KIGALI - Following a two-week evaluation exercise by a team comprising of officials from Kigali City Council, Gasabo District and the ministries of Local Government and Lands,   473 families in Ngaruyinka village, Murama cell in Kinyinya sector, will be paid for their land after a two-year impasse.

This was revealed yesterday by Willy Ndizeye, the Mayor of Gasabo.

"Most of those selected for expropriation are families that were left in the middle of land that was previously acquired by real estate developers, while others will be expropriated for security purposes,” Ndizeye said.

"We carried out the evaluation, but the Social Security Fund of Rwanda (SSFR), the area developers, are the ones who will compensate them.”

The team, set up by government, aimed at ending the two-year land saga following complaints by the affected residents on previous expropriation exercise carried out by SSFR and the Housing Bank of Rwanda (BHR) in 2008 that left most of the families whose properties were evaluated for compensation not getting a penny.

The 100-hectare land was evaluated in April 2008 in which 1,028 families were supposed to be compensated to the tune of over Rwf 6.4bn.

However, over 980 families were left out and this sparked off the saga as most of the affected residents had demolished their houses with hope that they would be expropriated soon.

They also claimed that they were barred from carrying out agricultural activities on their plots.

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