The Rwandan government has begun attaching abandoned properties of genocide suspects, including those still on the run or convicted in absentia.

The move is aimed at ensuring that the properties are properly managed or sold off to so that the owners do not benefit from them and victims are compensated.

Almost 21 years after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, a considerable number of survivors are yet to be compensated.

Debate on the fate of properties of suspects and compensation of genocide survivors dominated the 12th national dialogue, which took place on December 18 and 19, during which it was revealed that some genocide convicts have reluctantly refused to compensate their victims.

READ: Rwanda govt seeks more powers to seize all abandoned assets

According to Jean De Dieu Mucyo, executive secretary of the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide, there are still major challenges in the recovery process as genocide convicts continue to dodge paying for damages or what was stolen during the 100-day massacre.

“Some people have deliberately refused to pay while others sold off their properties quietly, others changed the ownership of their properties in order not to pay for what they damaged during the genocide or compensate their victims,” Mr Mucyo said.

This is in addition to plans by some convicts to apply for retrial after the closure of the traditional courts locally known as Gacaca.

Nearly 20 per cent of the genocide survivors who were supposed to be compensated are yet to be paid.

During the national dialogue, President Paul Kagame asked government institutions responsible for following-up on the matter to ensure that people who are supposed to pay up meet their obligations.

“People should be made to meet their legal obligations without fail,” he said after it emerged that some genocide survivors have been waiting for compensation years after the cases were concluded.

“To accord someone justice means to take that last step to close the case by ensuring that those who are supposed to pay meet their dues and those who are supposed to be compensated are compensated, otherwise it will not be justice,” he said.

Minister for Justice Johnston Busingye said the 20 per cent of convicts who have not paid up are people who have deliberately dodged meeting their obligations, those hiding the property or those who claim not to have the capacity to pay.

Save for the ones without capacity to pay, part of the government plan is to attach properties of genocide suspects, some of whom were convicted in absentia or are still on the run, using the amended law on abandoned properties.

READ: Rwanda defends property law changes

Most wanted suspects

The targeted properties include those of one of the most wanted genocide suspects, Felicien Kabuga.

The most recent development on one of the many properties owned by Mr Kabuga saw the Commission for Abandoned Properties in Gasabo district auction a piece of land owned by the businessman last week.

However, the auction of the land located in Kimironko sector was nullified after it emerged that the land had been undervalued and a fresh auction was ordered.

A group of investors pooled resources and bought the property but, their acquisition of the land was short-lived after the authorities cancelled the whole process and scheduled the event.

Mr Kabuga is a wealth Rwandan fugitive with abandoned properties in the country in real estate and tea estates among other sectors.

With the new law, which was enacted last year and empowers government to sell or confiscate abandoned properties, Mr Kabuga’s prime property was put up for sale by the district authorities to compensate survivors who accuse the fugitive of having looted their properties.

The Kimironko prime land was valued by independent evaluators and sold at Rwf250 million. Although the district authorities cannot put a figure on the worth of the land, the authorities have nullified the sale and postponed it to a future date until the true market value is established.

“We realised that the evaluation process that established this price was not accurate and this is the reason we intervened as a district to set the correct value,” said Olivier Kaberuka, abandoned properties manager of Gasabo district.

Mr Kaberuka also dismissed speculation that the process of auctioning the property was nullified because it was believed that Mr Kabuga’s daughter was behind a group of people buying the property.

However, the law does not discriminate against Mr Kabuga’s family buying part of his estates if it raised money to pay what he owes the survivors.

“The family of Mr Kabuga has a right to participate in the buying of his properties and this is not the reason the auction was cancelled,” added Mr Kaberuka.

However, the government has in the past taken action and frozen the assets and several local and foreign bank accounts which the family of the fugitive was quietly regaining access to. The plot, which is located in a prime area, is one of the many properties formerly owned by Mr Kabuga, one of the world’s most wanted men, with a $5 million bounty on his head.

According to the Office of the Prosecutor General, the accounts and properties had been secretly returned to the family without the knowledge of the government.

According to information from the office, two of Mr Kabuga’s children, Seraphine Uwimana and Donatien Nshimyumuremyi, travelled to Rwanda on several occasions in 2003 with intentions of regaining access to their father’s property.

The two, who are also said to be running lucrative businesses in Kenya on behalf of their father, had power of the attorney from their mother Josephine Mukazitoni to claim rights to the family property.

In December 2013, Kabuga’s wife allegedly wrote to President Kagame, seeking his intervention to hand the family properties back.

In fact, it is claimed that Mr Kabuga’s children had managed to regain rights to some of the properties, which include a building in downtown Kigali, next to City Plaza and the building at Muhima which houses BPR as well as a mega building occupied by the Rwanda national police.

The two buildings are in Kabuga’s name but the prosecution found that the lease agreements had been signed between the current tenants and his son Mr Nshimyumuremyi.