Elections of members for village councils — established under the Presidential Order issued in June this year — are set to take place on Saturday, October 28.ALSO READ: Electoral Commission sets date for by-elections to fill vacant local government positionsThe village councils are going to be established for the first time. The bureau of the council will also be established. There are 14, 837 villages across the country.Jean Baptiste Kayiranga, Legal Adviser at the Ministry of Local Government, said the council members to be elected will be monitoring village executive committee activities and make decisions regarding citizens’ development, social affairs, governance issues, and others.However, he said no services will be decentralised from the cell to the village level.“The council members will gather once a quarter,” he said.The village council is headed by the bureau composed of the chairperson, the vice chairperson, and the secretary. The executive secretary of the cell in which the village is located convenes the first meeting of the village council which elects members of its bureau. The elections will take place on Saturday.ALSO READ: Local government by-elections startComposition of the village councilThe village council is composed of members of the executive committee of the National Women Council at the village level, members of the executive committee of the National Youth Council at the village level, community health workers, farmer promoters, and animal health workers at the village level, where applicable, members of Umugoroba w’Umuryango committee, and two private sector representatives elected by their peers at village level.The meeting of the village council is convened by its chairperson or the vice chairperson, in case of the absence of the chairperson.The meeting of the village council is held in the village constituency, in a place determined by the bureau of the village council. The quorum for the meeting of the village council is two-thirds of its members.The quorum is the minimum number of members of an assembly that must be present at any of its meetings to make the proceedings of that meeting valid. If the quorum is not reached, the meeting is postponed, reconvened, and takes place within 15 days.However, when a meeting is convened for the second time, it takes place regardless of the number of members present. The decisions of the meeting of the village council are taken by consensus.In the absence of consensus, decisions are taken by an absolute majority of votes of the members of the village council present. In case of a tie, the chairperson of the meeting has a casting vote.Competences of the village councilThe village council is the supreme organ of the village. The council deliberates on all issues relating to the village's responsibilities. The village council may relieve members of the village executive committee from their duties if they do not properly discharge their responsibilities if they are co-authors in the commission of a fault, or if it is established that they are the cause of non-performance in the village.The council may also relieve from duties any executive committee member who does not discharge his or her responsibilities.The members of the village council perform their responsibilities on a voluntary basis for the development of the community with regard to good governance and social welfare.The village executive committee is composed of the head of the village, the in charge of security, entry to and exit from the village, the in charge of social and civil affairs, the in charge of information and training of the population, and the in charge of development.The National Electoral Commission (NEC) has also embarked on elections to fill vacant positions in local government leadership from Village to District levels.ALSO READ: Local government elections to cost Rwf3 billionNEC Executive Secretary Charles Munyaneza on Wednesday, October 26, told The New Times that elections are needed for 13, 165 positions in general, and over 7,000 were vacant.
