A lot of things often go wrong at several parastatals but if parliament held those responsible to account there would be significant progress in the fight against graft, anti-corruption watchdogs have said.

They were responding to last week’s speech by President Paul Kagame in which he called upon newly sworn-in members of the country’s 4th Chamber of Deputies to prioritise, among other roles, government oversight to ensure value for money for development programmes.

According to Marie Immaculée Ingabire, the Chairperson of Transparency International Rwanda (TI Rwanda), it is clear that the President wants the legislators to actively support his campaign against graft "without fear of favour”.

Ingabire, who heads Rwanda’s chapter of the global anti-corruption body, observed that Kagame’s message was clear: "He wants the MPs to do more in regard to enforcing accountability.”

She told The New Times yesterday that for corruption to be kept in check, the legislators ought to scale up efforts to question cabinet ministers over mismanagement of public funds in all the institutions they supervise.

"The President wanted to remind MPs that they can summon officials with supervisory mandate in case of any misappropriation or mismanagement of public resources. That was his message and I think it was clear,” she said.

The Deputy Ombudsman in charge of Preventing and Fighting Corruption and Related Offences, Clément Musangabatware, said that MPs can succeed in holding leaders to account by being closer to the people and making the most of their standing committees, including the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

"We are generally happy with what PAC has been doing over the years and believe that the next members of PAC will also work closely with other institutions charged with fighting corruption,” he said.

He advised the legislators, thus: "To deliver on their oversight role, they need to be closer to the people (to get firsthand information and fully understand their needs) and to work well with other stakeholders in the effort against graft.”

In his speech, Kagame called for full and constant accountability, warning that it is not enough to account for a quarter or any fraction of the funds allocated to programmes designed to change people’s lives.

"I want us to step up the momentum in following up on those tasked with duties to develop our country. Those who don’t fulfill their responsibilities should be held to account,” the President told the legislators.

This is not the first time President Kagame has publically urged parliament to actively follow up on mismanaged government projects, having earlier in the year put both chambers (Senate and Chamber of Deputies) on the spot over the matter.

The Government has long promoted a ‘zero-tolerance to corruption’ policy, and the anti-graft stance has seen the country ranked 3rd least corrupt in Africa in the corruption perception index report by Transparency International released last year.

However, the country’s Auditor General’s office continuously cite cases of wasteful spending and outright misappropriation of public funds, findings which President Kagame said last week are rarely acted upon by parliament in a convincing manner.

Asked for a comment yesterday, the chairperson of the Rwanda Civil Society Platform, Jean Léonard Sekanyange, said: "The law allows the MPs to follow up on the use of public funds and to demand accountability whenever necessary.”

"They shouldn’t simply sit back and wait for the AG’s report in order to act. Whenever they suspect or see any misuse of public funds they should summon whoever is responsible and demand answers, and commission their own investigations whenever necessary.”

He added: "When leaders are aware that they can be summoned any time to parliament to explain how they use public funds, they will be more careful”.

AG Obadiah Birara’s report for the 2016/17 fiscal year, published in April 2018, indicated that, as was the case with previous findings, officials could not account for billions of Francs of taxpayers’ money.

He also cited that cases of delayed or abandoned contracts for public works were still persistent in public entities, with up to 109 contracts, worth over Rwf206 billion, having stalled, as well as cases of idle assets worth over Rwf23 billion.

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