Rwandan army denies embezzling Darfur troops’ funds
July 16, 2007 (KIGALI) –Rwanda has dismissed reports saying that the Rwanda Defense Forces, (RDF) top officials embezzled funds meant for peacekeeping troops in Darfur, Sudan.
Newsline reported in their July 9-16 edition that among other things the army had diverted salaries belonging to the Rwandan contingent in the embattled Sudanese region,
“The RDF is accountable to democratic civilian authority and members of the general public and consequently has the obligation to keep them informed,” the statement issued by the RDF spokesman, Maj. Jill Rutaremara indicates in part, the Rwandan New Times reported.
The article said that among other things, RDF embezzled money ‘in millions of dollars’ both for salaries and Ration Cash Allowances (RCA).
In the statement, Rutaremara said that it is true that there are some arrears that have not been paid to the soldiers who served in the force but said that the money has nor been disbursed. However, “No single salary has ever been transferred from the AU Headquarter to BNR since January 2007″.
In short, the AU ( in charge of Troop Contributing Countries (TCC) mission payments) has not also paid the RDF soldiers for the months of January, February, March, April, May and June,” the statement reads.
He said that on a number of occasions, the RDF has raised this problem in meetings between the African Union and TCCs adding that the defence ministry has on more than one occasion written to the AU complaining about the problem of accumulated arrears.
The Newsline also reported that some top RDF generals delayed disbursing the money to the bonafide beneficiaries in order to ‘make profits’ before it reaches the rightful owners.
He also shed light on the claims by the English weekly that the actual amount allocated to each soldier was being cut by the RDF saying that there was a difference between what RDF soldiers get and what is given to other African states that contributed troops to the mission.
The AU mission has soldiers from Rwanda, Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia and South Africa.
If a Newsline reporter can contact a Nigerian soldier in Darfur (if at all he did) to find out how much he/she earns can’t he contact the AU officials in Addis Ababa before piling up wild allegations, false statements and deliberate distortions,” the army spokesman added.
Geofrey Mugumya, the AU Director of Peace and Security was recently quoted as having said that countries that have troops on the mission want different modes of payment. He told Reuters that whereas some countries want AU to pay the 400$ directly to the troops in Darfur, others want AU to deduct some amount from the monthly salary to send it to their governments to pay the remaining troops in the field, a fact that he said created heavy accounting paperwork that leads to the delay in payment.
To this effect, the European Union which is the financier of the mission has tasked five lawmakers to tour the region-Darfur-to find out about the cause for the delay in payment that has demoralised troops on the mission, says Darfur mission head, Rodolphe Adada.
(New Times)