Some corrupt officials were suspected of hiding ill-gotten wealth outside Rwanda, which complicates efforts for recovering the funds, Prosecutor General Jean Bosco Mutangana said Thursday.
It’s common to find an official who is investigated over billions of francs owning assets worth far less value, which makes recovery of swindled funds hard even when a conviction is secured, Mutangana said at a consultative meeting attended by senior government and parastatal officials in Kigali, capital city of Rwanda.
At least 347 government employees were implicated in corruption cases since 2007, according to him.
The Rwanda’s prosecution prosecuted around 1,000 corruption cases for the last 10 years, said Mutangana, adding that 3.7 billion Rwandan francs (about 4.7 million U.S. dollars) was found to have been swindled during the same period.
The meeting sought to find measures to address issues of mismanagement of public funds highlighted by previous reports of Auditor General.
Unsupported expenditure during the 2015/16 fiscal year totaled about 7 billion Rwandan francs (around 8.2 million dollars) while partially supported expenditure amounted to 7.4 billion Rwandan francs (about 8.7 million dollars), according to the reports.
Same government institutions keep appearing in the Auditor General’s reports over mismanagement but little is done to address the queries pointed out by Auditor General, Senate President Bernard Makuza said in his opening remarks of the meeting.
Rwanda is ranked 48th least corrupt country among 180 countries globally, up from 50th place in 2016, according to Corruption Perception Index 2017 released by Transparency International.
The central African country maintained the third position in the fight against corruption in Africa and is ranked first in East Africa, according to the report. Enditem
