Rwanda is turning the screws on corruption in public offices with a crackdown on suspects that has resulted in several arrests of top officials.

The police, working under Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga, have arrested senior officials from the Ministries of Education, Infrastructure, the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, the Central Public Investment and External Finance Bureau, and Strabag, a private firm.

The first to be arrrested by Mr Ngoga — President Paul Kagame’s anti-graft czar — was Justin Nsengiyunva, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education.

Nsengiyunva was arrested in November last year after police were tipped off by a businessman that Nsengiyunva was demanding a bribe before authorising a payment order for the supply of IT equipment to the ministry worth 99.7 million Rwanda francs ($176,000)

The police, working with the businessman Moses Byaruhanga, trapped Nsengiyunva’s accomplice, Evariste Gasirabo, an employee with the Central Bank.

Mr Gasirabo had initially asked for RwF3.5 million ($6,200) to ‘facilitate’ the signing of the order but this was negotiated down to RwF2 million ($3,500).

Mr Byaruhanga informed the Criminal Investigation Department about the solicited bribe. The CID in turn supplied him with the RwF2 million ($3,500) in marked banknotes.

At the appointed venue, Byaruhanga handed the money to Gasirabo and the police pounced, arresting the latter with the incriminating evidence.

The police then went for Nsengiyunva who reacted by trying to bribe the officers — another offence.

To attempt to bribe a police officer in Rwanda is tantamount to presenting yourself at the nearest police station to report your crime!

Nsengiyunva and his sidekick were immediately led away to jail pending court cases for soliciting a bribe, extortion and attempted bribery.

But much as the Rwanda government is committed to fighting graft and all kinds of abuse of office, there are those who are wont to look the other way or even abet the crime.

After about a week in jail, Nsengiyunva escaped. It is suspected his escape was engineered by some powerful government officials who were afraid that, when interrogated, he would implicate them in corrupt deals.

Talking to this writer, Mr Ngoga said corruption got the man in, and it got him out.

Rwanda has issued an Interpol alert for Nsengiyunva, who is still is at large.

Another high-profile arrest was that of Louis Munyakazi, the director of the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda.

Munyakazi, who has the look of a college professor with eyes peering out of thick-lensed spectacles and a tall, lanky frame always dressed in dark brown blazers and un-matching pants, seemed the least likely candidate to be caught in a corruption probe.

But three weeks ago, Rwandans woke up to the news that he had been arrested after investigations by the CID and the Prosecutor General’s office established he had embezzled a large sum of NISR money.

But the case that clearly highlights the government’s intent to root out graft is the one involving officials of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Central Public Investment and External Finance Bureau, and Strabag, a German road construction firm.

Quite a number of officials from these institutions have been arrested so far.

The first to be arrested was Infrastructure Permanent Secretary Vincent Gatwabuyenge for authorising and signed off a payment of over RwF1.7 billion ($2.998 million) to Strabag for services the company did not provide.

The payment was for installations Strabag was supposed to put up including residential housing for staff, stores and control buildings in Kigali and the small provincial town of Nyamata.

A few years ago, Strabag won a tender to build a 70-kilometre tarmac road from Kigali to the rural region of Bugesera.

Once in jail and under relentless questioning, Mr Gatwabuyenge divulged more details about the graft involved in construction of that road.

In one incident, he said, together with George Katurebe, Director of the Central Public Investment and External Finance Bureau, they conspired to exonerate Strabag from payment of a RwF 456 million ($804,000) fine for breach of contract after the company failed to complete the road in the stipulated timeframe.

A quick investigation showed that indeed, Strabag never paid the fine. Mr Katurebe was soon after arrested.

The Director of Finance at the Ministry of Infrastructure, Faustin Gacinya, was not spared either. He was found complicit in a RwF1.7 billion ($2.998 million) payment.

The head engineer in the same ministry, Eliab Munyemana, was also arrested on the same day as Jean Baptiste Habyarimana and Jean Ngarambe, two employees of Studi International — a company the government of Rwanda hired to supervise construction of the Kigali-Bugesera road.

Kagame has said he will not tolerate corruption and so far, he has shown that he means it.

“This is not a man to joke with,” said a Kigali resident.

Kigali is becoming too hot a place for the corrupt.

Shyaka Kanuma is chief editor of Focus, a Kigali-based weekly newspaper