SSFR, Kinyinya residents in row over drainage system

Residents of Rugarama cell in Kinyinya sector have accused the Social Security Fund of Rwanda (SSFR) of ignoring their pleas to set up a proper drainage system for its new residential estate that is under construction.  According to the residents, water from the estate is flowing to their homes and damaging their property.

Monday, December 27, 2010
PETITIONED: Dr. Aisa Kirabo (File photo)

Residents of Rugarama cell in Kinyinya sector have accused the Social Security Fund of Rwanda (SSFR) of ignoring their pleas to set up a proper drainage system for its new residential estate that is under construction.

According to the residents, water from the estate is flowing to their homes and damaging their property.
The residents raised the matter with Kinyinya Sector and Gasabo district officials, before the construction began and both parties promised to move the residents to a safe area but that was never fulfilled.

In a letter dated November 11, the City Mayor, Dr. Aisa Kirabo Kacyira, gave SSFR two weeks to channel the water to a proper drainage system. 

"Basing on the floods caused by your estates that have continued destroying residents’ properties, I request you to block that running water within two weeks, failure to comply with this order, SSFR will have to compensate what has been destroyed or your operations in the area will be stopped,” the letter read in part.

However, the Acting Director General of SSFR, Afrique Ramba, said the issue had been sorted

"We constructed a drainage system, and the running water these people complain about has been solved,” Ramba said. 

"These people only want to be expropriated and they are using this as an excuse and we are not the only ones who have estates there, the housing bank has several of them there, I don’t know why they are insisting on us.”

Ends