A delegation of Kenyan Members of Parliament on a study tour in the country expressed their admiration of Rwanda’s governance systems while visiting the offices of the Rwanda Governance Board (RGB) on Wednesday. The group, from the Kenyan Parliament’s Standing Committee on Implementation of the House’s Decisions, said they were keen on replicating some of the practices back home. While at RGB, the head of the delegation, John Kihagi, said the study tour was aimed at learning how Rwanda was dealing with governance issues, among other things. “We are totally impressed with the way RGB is assisting the Rwandan government in delivering on its mission of serving the Rwandan people”, he said. “The interaction between politicians, the civil society and non-governmental organisations is a good lesson”, he said. Prof. Anastase Shyaka, the chief executive officer of RGB, told the Kenyans that Rwanda’s governance system enabled the country to rise from the ashes. He said Rwanda’s dark past had been brought about by poor governance. “That’s why we have to ensure our leadership is people-centered. Ten per cent of the performance contracts assessment is done by the people. We use governance scorecard and citizen report cards to get people’s feedback on service delivery,” he added Prof. Shyaka also cited Governance Month as a way of handling problems through interactions between people and their leaders. Another governance initiative he referred to was the Joint Action Development Forum (JADF) in every district in which the local government and the civil society aligned their development agenda. Kihagi said Kenya could borrow a lot from Rwanda in the area of governance. “One of the issues we are having in Kenya is the multiplicity of institutions that are handling virtually similar issues. We’ve learnt that RGB was a result of the merging of institutions that were doing similar roles. In so doing, they achieved effectiveness.” “We are realising that one of the challenges in our constitution is the creation of so many institutions and they are becoming a burden to the Kenyan taxpayer,” he said. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
