Courtesy of The Africa Report, a look at how – over the past two years – Rwanda has been aggressively expanding its businesses, including the commercial wing of President Paul Kagame’s party, Crystal Ventures, and its foreign-focused subsidiary, Macefield Ventures. These expansions have reached countries such as the Central African Republic, Mozambique (where the Rwandan army has intervened), Congo-Brazzaville, Zimbabwe, the DRC, and Zambia.

It’s a fairly ordinary-looking building. One of those large glass structures that have been springing up more often in recent years in Kigali’s Kiyovu district. Opposite the Ubumwe Hotel, the Grand Pension Plaza stretches over 17 floors. Not far from the top, on the 14th floor, are the offices of Crystal Ventures Limited (CVL).

CVL, which is neither a sovereign wealth fund nor a private equity fund, has always had a special status in Rwanda. Run by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the party in power since 1994 and led by President Paul Kagame, this holding company has gradually become a key player in Rwandan economic life, a powerful machine whose assets are estimated internally at half a billion dollars.

An incubator for government managers – many of its members have held positions in ministries or public agencies – CVL has recently emerged as a new tool for the Rwandan president’s economic diplomacy alongside other more visible structures, such as the airline Rwandair. From the Central African Republic to Mozambique – where Rwanda is deploying soldiers – to Zimbabwe, Benin and the Republic of Congo, Paul Kagame attracts numerous investors closely linked to the holding company in his wake.

Created in 1995 under the name Tri-Star Investments, CVL initially served as a relief fund for the Rwandan state to import certain essential goods for a country that was then struggling to recover from the 1994 genocide. Its initial budget mainly came from the remaining funds dedicated to the war – which was notably financed by the diaspora and outside support – waged by the armed wing of the RPF.

“The private sector did not exist. The institutions needed paper, furniture…basically everything. At the beginning, Tri-Star bought equipment, notably in Dubai, and imported it,” says a source familiar with the company. In the same year, two other companies, now controlled by CVL, were created: NDP, now one of Rwanda’s leading construction companies, and Isco Global Limited, the country’s first private security company – the only one, even today, authorised to deploy armed guards.

“We wanted to see a difference in our country where nobody wanted to invest,” Kagame said in 2017, during a rare moment when he touched on CVL.

RPF’s tentacular influence

Over the years, Crystal Ventures refined its strategy and withdrew from certain industries deemed too competitive, in order to get involved in other more promising markets, such as the telecoms sector.

Crystal Ventures also sold off some controversial assets, such as the mining company Rwanda Metals. Sold in 2002 to a Botswana firm, this company had been mentioned the previous year in a report by the UN expert group on DR Congo. Crystal Ventures was criticised for its coltan extraction activities in the east of the country, as well as for its connections with high-ranking Rwandan military officers.

The first turning point came in 1998, when Tri-Star joined forces with South Africa’s MTN to create MTN Rwandacell, which became the country’s main telecoms operator. The RPF fund was for a long time the majority shareholder of the South African group’s subsidiary until its total withdrawal from the capital in 2015. Together they then worked to establish MTN in Uganda.

The RPF has its people everywhere, in the banks, private agencies… it has a whole panel of people on whom it can rely to exert influence

Although the group publishes almost no financial data, a study by researchers David Booth and Frederick Golooba-Mutebi indicates that in 2009, it had revenues of $167m generated by companies it controlled or in which it was a minority shareholder. During the 2009-2010 fiscal year, CVL is said to have paid, according to this data extracted from the holding company’s accounts, just under 10% of the taxes directly collected by the state.

At the time of the sale of its shares in MTN, CVL was already a key player in the national economy, like the RPF, a party with tentacular influence on all sectors of economic life.

“The RPF has its people everywhere, in the banks, private agencies… it has a whole panel of people on whom it can rely to exert influence,” says a Western diplomatic source.

Often presented as one of the country’s main employers, along with the state, CVL makes a large part of its investments in Rwanda in the infrastructure sector. Does it risk imposing unfair competition on its rivals because of its proximity to the RPF?

“It is really a question of perception to say that we are the biggest or the most powerful,” says an internal source, who insists that the group plays more of a pioneer role in underinvested areas. “We are also losing a lot of contracts.”

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According to a French economic player based in Rwanda, “Crystal Ventures is omnipresent in certain sectors and it is sometimes simpler to form joint ventures with its subsidiaries. They offer knowledge of the Rwandan market and the foreign companies offer their financial and technical capacities”.

While the holding company has its own board of directors, it remains closely linked to the RPF, to which it is accountable. In addition to the dividends that CVL pays to the RPF, which can then use them at its discretion, Crystal Ventures has in recent years taken advantage of the opportunities offered by Rwandan economic diplomacy.

Incubator

Although some of its own companies are expanding abroad, CVL also created Macefield Ventures Limited (MVL) in 2021, which is responsible for promoting the development of international activities. The boundary between the activities of CVL and MVL is often blurred.

In Kigali, it shares the same premises as CVL. Its head is Elias Bayingana, who led the fund’s operations from 2016 to 2020. Like other executives from both companies, he is a member of the RPF, has had a career in the ministry of finance, where he held the position of director general of the National Budget.

Its sole mission, according to a government source, is “to work towards the development of Rwandan economic cooperation abroad”. The internal source cited earlier says: “We realised that the local market was becoming too limited and that it was necessary to look outside our borders to develop the company.”

Agriculture, construction, security, mining… A discreet organisation now omnipresent within the national diplomatic system, Macefield Ventures controls or is a shareholder in companies present in at least six countries: the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Congo-Brazzaville and the DRC. According to one of its employees, MVL currently manages 16 companies and is looking to open offices in Gabon and Cameroon, while relying on Crystal Ventures’ network of managers.

The holding company now contributes to a broader diplomatic strategy, which combines the export of Rwandan military capabilities, as is the case in the Central African Republic or Mozambique, influence within UN peacekeeping missions, and the development of RwandAir, the national airline.

Rwanda already had a good reputation within UN peacekeeping missions

“Rwanda already had a good reputation within UN peacekeeping missions, and the success of its interventions in the Central African Republic and Mozambique allows it to replicate this model elsewhere and subsequently open the door to new economic opportunities, particularly for Crystal Ventures,” says Phil Clark, a researcher at the SOAS Centre for African Studies in London.

“Crystal Ventures is first and foremost a private company that responds to its own development objectives. They can identify opportunities with the partnerships that the government develops on the continent, but the approach is primarily economic rather than diplomatic,” says Frederick Golooba-Mutebi.

According to our sources, in Benin, where Paul Kagame just wrapped up a state visit, Macefield Ventures’ teams are also working on setting up a company to exploit granite and marble, raw materials that are plentiful in the centre of the country. This project will be handled by a Beninese company.

Testing things out in CAR

One of the first points of contact for CVL and its subsidiary outside Rwanda was the Central African Republic. Kigali has been deploying soldiers there since 2014 as part of the MINUSCA – a mission now led by Rwandan diplomat Valentine Rugwabiza – and bilaterally since December 2020. The two countries have since continued to strengthen their economic ties through the signing of a series of agreements, the most recent of which were concluded in August 2021.

Several delegations from Crystal Ventures went back and forth between Rwanda and CAR in the months leading up to their signing. They were working hand in hand with Pascal Bida Koyagbele, the head of the unit for the orientation and monitoring of major works and strategic investments.

In addition to the construction of a fruit juice factory by Inyange, a CVL subsidiary, investments were made in the infrastructure and mining sectors. Vogueroc, created in 2021, is one of the companies that will serve these investments. Controlled by Macefield Ventures and headed by Olivier Kabera, who is also the director of Real Contractor, a construction company controlled by Crystal Ventures, it was authorised – in late September – to explore the exploitation of diamond and gold mines.

The full court press by Rwandan investors in the Central African extractive sector is in line with Kigali’s ambition to establish itself as a hub for mineral processing and a central transit point for gold trade in the sub-region. The stakes are strategic, given the limited production on its own territory and the rivalry between Kigali and Kampala in this area. In recent years, partnerships, particularly with investors linked to Crystal Ventures, have multiplied in several countries on the continent. In June 2021, Dither Limited had thus concluded an agreement with the Kivu and Maniema Gold Company (Sakima), which it was to refine gold for. The agreement ultimately fell through following the outbreak of the diplomatic crisis between the DRC and Rwanda.

$200m investment in Congo

Several agreements were also concluded during Kagame’s visit to Brazzaville from 10 to 13 April 2022. These include the concession agreement for the Maloukou Industrial and Commercial Zone Park. The contract concluded by Crystal Ventures with the Republic of Congo provides for the investment of $200m in exchange for a 20-year concession. The project will be operated by Macefield Ventures Congo-Holding, led by Yvonne Mubiligi, who received approval for the project in late December.

Mubiligi is working, in particular, with the team of Denis Christel Sassou Nguesso, the president’s son, who was appointed minister for the promotion of public-private partnership in 2021. Yvonne Mubiligi is also mentioned in the Congolese official journal as the general manager of Stonegenix, which was granted several mining exploration permits, particularly in gold concessions, in August 2022.

Another agreement, for the design, construction, and operation of the dry port of Dolisie, had also been signed with Macefield Ventures. Two weeks later, the son of the Congolese president visited the facilities of the Kigali Logistics Platform dry port, operated by Dubai’s DP World.

However, it is in Mozambique that the diplomatic and economic strategy deployed by Rwanda – in the wake of Kagame’s travels – finds its most striking illustration. This is the subject of the second episode of our investigation into Crystal Ventures.