In 2013 a private contractor was tendered to construct 15 houses for genocide survivors in the village of Sumbure, Kanazi cell, Nyamata Sector in the district of Bugesera, each valued at Rwf12 million.
The contractor (Dieudonne Uwizeyimana) designed the houses to the roofing point but left half of them incomplete within the rooms with no doors , windows and unplastered walls, let alone the incomplete kitchens and toilets outside.
Bugesera district officials reported back then that due to a lack of financial capacity, the entrepreneur infringed the contract requirements.
They had long been waiting for the new homes for genocide survivors like Dancille Uwamariya and had no time to wait for the completion but decided to enter the houses pending completion because they were homeless.
While Uwamariya has since been able to sleep, a parliamentary report Committee on Reconciliation, Human Rights and Fighting Genocide has shown that there are still many survivors of the genocide who have no homes, despite the assurance that they will all have their own.
The Genocide Survivors Assistance Fund (FARG) announced the construction of 1,014 houses in 2018, and the reconstruction of 1,000 houses in the country that year.
The parliamentary committee also revealed that 1,687 surviving family members of the genocide are still homeless.
While some families are absolutely homeless, others live in dilapidated homes, MPs have shown that there are some homes that have been badly constructed just like the one of the Bugesera district genocide survivor Uwamariya.
“I was saddened to see how these houses are in a sorry state because construction materials from foundation to the ceiling are substandards,” MP Leonard Ndagijimana said.
Ndagijimana indicated that the parliament would firmly recommend that the Rwanda Housing Authority (RHA) ensure that the survivors of Genocide houses follow the requirements.
In response to this, committee chairperson, MP Elisabeth Mukamana said the parliament would add a recommendation to RHA as part of its responsibility to follow up on the building guidelines.
“When you see the houses built nowadays they are different and things are changing but we agree with this recommendation,” Mukamana said.
This is one of the conditions raised on June 9, 2020 by an Ombudsman’s Parliamentary Report on Activities (2018-19).
MPs said this is a situation which should have been resolved 26 years after the Genocide.