The Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB) is on the spot for wasteful expenditure after it emerged that imported farm machinery worth billions of francs has lain idle for seven years.

The equipment was to be used in a mechanisation programme for agriculture to boost agricultural production.

Rwanda Today has learnt that $2.88 million (Rwf2 billion) was spent on at least five heavy farm tractors imported in 2008 while $1 million (Rwf690 million) was used to buy spare parts.

Poor planning has been blamed for the loss. RAB officials say the problem occurred during procurement. The planners did not consider the mapping of all the land that required mechanisation before purchasing the equipment.

“There was poor planning as some of the equipment was not necessary and others are not used in the agriculture sector,” said Alain Nzeyimana, acting head of the mechanization unit in land husbandry, irrigation and mechanisation (LIM) department of RAB.

“Most of the 81 farming machinery imported from South Korea did not produce the desired result.

“It is also a big challenge to get spare parts for these machines since they are very expensive and we have to import them. For instance, we made an order for spares of some machines in 2013 but they are yet to be delivered.”

Lack of professional users and technicians is also said to be a major cause of inadequate use of the machinery.

“When these machines were imported we didn’t have people with the skills of using them since it was a new thing in our country, and this caused some of them to break down easily and in a short time,” said Mr Nzeyimana.

“In case one tractor breaks down, sometimes we don’t have a person who can fix it and it ends up lying idle for a long period, which was an hindrance to the mechanisation project.”

RAB officials said only 30 farm machinery imported from India work while 250 tractors are expected to be auctioned tp cut losses.
They are also working with technical training institutions such as Gishari Integrated Polytechnic and Integrated Polytechnic Regional Centre to train students to use the equipment.

The decision was taken after audits carried out by the Auditor-General in November last year revealed that the machines were not compatible with the purpose of their purchase.