RWAMAGANA/NYAGATARE – The recent crackdown on mismanagement within the cooperatives sector countrywide has so far netted six former managers of some of the cooperatives within Rwamagana and Nyagatare, The New Times has learnt.

At least five former leaders of COCURIRWA Rice Cooperative, currently known as Twibumbe Union are detained at Kibungo prison for allegedly embezzling over Rwf350million. 

According to Jean Marie Vianney Habamenshi, the Union’s current Director General, the former cooperative leaders were arrested last week on the orders of the office of the Prosecutor General. 

They are accused of falsifying documents with an intent to swindle money belonging to the cooperative, said Habamenshi. 

He added that the cooperative has been helping the prosecution, by exposing the assets of those accused, so that they could be frozen. 

"We inherited a technically insolvent institution. It seems as if all the money ended in the previous leaders’ pockets,” he alleged.

"We are rectifying the situation. Leaders past and present are being held accountable. Those who swindled are going to pay back the money from the assets they accumulated with members’ money.”

Twibumbe Union operates in three districts of Ngoma, Kayonza and Rwamagana. It has a total of 3,680 members.

In a related development, Police in Nyagatare district are holding the former leader of CODELVAM cooperative, Fulgence Nsengiyumva, on allegations of embezzling Rwf72million. 

He was arrested on Thursday last week, according to police.

‘The money was embezzled during his tenure as cooperative president between 1998 and 2001,’ police told The New Times on Tuesday. 

Police added that Nsengiyumva, who is the former prefect of the former Gitarama Province and secretary general in the Ministry of Agriculture, is jointly accused with his then accountant, Celestin Uwimana. 

Currently, Nsengiyumva has been a businessman and the owner of St. Monica Hostel in Nyagatare.

CODELVAM Rice Cooperative operates in Cyabayaga valley in Nyagatare district.

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