By David Himbara
When you google the name OBADIAH BIRARO on the website of Crystal Ventures Ltd, the search result is SORRY, NOTHING FOUND. Wait a minute – what is going on here? Only last year did General Paul Kagame appoint Biraro as the Executive Chairman of Crystal Ventures Ltd (CVL), the ruling party’s US$500 million business empire. Kagame has once again struck – Biraro disappeared from Crystal Ventures.
What happened to Obadiah Biraro after his short-lived tenure as the Executive Chairman of the ruling party’s US$500 million business empire?
We know that Biraro was still the Executive Chairman of Crystal Ventures Ltd when he attended the EU-Rwanda Business Forum on June 26, 2023. Thereafter he vanished.
Biraro’s disappearance from CVL is as strange as his appointment to head the ruling party’s business empire. Before his retirement as Rwanda’s Auditor General in 2021, Biraro had exposed the Kagame regime’s corruption like no other. He persistently revealed how Rwanda’s pension money was invested in companies that did not earn any income.
Biraro’s 2015 Report established that the Rwanda Social Security Board’s (RSSB) investment in non-performing business was FRW81.9 billion or US$65.7 million. Three CVL subsidiaries are among the top companies that have captured the Rwandan people’s pensions. These are Inyange Industries, East African Granite Industries, and Crystal Telecom.
Might Kagame have had second thoughts about Biraro heading the business empire he previously characterized as a beneficiary of state capture when Biraro was Auditor General? Stay tuned.
