The Minister for Local Government, Francis Kaboneka, has warned corrupt local leaders who allow informal settlements, churches and other buildings to come up in high-risk zones. He was speaking on Friday in a meeting with Kigali City Council and local leaders who presented achievements of the last fiscal year, set plans for next year and to discuss the upcoming parliamentary elections. “We have reports that some local leaders receive bribes from people who illegally construct houses and other unplanned settlements in high-risk zones. This should stop and city authorities should crack down on the vice,” he said. He urged leaders to make decisions that have a positive impact on the city’s development stressing that better service delivery should be a priority in accelerating national development. The minister reiterated that effective efforts should be embraced to evacuate people from high-risk zones as a preventive measure instead of waiting to intervene when disasters have already struck. “People living in informal settlements and high risk zones who refuse to relocate should understand that it is in their interest,” he said. He added that the city’s development cannot be achieved amidst disorder caused by poor hygiene, hawking, street children as well as drug abuse. Kaboneka pointed out that Rwanda’s current status of being the fourth safest country globally should be maintained. He also warned the leaders against bad service delivery. “There are some cases of bad service delivery which distort leaders’ images and that of the country in general. It requires local leaders’ commitment to eradicate that behavior as good service delivery is their responsibility,” he added Marie-Chantal Rwakazina, the Mayor of Kigali, said the city was ensuring that street children and beggars are supported and reintegrated into society and that the root causes of their situation were being addressed. “We have to continue our efforts in ensuring that better service delivery in both the public and private sectors. We have to ensure malnutrition and stunting in families is properly addressed because poverty also triggers the issues we are talking about,” she said. Jean de Dieu Musoni, Director General for Planning at Kigali City said that next year, more infrastructure such as roads, apartments, affordable houses under the master plan implementation, poverty reduction projects were planned. “54.56 kilometers of roads are being expanded. Last year, 55,000 off-farm jobs were created in the City and we plan to create 40,000 new off-farm jobs in 2018-2019 financial year. Under Girubucuruzi programme, 2,150 were given capital, 1,744 people were coached on business development as we target 800 new people next fiscal year among many other projects that include agriculture development and fighting malnutrition,” he said. He added that last year, the city generated Rwf24 billion in revenues and taxes and was targeting Rwf27 billion for the next fiscal year. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
