President Kagame visits the largest commercial building in Huye district: the Smart Taxi Park Complex – Southern Province in April 12, 2015. Despite mega projects such as this, the Province lagged behind in the previous imihigo.
President Paul Kagame arrived in Huye District of Southern Province today and will this evening meet over 600 opinion leaders.
The President will later tomorrow, February 26, head to Nyamagabe district in the same Province to address citizens as part of the Citizen Outreach Programme.
Southern Province came to the spotlight during last year’s performance contracts “Imihigo” when it performed poorly compared to other Provinces.
In August last year, President Kagame presided over the performance contracts exercise – Imihigo where the last 3 districts came from the southern province and the rest in the last half of 30 districts also came from the South.
The President blamed poor performance on ‘selfish’ leaders who abandon responsibilities for their personal interests.
“There is that line between the first and second half of 30 districts…those on average and below the average performance. Those below the average are predominantly from one part of the country,” Kagame said in reference to poor performance of the Southern Province.
“This has a meaning. I don’t know but you can find out why,” Kagame said adding that “I asked and learnt that the issue from those poorly performing districts is that they are always busy solving conflicts between themselves, instead of solving issues among citizen.”
During a cabinet reshuffle in October last year, former Governor Mari Rose Mureshyankwano was replaced by Emmanuel K. Gasana.
Lying about performance indicators
Meanwhile, investigation by local government Ministry discovered reports of local leaders who manipulated socio-economic figures during 2018 performance contracts (Imihigo).
Early this year, Prime Minister Dr. Edourd Ngirente warned that strict measures against such malpractices were in place.
For instance, addressing Rwanda Local Government Delivery Forum 2019 that brought together local leaders from across the country in January this year, Prime Minister Ngirente said government has taken a new decision to conduct performance evaluation on a monthly basis instead of annual evaluation to nip the vice in the bud.
