The government has embarked on reviewing and reforming the local and central government structures and operations as a way of improving performance. The new reforms have already been taken on board and will see big changes in the institutions’ mission statements and organizational structures. According to this year’s July 23 cabinet meeting minutes, the Ministry of Labour was assigned to carry out reforms in government institution structures based on recommendations of functional review that was carried out in 2007. The minutes of the cabinet meeting also indicated that only a few staff working as a pool of experts assisting ministries in policy formulation and implementation would remain in the different institutions. Practically, this implies that the government is embarking on professionalism, good service delivery and reduction in reliance on costly foreign consultants. In his presentation during the assessment meeting of the yet to be implemented reforms, Labour Minister Anastase Murekezi said that the major issues to be addressed during the reform include organizational structures, policy formulations and implementation, capacity of civil servants, systems and procedures and achievement of outputs. The Ministry of Labour is partnering with the Ministry of Local Government in implementing the reforms. According to the Minister of Local Government, Protais Musoni, the reforms are mostly aimed at capacity building and good, quick and quality service delivery. He also said that the funds to facilitate reforms are yet to be decided. “We will decide on the budget to use in the reforms depending on the amount that will be available within the national budget,” added Musoni. Kamanzi, in his presentation, had mentioned that the capacity building needs’ assessment and plan was carried out between December 2007 and April 2008. Meanwhile, according to the concept note on the restructuring of the Local Government entities, the Ministry of Local Government was assigned to ensure the overall coordination of reforms and verify coherence and quality of proposals from the local governments before they are submitted to the National Reform Steering Committee. The Committee includes the Minister of Labour, Minister in Charge of Cabinet Affairs, Finance Minister, Director of Cabinet in the President’s Office, among others. The Ministry of Labour will support the committee through formulation of Policies, Planning and Capacity Building. The meeting was held at Hotel La Palise Nyandungu and was attended by officials from the Local and Central governments. Ends
