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Burundi rubbishes Panama Papers

Saturday October 21 2017
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President Pierre Nkurunziza, second left, with first vice president Gaston Sindimwo, left, and second vice president Dr Joseph Mutore. PHOTO | AFP

By MOSES HAVYARIMANA

The Panama Papers that contain documents full of financial information about wealthy individuals and public officials – previously kept private — has now revealed that Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza took advantage of the political crisis in the country to enrich himself.

According to the Panama Papers, with the help of a group of African journalists, its team discovered that Nkurunziza is holding hundreds of millions of dollars in accounts abroad.

The Panama Papers report that President Nkurunziza and his circle of friends increasingly “eat” from collected tax money with impunity was given credence again when the presidency, in March this year, reserved foreign currency — of which the country has little — to exclusively order fuel for the country from the Interpetrole company, in which he is said to have a stake.

“While citizens are squeezed for taxes in a country still listed as among the five poorest in the world, undeclared gold leaves Burundi by the bagful,” the report says.

The Panama Papers reported that according to The UN’s international trade statistics, Burundian gold worth over $160 million was declared imported by the United Arab Emirates in 2015 alone.

Gold smuggling

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However, over the same year, Burundi registered only $13 million in gold exports to the entire world. That it was possibly because the gold was not mined in Burundi but smuggled in from the DR Congo.

ALSO READ: Congo's Kabila owns over 80 companies

“The Panama Papers report is nothing but loads of rubbish, it is another episode that fits into diabolic dynamics aimed at sabotaging the public institutions of Burundi through a campaign of slander,” said President Pierre Nkurunziza’s spokesman Jean Claude Karerwa.

However opposition leader and the deputy speaker of parliament Agathon Rwasa told The EastAfrican: “This is a most likely picture of what African leaders really are and one of the reasons they change their constitutions to make sure that they are in power for life.”

Mr Rwasa said that as the country faces an economic upheaval, the Panama Paper revelations means that “there is no governance at all.”

Fuel shortage

Burundi has been hit again by a fuel shortage that has persisted for almost a month now, with long queues now a common sight in the capital Bujumbura.

Public transport has been adversely affected with passengers having to line up for many hours waiting for the few buses still in operation as most drivers spend endless hours waiting to refuel their buses.

READ: Burundi hit by severe power, fuel shortage

ALSO READ: Burundi crisis neglected but hardship continues

“We get to the work late and we get home late because there are only a few buses in service,” said a man in Bujumbura, as he queued at the main bus park.

Ishari, a father of five has been a bus driver for more than 20 years in the capital and says the fuel shortage is a major threat to his family. “Sometimes we don’t work at all because of this fuel shortage and this is the only source of income I have.”

Many businesses in the country depend on fuel due to the insufficient electricity supply in the country. About two kilometres out of the city centre is the Buyenzi suburb, where many small hardware workshops and garages are located.

Here, residents say they only get electricity for a few hours a day and have had to resort to generators for welding, car repairs and painting. “Now with the fuel shortage we have to wait until late evening, when we get electricity, then work at night,” said a mechanic.

But Daniel Mpitabankana, director of Burundi Oil, is upbeat. “The lack of a working knowledge of the procedures for the East Africa Single Customs Territory by fuel importers is the cause of the shortage but in the next few days, everything will normalise,” he said.

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