allAfrica.com: Rwanda: New Leadership Badly Needed for the Housing Bank of Rwanda (Page 1 of 2)

Right from the start of this editorial, let’s stress that we understand the importance of political appointments. Such appointments may serve the (mostly useful) purposes of rewarding ruling party cadres, appeasing an ethnic group, a gender group, members of a certain religion, people who came from country A or B.

But to appoint someone purely to reward them for their allegiances can also be self defeating in any number of ways. Take the example of the director of the Housing Bank of Rwanda, Gervais Ntaganda who surely has been put there for no other reason than to serve a political purpose.

But HBR is very vital to national development and it should be led by a dynamic, driven person and if a job has to be found for Mr. Ntaganda let it be elsewhere where his poor performance and failures will do least harm.

On page 1 and 3 of this newspaper we give details of a row between Thomas & Piron, a Belgian construction firm, and HBR (which together with the Social Security Fund of Rwanda (SSFR) have contracted the firm to build a residential area at Kagugu).

Mr Ntaganda is largely to blame for HBR's having failed to closely supervise Thomas & Piron as the company went about building the first 52 houses of the project.

HBR-which is the owner of the project with SSFR being only a partner-did not for example make sure Thomas & Piron built a model house before signing the contract with them. If the firm was obliged to put up such a house first, it is sure they would have put up a good quality house, anxious not to lose the contract to another construction firm.

Another thing HBR should have done is include an enforceable opt out clause in case it began to look like the contractors were doing a shoddy job. This wasn't the case. In fact the parties signed the contract with the work well in progress.

Gervais Ntaganda was asleep on the job. As a result Thomas & Piron has done unbelievably shoddy work, and HBR and SSFR look like they are going to lose Frw 500 million which they gave the contractor in advances.

In fact it looks sure they will lose the money since they won't take delivery of the houses, and Thomas & Piron do not look ready to hand the money back, adamantly claiming they have completed the work. The firm is even demanding a further Frw 1.2 billion for "finishing the first phase work according to the contract's specifications."

It looks like these parties are headed for a messy court settlement. Gervais Ntaganda is always asleep on the job. On whatever job he is given.

A few years back Electrogaz was privatized and Mr Ntaganda was appointed to head the interests of the Government of Rwanda. As it turned out, the German firm that took over the national utility firm was more interested in profit gauging and stripping the company's assets than anything else.

How did Mr Ntaganda represent our interests then? He was content to spend all day in his office and draw pay at the end of the month. That is how.

Let's state it again: Gervais Ntaganda should not head HBR, or any other important public institution for that matter. He is an old man who should be retired.

During his time at HBR the institution has sunk into a real malaise. Employees are discontented. Talented staff are leaving at the first chance to do so. There is no sense of mission there, some of them have told Focus. There is no sense that one's career is going anywhere and most staff spend their days looking for other jobs or demanding leave.

Staff are so de-motivated that it is affecting customers of the bank. One customer we talked to is thoroughly fed up with the service there. It simply stinks.

If you apply for a loan you may be made to come back and go a hundred times. You are given a real run around. You provide all the documents and satisfy all the conditions they demand to be eligible for a loan. But at the last moment it is likely you will be told, sorry, no loan for you.

Foreign investors wanting to put money in the housing sector come in and are stymied by the inaction at the bank. They simply head out and never come back. We know of a specific case when an Australia-based investor, BOSF, came in ready to sink US$ 40 million into the Rwandan economy.

What happened? HBR wasn't ready to move fast enough to secure the land at Kimisange hill, the area immediately above tycoon Tribert Rujugiro's housing estate at Gikondo. The investor waited and waited and it seemed HBR would never move to get a thing done. The investor simply left and put their money elsewhere.

Gervais Ntaganda was, as usual, asleep on the job. Deadwood managers are given the boot the world over. We do no see why Rwanda should be the exception.

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