Council promises fair refund to KCP investors

The Consultative Council of Kigali City will ensure that investors in the botched Kigali City Park (KCP) project are fairly compensated after a global investment company, Dubai World, proposed to put the land to a different use. The council’s six-man commission is currently examining issues involved in reimbursing investors who had sunk money in KCP and a ‘fair’ solution will finally come out, the council’s President, Titien Muberangabo, told The New Times yesterday. “A project that is bigger than other existing initiatives can swallow them. We consulted investors in KCP project and agreed on the value of their investments so that they can be reimbursed. For sure their interests will not suffer,” he said. Dubai World proposed two years ago to construct a milti-million dollar project, the Kigali Golf Course and Hotel, which would offer 5-star accommodation in over 115 rooms and 50 serviced apartments. But part of the land that the group wants to use was to host an amusement area in the town under the name of Kigali City Park (KCP) whose investments in Nyarutarama valley had started as early as June 2003. Robert Bayigamba, the Private Sector Federation (PSF) President told a Presidential Investors Round Table (PIRT) last December that no payment had been made to compensate the project. A committee set up by the consultative council will provide a report after studying different issues regarding the expropriation of private investors in the project. The repayments were also delayed when Dubai World postponed its plans in Rwanda for a year because of the ongoing global financial crisis, Muberangabo explained. “The expropriation activity can normally create conflicts but we want to ensure that we allow a bigger project [Dubai World project] to be implemented without violating rights of other investors,” he said. The consultative council’s initiative to examine KCP issue is one of other initiatives – some at the level of central government – to solve the problem following last year’s PIRT in which President Paul Kagame urged actors involved to devise a solution to the problem. “Government is doing all that can be done to avoid a loss for KCP investors,” Francis Gatare, the Rwanda Development Boards Principal Deputy CEO, said yesterday. The city’s park was to be developed in the Nyarutarama area in Gasabo District as a Public Private Partnership (PPP). The Private Sector Federation estimated last December that bank interests and losses at a rate of one million Rwandan francs per day had been accumulating since January 2007, putting the private investors in the KCP project in a financial dilemma. Ends

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Council promises fair refund to KCP investors