CEO gets dressing down from Kagame over poor performance

Rwanda President Paul Kagame at a past event. [File, Standard]

For government officials in Rwanda, the Umushyikirano - a national dialogue event - can either be a blessing or a curse depending on performance.

For non-performers, it's a humiliating scene as President Paul Kagame and citizens engage them publicly on their failures and missteps.

Umushyikirano is a national dialogue council that creates a platform to discuss issues affecting Rwandans.

It's also where the country evaluates its previous year's development, discusses issues of national unity and governance among others.

The meeting is also used to hold national leaders to account over their performance in the past year.

During this year's event, failure to actualise a one-stop-centre by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) was the centre of focus.

Denis Karera expressed concerns that investors were having difficulty requesting licences from up to five institutions, instead of accessing them through the single-window system, Rwanda's The New Times reported.

The President engaged RDB Chief Executive Officer Claire Akamanzi for over 20 minutes, castigating her for failing to make the one-stop-centre operational.

"When we talk about how we do business, starting from the higher offices to the grassroots in our communities, the leaders must monitor the implementation of the projects that uplift people's lives," said Kagame.

"I am surprised that when some leaders are asked about progress on specific projects, they appear lost and unaware of how the funds for those projects were spent. They start telling unrelated stories. This is unacceptable, it means your focus is not on the community but on yourself."

Akamanzi said the one-stop centre offers cross-cutting licences only and other institutions offer sector-specific ones.

Kagame then ordered the said institutions to hand over the licensing power to RDB.

Stakeholders also discussed the state of unity and reconciliation, building strong families and communities and finally signing Imihigo - a performance-based contracts that District Mayors (equivalent of governors in Kenya) and ministers sign.

There are three performance-contract pillars; economic transformation, socio-economic and governance which have different activities to be met by the signees.

At the Umushyikirano, the top three best performing mayors are recognised and awarded in a session that is led by Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente, who also oversees implementation of the new performance contracts signed.

Resolutions made during the Umushyikirano inform policies that are later debated in Parliament to become laws and form nation building initiatives.

Some of the past resolutions include Abunzi, a mediation committee that handles disputes before they are escalated to court.

Another one is Girinka, a one cow per family initiative and Umwalimu (teachers) Cooperative Sacco. Under this initiative 380,000 households had received a cow by June 2020 and the programme has also helped reduce malnutrition. Nyagatare District was awarded for delivering on the performance contracts by scoring 81.64 percent for the 2021 to 2022 year.

It was followed by Huye and Rulindo in second and third respectively.

Huye District Mayor Angel Sebutege told The Standard that Imihigo are used to drive Rwanda's socio-economic transformation.

"Based on yearly targets, they help us know and hit the targets and at the same time help us accelerate the socio-economic transformation," said Sebutege.

According to Frederic Golooba-Mutebi, a Ugandan political analyst based in Kigali, countries in Africa should imitate such national dialogues.

"It has three purposes; one is to make Rwandans from all walks of life feel included in decision-making of the country. It's also the way of government showing its citizens that this is what we are doing or trying to do for you, and thus give them confidence and third is an accountability mechanism and pressurising districts to deliver," he said.

President Kagame, after signing the performance contracts for ministers and mayors, challenged the bottom performing districts to up their game. Rwanda is still recovering from the 1994 genocide in which one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered.

According to a census report released last week, 65.3 per cent of Rwanda's population is under 30, meaning a majority of Rwandans were born after the genocide.

According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Unity and Civic Engagement in 2020, 26.9 percent of Rwandans are still traumatised.