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20091208

Ministers, parliamentarians, top civil servants: hardly a week goes by without a prominent official going to jail in Rwanda where the government has declared zero tolerance for corruption.
In his days as the finance director at the presidency, Janvier Murenzi might have thought he was safe from investigation.

Suspended from his post last year he was sentenced in late November to four years in prison and a fine of more than 1 billion Rwandan francs (1.25 million euros).

That very same week Vincent Gatwabuyege, a former top civil servant in the infrastructure ministry, was given a similar fine and a total of seven years in jail for corruption in the attribution of several government contracts.

Elected officials have met the same fate. Former junior minister in charge of water Munyanganizi Bikoro received a two-year jail sentence for tax fraud in August. Junior education minister Theoneste Mutsindashyaka was also recently jailed for corruption.

Most African governments like talking about their fight against corruption, seen as one of the biggest barriers to development on the continent, but Rwanda, most notably for the past two years, has been putting its money where its mouth is.

This tiny central African country, still struggling to recover from a genocide that left more than 800,000 people dead fifteen years ago, is frequently held up as an example by the World Bank.

Rwanda ranked top amongst central and eastern African countries and 89th worldwide in the 2009 report of Transparency International, an anti-graft NGO that compares the anti-corruption efforts of 180 countries.

The government of President Paul Kagame, in power since 2000, has launched what amounts to a crusade against economic and financial crimes, spearheaded by a youthful chief prosecutor, Martin Ngoga, who is just 42.

In the past two years 968 people have been investigated for corruption.

"I walk into the presidency and find people who are corrupt, and I have the freedom to do so without fear that it could backfire," said the fast-talking Ngoga.

"We don't have many things to offer to attract business," he added, referring to his country's poverty, landlocked status and relative lack of natural resources.

"But what is within our reach is to create an environment of no corruption," said Ngoga, before rushing off to his next meeting.

But he doesn't believe in resting on his laurels.

"I am keen not to be complacent about our very modest achievements. Even if Transparency International say that Rwanda is less corrupt, it is not a very good position. It is still a comparison among the corrupt."

Ngoga's partner in the anti-graft crusade is Tito Rutaremara, 23 years his elder, outwardly more placid but no less determined.

Rutaremara is the secretary general of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), head of the commission that drew up the new constitution adopted in 2003 and, since 2004, the country's ombudsman.

Rwanda adopted the idea of having an ombudsman from Scandinavia but enhanced the position with far-reaching anti-graft powers. The ombudsman's office goes through the revenue declarations that the country's top 5,000 leaders -- including Kagame -- are obliged to submit every year.

One third of the country's 30 or so regional administration chiefs have been sacked after their management raised suspicions.

Large billboards exhorting the population to fight economic crimes fill the streets of the capital. "Awareness week in the fight against corruption" has just ended.

"A corrupt country cannot break free from poverty as the money trickles out. And when corruption becomes a way of life, it discourages hard work -- that's why it's dangerous," Rutaremara said.

Sapa-AFP