MPs call for greater efforts to reduce income inequalities

Lawmakers on Thursday, October 6, requested the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to present to Parliament a coordinated planning mechanism that can help Rwanda to achieve the intended inequality reduction under the Sustainable Development Goal number 10 (SDG 10). SDG 10 calls for reducing inequalities, especially in income or wealth. Speaking during the plenary, MP Odette Uwamariya, Chairperson of the Committee on Social Affairs said that although Rwanda was performing well on some Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators like ensuring gender equality, there are others where the country is still lagging behind. These, she observed, include the SDG 10, about reducing inequalities among the public which was analysed by the Committee she chairs. She pointed out that in 2020, Rwanda was ranked 36th among 52 countries surveyed, with a score of 13.7 per cent. Uwamariya made her remarks while presenting the assessment report of this goal to the Chamber of Deputies on Thursday. “There is a need for collaboration with various entities so that the targets included in the SDG 10 are realised,” Uwamariya said. MP Frank Habineza, vice chairperson of the Committee said that given the implementation of the SDG 10 was still very low compared to that of other goals, its members found it necessary to request the concerned Ministry to show to the Chamber of Deputies, within six months, the coordinated planning mechanism which can help to realise the targets in the SDG 10. Welfare improvement, supporting low-income earners Uwamariya said the Ministry of Finance told Committee members during discussions that the government put in place various initiatives meant to improve the welfare of residents and social protection for the vulnerable. Those initiatives include Vision Umurenge programme (VUP) social protection, Umurenge Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCO), and providing small livestock to the residents, as well as the one cow per poor family programme – Girinka. Others are milk provision to children, and offering nutritious meals to vulnerable pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, as well as the Community-based health insurance scheme – Mutuelle de Santé to ease access to healthcare for the low-income citizens. Also, she said, the Ministry indicated that Rwanda worked on the salary and tax policy for the purpose of equality for all. On this, she observed that the income tax law reduced tax especially for the low-income earners, where it will be zero per cent for a monthly income of up to Rwf60,000; 10 per cent for that between Rwf60,000 and Rwf100,000; 20 per cent for income between Rwf100,000 and Rwf200,000; and 30 per cent for that above Rwf200,000. “This was implemented as you have seen it in the income tax law we recently passed,” Uwamariya told the MPs who gathered for the Plenary Session. Also, she said that there are measures put in place in line with reducing inequalities in business, especially the law determining the sources of revenue and property of decentralised entities which was enacted in 2018, where small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are exempted from trading licence tax during the first two years following their establishment. Poverty reduction Regarding people’s welfare and reducing poverty and inequalities, she said, Committee members commended the progress that Rwanda has so far made in improving people’s living conditions and uplifting them out of poverty, where there is a decrease in the rate of people under the poverty line. Based on the global goal that 40 per cent of the people under the poverty line should rise above the average income per capita at national level, the Committee said it found that Rwanda took firm measures to get people out of poverty. This is the case because the extreme poverty rate was 16 per cent in 2017, from 40 per cent in 2000/2001, and 38.2 per cent of people under poverty line in 2017 from 39.1 per cent in 2013/2014, Uwamariya pointed out. “The target is to reduce the poverty rate among Rwandans to 7.2 per cent, and extreme poverty rate to less than 1 per cent in 2024,” she said.

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MPs call for greater efforts to reduce income inequalities