The construction of the One Dollar Project building is set to resume after a new deal was signed with the contractor.

The four-storey hostel was expected to be complete by October 2010 to accommodate some 200 Genocide orphans across the country.

However, poor management and misunderstandings between parties involved in the contract have caused delay in the completion of the project.

Augustin Kampayana, the in-charge of rural settlement in the Ministry of Local Government and board chair of the One Dollar Project, said the contract has been reviewed and the work is meant to begin this week.

"We are now working on the new contract and we hope to resume work after sorting issues with the contractor,” Kampayana said.

During the limbo, Murenzi Supply Company asked for a balance of Rwf259m that Kampayana said the Genocide Survivors’ Fund agreed to pay.

The contractor, it is understood, has been given five months upon resumption to complete the work.

About Rwf800m has already been spent on the 48-bedroom hostel with each rom expected to have four beds. 

The building, located in Kagugu in Gasabo District, still needs toilets, painting, installing a water treatment plant and compound design.

The remaining work is expected to cost more than Rwf500 million.

"We have signed a contract, I am now ready to start, Donatien Murenzi, the contractor, said.

The delay

The One Dollar Project was initiated in 2009 by Rwandans living in Diaspora at the behest of the Association of Student Survivors of Genocide (AERG), which had initially designed a project to shelter genocide orphans but were constrained financially.

The Diaspora organised a fundraising campaign and pledged to contribute Rwf1.5 billion toward the cause. About Rwf1 billion was reportedly handed to AERG as the project supervisor. 

In 2010, the association contracted Murenzi Supply Company to execute the first phase of the project–construction of a four-storey hostel and a dining room at Rwf1.3 billion.

The work was halted, however, after the project board initially composed of representatives of Genocide survivor associations revised the project plan and added more work.

This forced the contractor, Murenzi, who owns Murenzi Supply Company, to halt the work last November.

The resumption follows the appointment of new project manager on the orders of Prime Minister Pierre Damien Habumuremyi, who decried the delay after touring the facility early this year.

Habumuremyi blamed the project manager Sayinzoga Nkongori for adding work in the plan without consulting the board. He proposed a new project manager from the Ministry of Infrastructure and urged parties to do their best to have the building completed.