Over 30 youth cooperatives and associations on Friday signed performance contracts (Imihigo) with the Mayor for the City of Kigali, Fidèle Ndayisaba, committing the coops to achieving various goals, including promoting welfare of members and improving cleanliness in the city.

Addressing the youth after the signing ceremony, the mayor urged them to enhance cleanness and hygiene."When you want to meet and impress upon a responsible person, you first have to ensure that you are clean. As city dwellers, we have to clean both ourselves and the city since,” Ndayisaba said.

Innocent Bayingana, the president of the youth forum in Kigali City, said signing contracts helps the city to stay clean and increases teamwork spirit among the youth who constitute the cooperatives that maintain city cleanliness.

The occasion also involved awarding the best performing cooperatives where Syndicat de Transport Taxi moto au Rwanda (Sytramorwa), a cooperative of motorcycle transporters, emerged the best.

Evode Nzitunga, the president of the cooperative, attributed their achievement to the commitment by the members to achieve the goals that were set for them during last year’s performance contracts.

Speaking to The New Times, Nzitunga said the terms of their contracts were also implemented at individual level.

With the new Imihigo for 2015, Nzitunga said Sytramorwa will focus on improving social welfare of members.

"We are planning to build over 300 houses for members. We will start with those who have land, and this will be made possible by member’s hard work and acquisition of bank loans,” he added.

Bayingana said each cooperative is given a public garden to look after, and the assessment is done at the end of the year basing on the kinds of trees planted, flowers and creativity applied to improve the beauty of the city.

The winner and the runners-up were given trophies and Rwf1 million each.

Currently, there are over 42 youth cooperatives and associations but only 33 that have offices within the three urban districts and only those with offices signed contracts.

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