Businesspeople who deal with government and have to get their pay through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (Minecofin) are up in arms due to a “chronic problem” of delayed payments.

The Director of the Treasury, Francois Nkurikiyinfura. (courtesy photo)

One of the suppliers to government we talked to on the record was Geoffrey Turyasingura the country manager of Nextt Technologies which Minecofin is supposed to pay 54.3 million francs for computers the company supplied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Turyasingura told The Rwanda Focus that he has not had trouble getting pay from government agencies in cases where he doesn’t have to collect from Minecofin. “But I am very surprised by the behavior in the office of OT (the French initials for the Director of the Treasury) where we go and they tell us to ‘come back another time,’” said Turyasingura.

“Many times they tell us that they are processing salaries, but why should that be any of my concern?” he asked. “If I have taken a bank loan to supply the tender I can’t explain to the bank that the OT is preparing salaries, so I can’t repay their loan!”

In any case, Mr. Turyasingura added, he too has salaries to pay and he too has to live.   

The story of Turyasingura is all too common in the corridor of Minecofin that leads to Mr Nkurikiyinfura’s office.

It is very common to find businesspeople who would rather be elsewhere instead begging for their pay; asking a group of some six people who are Minecofin’s verifiers what the status of their pay is.

These verifiers have become notorious for their behavior that signals “utmost lack of customer care.” These government employees, as their name suggests, are supposed to verify invoices for any small errors or inconsistencies after which they are supposed to push the payment documents to the OT to sign off. After this the papers and checks are supposed to be sent down to the Central Bank which deposits payment on the supplier’s account.

But, according to sources from within Minecofin, this is not what happens in most cases.

It is these verifiers, one and all according to our sources, who sit on documents. “These people have been instructed by Nkurikiyinfura which invoices to forward to him immediately and which to delay,” said one of our sources whom we cannot name discussing internal problems of an institution that employs them.

Our source further informed us that if Nkurikiyinfura has no interest in processing a supplier’s pay that is when a verifier will tell this businessperson that they are busy processing salaries or some other excuse like that; that is when they tell that person to come some other time.

It is very common for the Director of the Treasury to sign off on the pay of suppliers whose invoices have been forwarded well after others; for example a supplier who has spent weeks running after his pay will be ignored while one that came in today may be paid as soon as tomorrow.

According to one of our sources, the suppliers whose pay is rapidly processed are only those who first “see” Mr. Nkurikiyinfura privately.

This source told us that even the verifiers know, or have been instructed by the OT, that those who want their pay to be quickly done have to first “see him.”

But nowhere in the rules does it require anyone to first “see” the OT for their pay to be quickly done. Payment is supposed to be on a first come first served basis and the rule is that it should take a maximum of one week for it to be on the supplier’s account.

The pay of those who choose not to “see” Nkurikiyinfura; those who choose not to kwibwiriza and see him privately for some minutes, is the pay that is delayed by weeks and even months.

A supplier The Rwanda Focus overheard complaining about delayed pay from the OT’s office is Indranil Maitra the Commercial Director of ROKO (Rwanda), a construction firm.

The government owes ROKO over 180 million francs for renovation work on the Nyamirambo stadium which was one of the host venues for an African youth football championship. The company forwarded the invoice to Minecofin some four weeks back but pay has stalled in the office of the Director of the Treasury.

“Every day we are going to that office and every time they are telling us to come back another time and now I don’t know what their intention is,” said Mr. Maitra in an agitated voice in Indian accented English.

“I think these people are harassing us because they have not told us whether there is a problem with our payment or not and they are telling us ‘go and come back’, it is very difficult to understand,” he said.

The same “harassment” Mr. Maitra talks about is meted out on even the poorest suppliers from the provinces and towns as far away as Cyangugu who most often are forced to drop whatever they are doing to travel to Kigali to pursue their pay.

When we contacted Finance Minister James Musoni he stressed that the standing instruction is that things such as processing salaries “cannot be and should not be a reason to delay supplier’s pay.”

On people travelling from the provinces he said, “That shouldn’t be the case because payments have been decentralized and these people should be paid from their districts.”

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