Managing Director CV
Association and Accomplishments
A private experience in resetting Rwandan Economy
COMMENTS
SEE OUR KEY FIGURES
Managing Director CV
John NYOMBAYIRE
e-mail : nyomba@usa.net
Career Highlights
- Managing Director of SABAN, sarl Tannery and Abattoir (july 2000-Present)
- General Manager, Commercial Bank of Rwanda, sa (1994-2000)
- Secretary General andFinancial Manager,AFRIMA (Toyota MotorsRepresentative in RDC 1991-1994)
- Senior Manager, Union Zaïroise des Banques, RDC (1972-1990)
- Banking and Finance College Professor in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi (RDC)
- High School Teacher ,RDC (1969-1971)
Association and Accomplishments
- Past District Governor 90/91 of Rotary International, District 9150 (11 Central Africa countries)
- Director of GRELKA, Livestock Company Brussels Lambert Group in RDC (40.000 heads of cattle 1984-1990)
- Director of Rwanda Revenue Authority,Rwanda (1998-Present)
- Director of Rwanda Breweries”BRALIRWA”, HEINEKEN group(1998 – Present)
- Consultant in financial environment
Education
- Bachelor in Economics and Graduate in High school Education Science
RE/ A private experience in resetting Rwandan Economy
Africa is known as the poor continent.
Rwanda, the country of the thousand hills in the heart of Africa, known also as the Switzerland of Africa ,
unfortunately has its share of poverty.
Rwanda shares the natural beauties with Switzerland, but not its riches.
Rwanda is not poor because we don’t have sufficient ideas, nor the will to develop, but we are in a century
long slump and in order to develop one needs courage, experience and most of all money.
We have the courage, and we need to acquire experience, but what we are totally missing is financial means.
International aid organisations seem to have large sums at their disposal, but it is extremely difficult to touch
even the smallest part of those sums, which are earmarked to rehabilitate old industries or erect new ones.
There are so many excellent opportunities in Africa, and compared to the sums available, even peanuts can
make a huge difference if they’d be allowed to land in the right places.
The meat industry in Rwanda, like most, if not all parts of Africa, excluded the Republic of South Africa,
is an almost non existent entity, although Rwanda produces meat like any other country in the world.
In general animals are slaughtered under the most repelling circumstances, both for the animals as for the
population who buy the meat.
Real abattoirs have never existed, and animals were killed either somewhere in the field, close to a river
or behind a butchers house on the earthen floor. Hygiene is an unknown word.
During 35 years of my professional life I have been in banking management for 29 years, 3 years in teaching
and 2 years as a Company General Secretary and have served in many places in RDC(ex ZAIRE) before I
returned to Rwanda after the genocide period.
I have been General manager of one of the most important banks in Kigali, which resumed operations in 1995,
after the genocide perpetrated in 1994. After 6 years of hard rehabilitation work , I left the bank.
Indeed, I thought I could do far more than sit behind a very honourable desk as I wanted to do better, both
from the business point of view and produce something, that would generate money, and at the same time
do something useful for the country.
As it happens, an occasion arose, and the existing public and central abattoir in Kigali, which was established
by the government some 30 years ago, was up for sale, as the abattoir functioned very badly and unsafely.
A Rwanda-Libyan joint-ventured managed also a tannery and a shoe factory.
All three establishments have been looted during genocide period , were in shambles and needed repairs and
reconstruction.
This situation presented itself to me as the challenge of a lifetime, as I would be able to satisfy my own
intellectual needs, my wish to undertake an industrial/commercial venture, and help my country at
the same time.
I was into contact with a French company, who are specialised in the development and materials of abattoirs
in European Community and together with the French we have transformed the horror house of the existing
abattoir into a modern hygienic meat industry with a modest capacity compared to European standards,
but definitely sufficient to attend to the requirements of the Rwandan and sub-region markets, and in the
same hygienic environment as any European meat industry, fully responding to EU norms.
We did a total overhaul of the whole system. We practically stripped the building and started from scratch.
This is what we obtained: Animals are off-loaded from trucks with ramps and settled on a large meadow
where they can relax from the stress of transport.
Live animals are now walked from the meadow to the abattoir in a totally relaxed way, and they enter the
abattoir one at a time in a pen where they remain unaware of their surroundings.
The animals are separated from the others and once they enter the abattoir they are professionally stunned
and processed, resulting in good quality, clean, uncontaminated meat, that can either enter the market the
same day as it is the habit in Africa or be conserved in our refrigerated storage rooms, the only ones in the
country.
The cost of this operation for a single person is rather high, but for the international community virtually
peanuts, less than 3 million dollars. With this investment we have served our commercial aspirations to
the benefit of the Rwandan population.
Our break-even number is the slaughter of 100 heads per day, which in a city like Kigali is easy to reach.
We have tried to apply for financing from the international community but apart from reading our huge time
consuming reports, nothing has been done.
To develop and transform the abattoir we have put our own money on the line, as it was not worth to continue
provide reports with nothing in return. I am sure bureaucrats are still reading the reports and considering
whether or not to grant financing, when the abattoir is already fully operational.
We got also a very high cost bank support for less than 20% of our investment at 16% interest rate.
(this is the best rate in the market!!!)
After the positive experience with the abattoir, that apart from producing meat, also produces hides, we have
contacted several experts in the field of hide processing, and we have selected a small Italian company to help
us develop our tannery, and produce leather of world class quality.
Instead of burying ourselves and our Italian collaborators under heaps of paper, we have taken a simple and
practical step: we have rehabilitated the existing tannery and reconditioned crucial machines.
We have bought from the Italian collaborators tanning chemicals, and once these arrived, two technicians
have come over and tarted an industrial trial production to transform raw goatskins into wet-blue leathers.
The trial has offered excellent results and we have immediately decided to strengthen the relation with the
Italians by buying sufficient chemicals to start a regular production.
Once the production will run, we will reinvest the revenue of the production to modernise the tannery and to
expand the machine park in order to be able to produce a further advanced stage in the leather production and
add more value to the leather, made in Rwanda, but with world class quality, checked and supervised by the
Italians, who are also responsible for the marketing.
The initial investment is rather limited as we can use most of the existing machines in the tannery.
I attracted a partner to help me financing the tannery improvements, as I wanted to make things happen fast
rather than start the whole bureaucratic serpentine of the International aid organisations.
In fact the idea of the wet-blue production was born last year, first discussed with the Italians in January, and
the first industrially produced wet-blue was available in June, and full production is expected in October.
The shoe factory is of course the next step in my line of thinking, not only for export but also to produce shoes
for my countrymen. Of course we will use the leather from our own tannery, closing thus a complete cycle from
abattoir to finished consumer product.
These are the first steps, as we want to bring the advantages of clean hygienic abattoirs also to other cities
in Rwanda, and if the International community listens to me, and puts the funds at our disposal,
we can develop Rwanda, not with cathedrals built in the desert, but with realistic small projects that have a
relatively low cost and a huge commercial and human benefit as they are directly aimed at the needs of the
country and its population, creating work, creating skills and revenue for the State as well.
The money that is spent is what is needed, pragmatically, no luxury.
The abattoir has the right dimension to serve its purpose, as is the tannery, because in my view it is totally
useless to create huge industrials capacities when the raw material available is not sufficient to serve huge
industrial conglomerates, but only small industries. Anyway in my small industries, many of my countrymen
find work and are schooled in industrial and professional skills.
COMMENTS
What is the problem ?
Livestock has always played an important role in Rwanda.
The big problem is that our country lacks the infrastructure and facilities to care for the animals, receivess little
financial support for the slaughter process and is provided with isufficient information on meat markets.
The meat commerce is under developped in the internal market and does not exist in the external market while
our beefsteak should be the best in the world.
The skins and leather industry represent a real opportunity for Rwandan economy. However, it still show the
poor quality and lack of business acumen and translate into a loss in economic development of almost 5 million
usd per year.
What do we need ?
To set a project which will provide slaughter houses with information on how and when to select animals for
slaughter, and on the meat market and issues such as availability and prices.
If our project can go ahead, the money will be invested in new equipment for the livestock market and the
transformation of the carcasse byproducts.
We need to collaborate with our government in establishing a network of professionals that will help our
workers in achieving better skills and more responsability in their profession.
Saban Tannery will be the focal point in developping that area.
Once the network of professionals is in place, the second phase will be to improve the quality of rwa
materials and the tanning process of hides and skins, and developp trade between the countries concerned.
Training will be given by the German cooperation through our ministry of youth and cooperatives in order to
improve working conditions with the aim of creating an infrastructure of Rwandan professionnals workers
(slaughtermen,tanners and livestock farmers).
That is our aim to create more jobs and to increase our country capability to fight against poverty.
