The Government is set to kick off the exercise of placing citizens in their respective Ubudehe categories on Friday, December 4, The New Times has learned. This comes more than a year after the government announced plans to introduce new Ubudehe categories. Citizens had complained that the former categorization method was not transparent. After review, five categories, A, B, C, D, and E, where established. Category A consisting of households with the highest income while E reflects the most vulnerable in society. Speaking to The New Times on Tuesday, December 1, the Director-General of the Local Administrative Entities Development Agency (LODA), Claudine Marie-Solange Nyinawagaga, noted that citizens will play role in Ubudehe classification. She said: “We are collecting data about every household’s socio-economic information,” she said. “We expect this to end on Thursday evening, and then house heads will meet at their village office, with adherence to Covid-19 preventive measures, between Friday and Sunday to play role in the exercise of being classified in Ubudehe categories.” Local leaders and youth volunteers, she added, will be explaining to citizens how different these Ubudehe categories are before classifying them so that there won’t be any mistakes. According to LODA, once the exercise ends, the classifications will later be announced at every cell’s office. Citizens will be able to see them and make appeals at their village offices where necessary. “We are certain that there will no longer be malpractices in this exercise because they (malpractices) used to be caused by the fact that some services like university scholarships would depend on one’s Ubudehe category, which is no longer the case.” Highlighting the importance of categorisation of people based on their income levels, Nyinawagaga said that it enables effective planning for the population. About the new categories Category A It consists of the households that are considered well-off. Those include families with an aggregated income of more than Rwf600,000 per month from various sources such as salaries or pension benefits, or other income-generating activities. Also in this category are households with over 10 hectares of land in the rural areas, and more than one hectare plot in urban centres, or carry out livestock farming activities that enable them to get the above-mentioned income. Category B This category comprises households that earn between Rwf65,000 and Rwf600,000 monthly from similar sources as those cited above. Category C It consists of households that make an aggregated income of between Rwf45,000 and Rwf65,000 per month. Category D This category is for households that earn less than Rwf45,000 a month (casual workers). Category E This is a special category comprising people out of the labour force as a result of age, major disabilities or incurable diseases, yet they do not own other assets or other sources of livelihoods. Those found in this category include those where the head of household and their spouse is at least 65 years old and have no source of income to provide for the family. The others are households headed by children under 18 years and does not have any source of income, or headed by a person who is still pursuing studies, yet do not have members who are able to work, and have no source of income.
