Gov’t sanctions probe into Kinyinya land saga

Two years after Kinyinya residents first contested the expropriation exercise of their land by real estate developers, the government has named a probe team to investigate the anomalies and come up with a list of people to be expropriated. The 100-hectare land was evaluated in 2008 for development by the Social Security Fund of Rwanda (SSFR) and the Housing Bank of Rwanda (BHR) to establish modern housing estates but later, a few residents were paid off while others were not. According to Bruno Rangira, the Director of Communication at Kigali City Council, the team is made up of officials from KCC, Gasabo district and the Ministries in charge of Local Government and Lands. “Currently the team is on the ground evaluating the properties and the report is expected in two weeks (next Thursday),” Rangira said. Following the 2008 evaluation, the residents claim they were told not to make any renovations on their properties on the promise they would be paid soon. However, they claim, only a handful received the money, resulting into some demanding for reparations for losing their properties. The expropriation was supposed to cost the developers over Rwf 6.4bn. He said that the residents will be put in three categories; those who will be expropriated after legally losing most of their properties, those who will only be compensated for the losses incurred since they were also barred from carrying out any activity on their land and those who will be relocated for security reasons. “The land where to relocate them is yet to be acquired,” Rangira said. Most of the residents had demolished their houses and claimed that they were barred from doing any agricultural activities that they would be compensated within four months. The affected residents later accused the district authorities of having stood in their way, mainly blaming former Gasabo Mayor, Claudine Nyinawagaga. Ends

National

Gov’t sanctions probe into Kinyinya land saga