When Paul Kagame wakes up in the morning, he’s always thinking about the next person he’s going to have murdered. This addiction requires financial resources because Kagame has to buy weapons and pay professional death squads to do the work.
Since naively generous donors have their hands tied nowadays, Kagame has no choice but to rob banks. Unfortunately, Kagame doesn’t know how to rob a bank without burning the building to the ground (along with the cash therein). So, he approaches servants Gatete and Rwangombwa and tells them to get to work and figure out the way to rob all savings of the poor Rwandans without making too much noise. He asks them to use tricks that the average Rwandan won’t be able to understand.
One of the tricks Gatete and Rwangombwa have been using lately is called “treasury bond”! They issued one, it worked, and they have not stopped ever since. Every other month they issue another treasury bond. The name “treasury bond” makes them appear (on camera) as if they are doing something legit. They are not.
Treasury bonds are not supposed to be used as tricks on people, they are supposed to be good financial instruments through which honest people lend money to a given government on a voluntary basis. Ideally, bondholders have genuine belief that the issuing government will be around during the term of the bond so they can be repaid with interest. However, all outstanding Kagame bonds have a maturity that extends way beyond Kagame’s dictatorial term. Investors usually would lend their money to a government that does not depend on one person and one person only. Why not? Because the government can go down at any moment’s notice when that person goes down. Human life is short. In Rwanda’s case, that one person is Paul Kagame, a world class dictator and worst criminal in office today.
In Rwanda’s case, treasury bonds are used as tricks because Kagame forces pension funds and insurance companies to buy them.
To make matters worse, the average Rwandan does not understand these financial instruments. Not a bit. The average Rwandan thinks treasury bonds sound sexy, and that’s the end of the story. He/she does not understand that Kagame is using treasury bonds to screw him/her up. To steal his/her savings.
Meanwhile, all Rwandans know well that Kagame (and his regime) will not be around for much longer, but they don’t understand what that has to do with the treasury bonds. Here’s the secret Kagame does not want you to know: When Kagame leaves office, he will go down with his entire regime. Your That’s just how things work with dictatorships. Your savings will also go down with Kagame because they are not insured and they are being used to the detriment of the Rwandan people. Your loved ones are being killed today thanks to your money, and you will end up losing your money when killer leaves office (and leaves you alive). You will be hurt twice. So, you might as well start helping to fight Kagame’s regime now.
Kagame’s bonds are not treasury bonds. They are not sexy. They are junk bonds and they are dangerous.
Bosco Mutarambirwa
