Did some employers contravened the labour law as they moved to implement a directive by the prime minister to deduct part of employees salary towards Community Based Health Insurance? That appears to be the case as many employees are complaining of not being consulted.

“By law, it is not permissible to deduct someone’s salary in favour of anything out of contract or without his/her consent, because I have been contributing towards Mutuelle de Santé in different forms with taxes included,” said Emile Karenzi (not his real name) a social entrepreneur in a phone interview.

In a recent Prime Minister order, it was made mandatory for employers to deduct 0.5 per cent of the net salary to contribute to community-based health insurance scheme subsidies.

But according to the labour law, except for compulsory deductions and other possible charges in accordance with the provisions of employment contract, an employer seizes employee’s salary in case of forced execution of court judgment or in case of voluntary transfer.

Rwanda’s Civil Society platform says there should have been citizen engagement before implementaton of the order. “All these initiatives are for public good. I would suggest strengthening citizen’s participation in the dialogues so as to own the process.

Having said that there is no free healthcare. You will find that at the end there is someone responsible for meeting the cost,” Joseph Nkurunziza, spokesperson of civil society platform told Rwanda Today.

Rwanda Workers' Trade Union Confederation also said poor engagement of the workers could impede the ownership of the scheme among the players.

“Although workers may support the scheme but they had not been consulted to understand it before and we always urge citizen participation in decisions that directly concern them,” Africain Biraboneye, deputy secretary-general of CESTRAR told Rwanda Today.