Africa-Press – Rwanda. Corruption and mechanisms to combat it can be a complex phenomenon. If there is any emotive issue but which tends to galvanize Rwandans to support their government’s policy stand, without qualification, it is the fight against corruption. Both elite and peasant collectively concur that corruption must be confronted at any cost.
Fortunately, popular sentiment among the citizens is that there are no sacred cows in Rwanda when incidences of corruption become exposed. Indeed, examples abound in this regard.
However, the anti-corruption state agencies in their various shades but especially the prosecution service by virtue of the centrality of its function and visibility in the fight against corruption ought to ensure that the chase remains on course and does not digress into mediocrity or become a misguided arsenal.
Minimum expectation among everyone who cares to mind is that fair play, and intelligence must guide the fight against corruption. But the fight is greatly threatened when fissures become obvious in the way investigations are carried out and prosecution of the alleged offenders is conducted.
The common risk is that rather than being popularly perceived as the people’s fight it becomes ignominiously degraded to unprincipled witch hunt thereby making corruption hard to rout.
The recent case involving Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA), Roads Maintenance Fund (RMF), ECOAT Ltd, and CAVICON Consultants highlight undesirable gaps in the fight against corruption as far as infrastructure projects are concerned.
In about 2016 the RTDA selected ECOAT Ltd as the contractor for the maintenance of Muhanga-Karongi Paved Road (74Km) over THREE years separated in Phases (read terms) of 12 months each.
The RTDA also contracted CAVICON Consultants as supervising engineer to oversee the maintenance works carried out by ECOAT Ltd. Besides, RTDA and Road Maintenance Fund (RMF) each also appointed site technicians to represent them on the site to ensure quality control and the appropriate volume of works were invoiced.
Essentially, the function of supervising engineer/Consultant is to represent the project owner (RTDA) by monitoring compliance to applicable codes, practices, QA/QC, performance standards and specifications, including the approval of invoiced quantities for completed works. The project engineer practically helps to interpret for the contractor the client’s needs and requirements and representing them on the site.
In April 2020, the MD for ECOAT was arrested by RIB triggered by the complaint of the RTDA alleging that ECOAT had poorly performed certain sections of the road, billed for non-performed works, and overestimated the volume/quantity of evacuated landslides to maintain the road in a serviceable state.
There is an interesting irony of note that the inspection by the DG of the RTDA which discovered the poor works was carried out on 4/4/2020, RIB was informed about it on 4/4/2020, and the Managing Director of ECOAT Ltd was arrested on 4/04/2020, while another technical report confirming the anomalies discovered by the Director General of RTDA was made one a day later on 6/4/2020, and ECOAT Ltd received a Certificate of good performance.
What is mind boggling, however, is that all along during the performance of the contract, the quality of the works and volume to be invoiced were verified and approved by the RTDA’s agents on the Site and later by the Director Generals of both the RTDA and RMF before the invoices could be paid.
Moreover, about one week later on 12 April 2019 the RTDA through its Director General Mr. Imena MUNYAMPENDA had issued to ECOAT Ltd a certificate of successful completion of the works in which the contractor was unequivocally praised for carrying out and completing the works in accordance with the terms and condition of the contract.
Any discerning folk can find it thought-provoking what might have intervened thereafter and motivated the Director General of RTDA to take a 3600 about-turn and allege to RIB that ECOAT had invoiced and received payment for non-performed works, while in certain invoices they were paid twice for the same works yet there were mechanisms in place to mitigate malpractice from happening, including performance guarantees to cushion any arising losses.
Anyone would be excused to believe that had the RTDA genuinely cared about efficiency of the works and cost implications their first victim ought to have been their agents on site not the MD of ECOAT unless the later had fraudulently sabotaged the scrutiny of the project supervisors on site, for which neither the RTDA alleged nor the RIB & Prosecution raises in the indictment.
As if the above wasn’t surprising enough, Taarifa has reliably leant that attempt by the Court to conduct independent investigations on the road sections that form the basis of the charge against the MD for ECOAT have been fraudulently frustrated by deliberate obstruction of the evidence, yet the prosecution had assured Court in writing that the concerned road sections were preserved as evidence.
Recently while scrutinizing the Auditor General’s report the RTDA was put to task to explain how the contractor could have received more than they should have received but no satisfactory answers were provided.
Shouldn’t the party that supervised, approved the works and invoices (RTDA) be in the dock rather than the one who raised the invoices? Should the RIB or Prosecution be allowed to raise charges against anyone but carryout investigations to justify the charge a posterior?
At least this should be a reasonable inference unless the contrary suggesting complicity by the Contractor can be proven. It is such opaque and suspected scheming that shall hamstring the fight against corruption as the true culprits remain scot-free, and remain pandering as the true crusaders against corruption.
It would be a façade for the fight against corruption to be measured by the staggering figures of persons arraigned and prosecuted in court without shining a spotlight on the credibility of the allegations against the accused. May the crusade against corruption remain steadfast and firm!
