By David Himbara
Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC) was created in 2011. The RBC purpose was described as follows:
“To become a Center of Excellence for the prosperity of the country, ensuring quality health service delivery, education and research.”
After many failed attempts at operationalizing RBC, the Kagame regime relaunched it in 2016. The Board of Directors were appointed in 2016.
The Chairperson of Board Members were Prof. Philip Cotton, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Rwanda.
Fast-forward to 2017. The Auditor General is reporting the following on the so-called Centre of Excellence for Biomedical Engineering:
On 8 December 2014, the Government of Rwanda signed a loan agreement worth USD 21,276,750 (equivalent to Frw 14,860,083,458) with African Development Bank (AfDB) meant for the Centre of Excellence for Biomedical Engineering and e – Health Project. The implementation period of the project is 5 years ending 7 December 2019. However, the audit identified that the project only executed 3.41% of its budget for the year ended 30 June 2017.
Kagame’s Biomedical Centre is dying before it takes off. How is possible that only 3.41% a loan of US$21 Million signed in 2014 has been executed in three years? And only two years are left on the loan’s implementation period? Where is this money? And what became of the original purpose of creating a medical centre for ensuring quality health service delivery, education and research in Rwanda? What is wrong with this regime?
