BCR officials in custody over missing cash

RUBAVU- Clement Bigirimana, the branch manager of the Rwanda Commercial Bank (BCR) in Rubavu District, is detained at Gisenyi police station for allegedly causing a cash shortage of US$30,000 (Rwf18 million). A cash shortage is when the day’s operation physical cash is less than the recorded operation cash in the system. “The branch manager is detained because, as someone who’s in control and in charge of the bank, when anything of this nature happens he should be the first to explain,” said the BCR Managing Director, Sanjeev Anand. However, Anand was quick to add that Bigirimana is still innocent until proven guilty by the courts of law depending on the outcomes of the ongoing investigation. “Cash shortages are something normal and it happens all the time so the detention of the branch manager is only to help with investigation,” said Anand. He also explained that cash shortages are due to negligence or, sometimes, deliberate intention. Bigirimana was arrested along with Beatrice Kampire as they are the only ones who had access to and could open the safe. “I started business as usual. I had operations worth US$651,000 but when I tried to balance the day’s operations, I realized a shortage of US$30, 000,” said Bigirimana. “I tried to carry out vault control (verification) but the operations were not balancing so I consulted the headquarters and we did the verification together but we failed to recover the shortage,” explained Bigirimana. Bigirimana who has worked with the bank for five years maintains he is innocent, saying that whatever happened was an accident and was not done with any ill intentions. Ends