President Paul Kagame at the 14th Umwiherero/National Leadership Retreat
President Paul Kagame has told government officials to stop bragging about the already known achievements but do more.
“We keep congratulating ourselves for good results but why don’t you do more of what you are capable of doing,” Kagame told officials today at the opening of the five-day National leaders retreat in Gatsibo district.
He said that owing to the country’s history, “achieving what we have set out to achieve for ourselves is really not for the halfhearted…”
Unlike previous retreats, this year’s National leaders retreat will take more days because issues at hand require more time to enable leaders to come up with concrete resolutions to drive the nation to the next level.
For Kagame, some government officials have become very comfortable in their positions. He also observed that there is a mismatch between the set ambitions and actions of leaders directly responsible for implementing development agendas from top to bottom.
“You cannot have ambition, a sense of urgency and behave as if you can afford to have a sense of entitlement and at same time behave as if you can take your time,” Kagame said.
This has resulted into continuous negligence of duty, corruption and leaders getting involved in stifling government development programs, which is a challenge that the country has to overcome and this has to start with the individual leaders.
President Paul Kagame says development programs cannot be well implemented when leaders are careless and negligent
Rwanda is 3rd least corrupt country in Africa, but was displaced to six places below in the 2017 global corruption ranking Corruption Perception Index (CPI) report- despite improvements from 2014-2015, and retaining its 54 percent points score as before Rwanda ranked 50th globally compared to a 44th position from a previous report in 2015.
As of now, the prosecution has received 827 files of government resources misappropriation, 527 files related to cooperatives mismanagement, 138 cases of bank fraud and 128 cases of illegal tenders between 2013 and 2016, and millions lost under the Community Based Health Insurance contributions (mutuelle de santé).
President Kagame has said that this will not continue to happen and has tasked his team to change the way they think, act and respond to the current needs of the country which has barely made it to erase its past history.
“If you use your heart and mind, if your conscious tells you what it should, then you will stop being careless or reckless. Let us get back on track and do what the people of Rwanda expect from us,” Kagame said.
At the 14th National Leadership Retreat, Bernard Makuza (l) Senate President is seen consulting with Julienne Uwacu (r) -Minister of Sports and Culture
Meanwhile earlier in the day ahead of the retreat, President Kagame and the First Lady Jeannette Kagame led top government officials joined by residents of Gatsibo district in a monthly community work activity-Umuganda to build a primary school foundation for Simbwa residents in Kabarore sector.
Kagame pledged to support the school with laptops and access to ICT facilities as soon the school construction is completed.
The First Lady Jeannette Kagame (c) at the 14th National Leadership Retreat
