HUYE–Customers of a closed Workers’ Savings Fund in Butare say their situation was destined for the worst if the government does not help them recover their savings.The Union des Caisses d’entraides de Travailleurs de Butare (CTBU), was closed in August last year, leaving about 680 of its clients in uncertainty.Talking to The New Times, the former clients appealed to the government to intervene. The exact amount that the cooperative owes its former clients was not clear, but most of them were employees who received their monthly salaries via the cooperative and said they were losing hope of ever recovering their money. “We learnt of the closure just a few hours before it was shut down, and in those conditions, we could not withdraw our money,” said Celestin Mbarushimana, a laboratory assistant who has been receiving his salary via CTBU since 1998.“The closure was done secretly. Only a few of us were even invited during the last meeting they held”.“However little our money was, we had plans for it. When they walked away with it, our plans were affected,” said the man who claims to have lost about Rwf 100000 in the process.Seraphine Dusabemariya, another victim, told this paper that all her savings were banked there. She claims she lost Rwf450, 000.“I was a teacher. It was a big sacrifice I was making, hoping that the money would help me when in need. But now my hopes of using it are dim,” the woman, who lost her job in 2008, said.“I have no job. I am living in poverty yet I had planned. My life is in jeopardy because my money was taken away. They even don’t tell us when we shall get our money”.The victims said numerous attempts to approach the district and the Central Bank for intervention had yielded nothing.“Everyone tells us that they can do nothing regarding our problem”, Dusabemariya lamented.Reacting on the issue, Huye District vice Mayor in charge of Economic Affairs, Cyprien Mutwarasibo, said the district will help the affected residents to recover their money.“We will coordinate with National Bank of Rwanda until the issue is settled. The district cannot reimburse them but we will go on pleading their case,” he said.According to Martin Kampayana, a liquidator working in Huye, CTBU is still in the process of recovering loans it had advanced to its members.“We shall then sit and see how much has been recovered and then decide on how to reimburse the clients,” he said.“But it is less likely that the total amount of their money will be refunded. It will depend on how much is recovered.”According to Kampayana, CTBU was not regarded as a bank, but rather a cooperative and so the National Bank of Rwanda cannot refund them.“This means that it was managed by members and once it failed, they failed too. When you have a kiosk and encounter losses you cannot expect the government to compensate you,” he said.“What is unfortunate is that some were not aware of that and thought it was a bank”.
