Prosecutor General Pleads With Parliament To Get Him More Staff

The office of the Prosecutor General has told Parliament that corruption files are piling up so much that some may never be prosecuted unless it can get more qualified staff.

Without saying how many people his office has at the moment and those it needs, Jean Bosco Mutangana said today March 22 that more case emerge every year from the annual reports of the Auditor General.

He told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that a special unit called the ‘Economic and Financial Crime Unit (EFCU) was created to prosecute graft cases.
However, the unit is over loaded, he said adding that “it is like a pickup vehicle carrying 100 tons”.

Mutangana is under pressure from Parliament which receives annual Auditor General reports showing billions missing from state coffers, but nobody is held to account.

Using PowerPoint presentation, the Prosecutor General detailed monies that have been recovered and people sent to jail.

From cases raised in 2014-2015 Auditor General report, 96 cases were identified but just about 16 were prosecuted conclusively.

The Economic and Financial Crime Unit has also dealt with 86.4% of the graft cases highlighted in 2015-2016 by the Auditor General.

However, as for the AG’s report of 2016-2017, in corroboration with Rwanda Investigations Bureau (RIB), just about 36.2% have been followed or (42 cases) but 74 are pending.

As for last year, Mutangana told PAC that more than 97% of the graft cases were completed and forwarded to courts for prosecution.

In addition to shortage of appropriately trained prosecution staff to handle economic crimes, Mutangana said the old Penal Code which was amended in September last year, had no laws to prosecute some corruption cases.

To emphasize just how understaffed his anti-corruption team is Mutangana said: “But we also know the capacity of our country so we do our best with the little that is available.”