Rwanda National Police

On Wednesday, March 21, Rwanda National Police (RNP), City of Kigali and other government and private entities including utility parastatals, held a meeting with dealers in scrap in an effort to address the pressing concern of vandalism and theft of utility infrastructure.

There have been series of vandalism of utility infrastructure in different parts of the country, which are mainly sold to dealers in scrap.

The meeting, therefore, aimed at reminding scrap dealers to abide by the awarded license and the law, and to forge partnership against vandals.

Utility items are not considered as scrap unless they are sold by the respective institutions or rightful owners.

According to Rwanda Energy Group (REG) these criminal practices have vandalized cables, cross-arms stolen from pylons, earthing wires, underground cables, meters, twisted cables, circuit breakers, surge arrestors, and transformers.

Since November last year, at least 17 transformers worth over Frw135 million, have been vandalized in City of Kigali. 

Early this month, RNP impounded a truck transporting about 1.5 tonnes of electrical cables suspected to have been stolen from power lines.

A number of suspects have since been arrested including dealers in scrap, who also buy stolen utility equipment like manhole covers, gate valve, air valve, door and reservoir covers, batteries on towers, among others. 

The City of Kigali Vice-Mayor in charge of social economic development, Martine Urugeni told scrap dealers that vandalizing utility infrastructure is a bottleneck to the country's economic transformation.

“This vandalism is influenced by some of you, who buy the stolen equipment as scrap.

The government spend a lot of money to build these utility infrastructures to serve the needs of the people, to create jobs and improve the socio-economic well-being of Rwandans," Urugeni said.

She urged the scrap commercial dealers to play their role in fighting the criminal acts. 

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Desire Gumira, the Central Region Police Commander (RPC) urged the scrap dealers to take internal measures in their association against any members engaged in these criminal activities.

“The problem of vandalizing public infrastructure is a threat to national security and economy since its impacts on human security," ACP Gumira said.

Being a registered scrap company, he added, does not mean buying from anyone or anything brought to you but rather taking measures to operate legal business.

The RPC called for vigilance and information sharing against scrap dealers, who are part of the chains of vandals.

ACP Gumira added that the Police have intensified operations targeting the people who vandalize public infrastructure, including those who steal road signage.

Francis Twahirwa, who heads an association of scrap dealers, said they are going to change the way they conduct their business, strengthen monitoring and supervision of their members, which will facilitate law enforcements against this high impact vandalism.