Panic over new job targets
Monday November 18 2019
The urbanisation and settlement sector was the weakest performer under the Imihigo rating last year, with a score of 43.2 per cent. PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA
District officials across the country are jittery over new “performance contracts,” which rate them on human and social development indicators, that are about to take effect.
An earlier draft locally known as “Imihigo,” which was scheduled to be signed by district mayors before President Paul Kagame in August, was rejected for lacking clear targets.
It was however followed by the resignation and sacking of both senior and junior local government officials in about half of the country’s 30 districts.
Five months into the new fiscal year, a process for districts to make the suggested adjustments has been concluded and submitted to the Ministry of Finance, which is co-ordinating the exercise.
Contacted officials were not specific on the new date of signing and announcement of performance, but they allayed fears that the delay would not have a bearing on the execution of the performance contracts this year.
Bernard Yves Ningabire, director of local government planning at the Ministry of Local Government (Minaloc) said the districts are advised to be working on the general annual targets while planning to expedite on the adjusted targets in the next quarters of the fiscal year once they are approved.
“The adjustments were made on a number of milestones for targets on crucial components but the process does not prevent districts from implementing other aspects.
It means that they will be able to accelerate these other adjusted targets in the remaining quarters,” he said.
The recently-released 2019 Governance Scorecard, an annual gauge of the state of governance in the country carried out by the Rwanda Governance Board, raised the red flag over a decline in rating when it comes to human and social development, as well as service delivery in the local administration.
Both the Governance Scorecard and the Citizen Report Card which gauges citizens’ satisfaction with government services indicate a decline in ranking on the two indicators.
The score card,notes that investments in human and social development significantly decreased from 75.5 per cent to 68.5 per cent this year, becoming the least performing pillar.
While presenting the report to Parliament on Tuesday, RGB head Dr Usta Kayitesi told lawmakers that social protection and pro-poor housing programmes were the major casualties of the local leaders' sub-par performance.
“We find problems in the way local officials behave when it comes to the implementation of these policies.
The programmes are still marred by graft and nepotism at the expense of actual beneficiaries,” she said.
Government postponed the signing of Imihigo citing serious gaps in terms of prioritising issues deemed pertinent for the welfare of citizens such as housing, with thousands without homes or staying in indecent accommodations, households without latrines as well as families sharing accommodation with domestic animals.
According to Minaloc, the adjustments specifically lay out fresh targets with proper measures to tackle these issues.
The urbanisation and settlement sector was the weakest performer in Imihigo last year with a score of 43.2 per cent, implying that not much was done to provide homes to vulnerable residents including over 40,000 families affected or still trapped in high risk zones.