As the country prepares for the commemoration of the annual National Hero’s Day on February 1, the government has decided to promote and instil cultural values in the Rwandan tradition to help speed up development goals, officials revealed yesterday.

During a public briefing at Telecom House aired on both radio and television ahead of the event, the Minister of Local Government, Protais Musoni, Sports and Culture minister, Joseph Habineza, Ombudsman Tito Rutaremara, and the military spokesperson Maj Jill Rutaremara, urged Rwandans to integrate values that can help them live in a developed nation.

"We Rwandans still have habits of being selfish, let us fight against it. We are still good at blaming others, a good leader should always assume responsibility,” Habineza said as he advised on some of the negative behaviours that have to be reversed.

The minister and other members of the panel specified ‘speed and respect for time, customer service mentality, quality delivery, completion towards results, and self-respect for national pride’ as the five core values to be instilled in Rwandans of every corner of the country in order to realise the country’s development agenda.

"We need a brand for Rwandans. They need to have special characteristic values,” Habineza said.

Commenting on the values to be adopted and mechanisms already put in place to promote them; the officials also had time to respond to questions from a country-wide audience.

Some callers requested government to set up strong mechanisms to identify more heroes in the country while others want to form stronger cultural institutions called ‘Itorero’, a Rwandan initiative that provides a forum for Rwandans in various social groups to discuss national unity, reconciliation and other development issues.

"A law establishing a commission in charge of heroes and their medals is needed. If the commission is set up, its employees will have enough time to carry out research and identify those heroes,” observed the Ombudsman who is part of the government taskforce to identify Rwandan heroes under the coordination of the Ministry of Culture.

A draft law establishing the commission in charge of heroes, their medals to and to also continue with the work of keeping heroes’ records is now before parliament.

Thousands of Heroes have been decorated in three categories for various deeds they performed in the service of the Nation .

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