By IANS,
London : The Rwandan president is staying in a New York hotel suite whose charges for a night total over $20,000, an amount that an average Rwandan would need to work for 18 years to be able to afford one night’s stay, it was reported here.
Paul Kagame is said to be based in the Mandarin Oriental’s presidential suite while attending the UN General Assembly in New York. A hotel receptionist said the standard nightly rate for the suite, including taxes and charges, totalled $20,664.50, reported the Daily Telegraph.
The luxurious two-bedroom suite boasts of a “panoramic views of Central Park and the city skyline”.
Kagame’s spokesmen and the hotel declined to confirm he was staying there.
“It is a scandal. Rwanda is not a country that can afford to pay this much for hotels. People who have to survive on 40 cents a day will be disgusted,” Sixbert Musangamfura, a spokesman for the Rwandan opposition coalition, was quoted as saying.
The Rwandan high commissioner in London called the allegations “bogus”.