APA-Kigali (Rwanda) Rwandan court Friday evening sentenced former state minister for primary and higher education Theoneste Mutsindashyaka, to one year imprisonment for flouting tendering procedures, APA notes here this Saturday.

The court also ordered the former powerful minister to pay a fine of Frw500, 000 ($880).

Mutsindashyaka who was dropped from cabinet this year for several alleged corruption charges when he was the governor of the eastern province, was last Tuesday arrested and charged in court for allegedly concealing his multi-million foreign bank accounts from the Ombudsman and alleged embezzlement of state resources.

The verdict is however different from a case in which the former minister is accused of causing financial loss to the state when he was governor of the Eastern Province, President Paul Kagame’s country home.

At the moment, prosecutors are already building another case in which he is alleged to have amassed wealth which is incompatible with his income.

Prosecution accused Mutsindashyaka of informing EMA Construction Company that it had won the tender nearly a month away before Rwanda public procurement authority announced the winner.

The court judge Cludine Nyiramikenke ruled that Mutsindashyaka while serving as the state minister signed a contract with EMA yet it was not his duty.

“This was the basis of the whole mess surrounding this case. Mutsindashyaka ignored the tendering rules,” Nyiramikenke ruled.