Government has spent approximately Rwf 51bn to educate thousands of students who survived the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, The New Times can exclusively report. In a detailed document extracted from FARG financial reports for the 1998-2008 period, the money was spent on tuition, scholastic materials and civic education for both secondary and university students who fall under the care of the national Fund for Genocide Survivors (FARG). The finances include Rwf2bn that was provided as support from USAID between 1998 and 2003. The document however does not indicate any further financial assistance from the donor agency since then. Wilson Muhima, Director of Finance at FARG told The New Times that effective next year, the survivor fund will not support new students as part of its roadmap towards phasing out the fund’s work by 2019. “The last batch of students supported by FARG was admitted to secondary school this year and are expected to complete their university just in time when FARG is closing down,” Muhima told The New Times. The documents indicate that by last year, FARG had parted with approximately Rwf 41bn on secondary education and Rwf5bn on university education. The number of all students varies by year but is over 100,000. Muhima told The New Times that FARG has been challenged by many problems including forgery which allows some non-survivors to fraudulently benefit from the fund. He said that the new administration had put in place new rules that cement loopholes for fraud. FARG was established by the government in 1998 as an officially recognised channel for any financial and material support to the most vulnerable genocide survivors. Five percent of the country’s total internal revenue collections are injected into the Fund each year. The Fund has in the past years been dogged by reports of gross irregularities of gross irregularities prompting the government to fire the entire management team and commission a thorough financial audit into the Fund’s financial management Ends
