APA – Kigali (Rwanda) – Prosecutors have initiated a public prosecution against Prof Jean Bosco Harelimana, the former Director General of Rwanda Cooperative Agency (RCA) over bribery charges, a judicial source confirmed to APA Wednesday in Kigali.
Initial reports by Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) confirmed that the defendant has been arrested over claims of financial misconduct.
Harelimana was supposed to be on the team of current and former RCA officials to respond to queries in the Auditor General report of fiscal year 2021/2022 but some minutes after the session was scheduled to start, he was nowhere to be seen.
Members of Rwanda’s parliament Public Accounts Committee (PAC) immediately showed mistrust in the financial books of the cooperative agency saying that there are high chances of embezzlement that may have been conducted by officials.
Prof. Harelimana is being charged with using the public offices he had held while working for Rwanda Cooperative Agency (RCA) to seek gains for others and in return accept an enormous amount of money and gifts.
The review of monitoring and evaluation report on implementation status of RCA audit recommendations on 46 cooperatives sampled among audit carried out between 2016 and 2021, revealed embezzlement amounting to Rwf871,522,147 (about $ 871 million USD) occurred in 34 cooperatives in Rwanda.
RCA audit recommended to recover the amount.
However, only Rwf17,894,180 (about $ 17 million USD ) equivalent to 2% of total embezzlement was recovered by cooperatives, it said.
CU/abj/APA