment, despite knowing that he was an employee of the institution, having worked for it since 2013.

"James Kamanzi went on and signed the tender, yet he knew that Rwema was working for RBC. He knew this because he is the one who actually signed his appointment letter when RBC was hiring him,” one of the prosecutors noted.

However, in his defence, Kamanzi said he did not know that Rwema was working for RBC.

"RBC is a very large institution that has many branches across the country. It is impossible to know all its employees,” he said.

When the judge asked him about the fact that he is the one who signed his appointment letter, Kamanzi responded that it does not necessarily mean that he should remember him, since he used to sign appointment letters for many employees.

"We sign many documents; we make many decisions. Having signed his appointment letter does not mean that I know him,” he noted.

The five members of RBC’s procurement committee also presented the same argument that they did not know that Rwema worked for RBC.

"I only came to meet him during this prosecution process. I had never met him before,” argued Jean Pierre Ndayambaje, one of the members of RBC’s procurement committee.

The judge asked him if it was not the committee’s responsibility to make enough research to know if the person to whom they are awarding a tender is not an employee of the institution, Ndayambaje answered that the law does not really require them to do that except if anything suspicious shows up during the process.

The officials further argued that Rwema did his work well, offered a really low price for the service, and had presented everything that was required, which is proof that he was awarded the tender on merit, not favouritism.

The prosecutors asked the court to remand the seven individuals for 30 days as further investigations continue.