Kigali has announced that the Conservative Party will not repay the £270m it paid to Rwanda for its refugee programme, after the new Labour government scrapped the programme.
Dr Doris Uwicyeza Picard, from Rwanda’s Justice Ministry, said the country was keeping its side of the deal to help the British government deal with what was seen as “a UK problem”.
He told the BBC World Service: “We have no obligation to make any refund. We will be in ongoing discussions. However, it appears that neither side is under any obligation to seek or receive a refund.”
The UK paid £270m to Rwanda under the Migration and Economic Development Partnership, but not a single migrant was forcibly deported there – only four unsuccessful asylum seekers flew to Rwanda voluntarily after being offered £3,000.
British ministers have yet to formally give Rwanda the three-month notice it needs to end the five-year deal, but Dr Uwicyeza Picard said the country had “taken note” of Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to scrap the deal shortly after he won a general election last week.
Under a termination clause in the deal, the UK will be able to withdraw two further £50m payments in 2025 and 2026 without penalty, although the government is likely to continue funding the four refugees who were flown to Kigali.
Dr. Uwicyeza Picard said: “We have been informed of the UK’s decision. We note the UK’s decision to terminate the agreement.
“We just want to reiterate that this was a partnership that the UK embarked on to solve a problem and Rwanda came forward, as it has always done in the past, to provide safety, refuge and opportunities for migrants.
“Rwanda has kept its side of the agreement and we have increased capacity to accommodate thousands of migrants and refugees. We have kept our side of the agreement.
“We have put a lot of effort and resources into accommodating these immigrants. We understand that there are changes in government and that the incoming governments have different priorities and different policies.
“But this was an interstate agreement and we believe that goodwill will continue.”
Dr. Uwicyeza Picard expressed concern over the criticism Rwanda has faced for entering into the agreement with the UK.
He said: “The reason for this misunderstanding was that this was a Rwanda deal. Rwanda is not a deal, it is a country full of people whose policies are affected by the country’s recent history.”
He indirectly attacked the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and one of the main critics of the Rwanda plan, on the grounds that it was “not safe” for migrants, but was using Rwanda to house asylum seekers.
“We work with organizations to take people from countries like Libya and provide them with opportunities in Rwanda,” he said. “It’s impossible to believe why Rwanda is safe with these migrants and not just because of the country they come from.”
The deal’s termination will be further complicated by the plight of a group of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees who were transferred to Rwanda from the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
The four, who landed on Diego Garcia in October 2021 hoping to sail to Canada to claim asylum, are under the UK’s responsibility. They told the BBC last month that they felt “isolated and unsafe” in Rwanda.
They said they were too scared to go out and hoped the UK could find them somewhere more permanent to live away from Rwanda. Three members of the group had their asylum claims approved by the British Indian Ocean Territory authorities.
At the weekend, Home Affairs Minister Yvette Cooper ordered an audit of the Rwanda plan’s costs and liabilities, and hopes to publish it before the summer recess at the end of July.
Labour says scrapping the Rwanda plan would free up £75m in the government’s first year to set up a new border security command to tackle people-smuggling gangs alongside Border Force, MI5 and the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Sir Keir pledged that the £75m would be used to hire hundreds of additional investigators and “intelligence agents” who would be given counter-terrorism-style powers to prosecute gangs operating small boat routes across the Channel.
More than 90,000 migrants who were marked for deportation to Rwanda by Rishi Sunak’s government will be transferred to the asylum system, allowing them to apply for permission to stay in the UK.
The government also faces a multimillion-pound compensation bill from more than 200 migrants who claim they were wrongfully detained over flights to Rwanda this summer and that there was no “realistic” chance of them being deported within a reasonable timeframe.
The migrants were detained from the end of May – some during raids on their homes – but were released on bail after courts ruled there was no imminent chance of their being deported to Rwanda. The Home Office said it had planned a flight for July 24.
Ms Cooper’s spokesman said: “This is a scandalous display of carelessness with taxpayers’ money – hundreds of millions of pounds spent on a scam that saw just four people removed over two years. Imagine what that money could have done if it had been channelled into improving Britain’s border security?
“Enough is enough. A Labour Government will invest in our border security with a new Border Security Command, staffed by hundreds of law enforcement officers and investigators working to break up the smuggling gangs that make huge profits from small boat crossings across Europe.”
