The Office of the Ombudsman has commended Transparency Rwanda (TR) for its tireless efforts geared towards fighting corruption in the country.

Augustin Nzindukiyimana, the Deputy Ombudsman, made the remarks yesterday at a meeting that bought together TR and stakeholders to discuss findings of a survey on corruption and governance in Rwanda.

"TR is playing an important role because it has come up with all the necessary weapons to fight this vice in the Rwandan society, so far the results are encouraging,” he said.

He called upon the Civil Society Organisations to emulate TR in the struggle against corruption.

"The office of the Ombudsman supports all organizations that fight injustice and corruption, that’s why we did not hesitate to sign an MoU with TR to work closely in combating corruption,” he stressed.

According to Marie Immaculée Ingabire, the chairperson of TR, the survey that was conducted by her organisation shows that corruption in Rwanda is mostly caused by the desire for personal enrichment, absence of punitive measures against those who practice corruption and low salaries of civil servants.

She hailed the Office of the Ombudsman, the National Police and National Public Prosecution Authority for their efforts towards fighting corruption in the country.

"Although there is a big improvement as far as fighting graft, especially with zero tolerance on corruption in our country, we still have a long way to go. We are however convinced that together we can make Rwanda a corruption-free country,” she said.

In a report released last month by Transparency International Kenya, Rwanda emerged the least corrupt in East Africa with corruption prevalence 6.6% while Burundi was most corrupt with 36.7%.

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