Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) have urged the government to rethink some of the guidelines put in place to fight Covid-19 pandemic, saying they are expensive and overlapping. The government has been implementing a series of guidelines to prevent the outbreak since it hit the country in March this year. The last cabinet meeting held on August 26 adopted several stern measures, including strict restrictions on movement, and tasked relevant institutions to implement them. This included extending the curfew by two hours from 9 pm to 7 pm, halting inter-provincial transport services for public transport, as well as directed public employers to reduce the number of employees from 50 per cent to 30 per cent. However, civil society organisations have come together to challenge some of the guidelines, calling on the Prime Minister to take relevant action. “A number of additional implementation instructions passed by different Government Agencies are in contradiction with the content and spirit of the Cabinet resolutions,” a letter signed by 13 CSOs reads in part. They highlight an example of a tweet posted by the Rwanda Utilities and Regulatory Authority (RURA), which says that transport by special taxi vehicle or moto between Kigali and other districts is not private transport, saying it contradicts Cabinet Resolution (b). Cabinet Resolution (b) stated that all resumed services must continue adhering to health guidelines from health authorities. The organisations also say some additional instructions lack clarity, are contradictory and overlap each other, leading to inconsistent interpretation and implementation across the country. A case in point is a notice by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) in which CSOs highlight that the Board does not define “public gathering” or “essential events” which are subject to application and permission from the Rwanda Convention Bureau (RCB) and whose participants are subjected to mandatory Covid-19 testing. “Apparently, this is being interpreted to apply to only meetings/events convened in hotels rather than meetings/events convened in public spaces such as markets, bus parks and shopping malls,” they say. Expensive measures On the other hand, the CSOs insist that some measures introduced by the government are unaffordable, indicating that the majority of Rwandans cannot afford to pay USD50 for a Covid-19 test each time they must attend a meeting or an essential event. According to the letter, Civil Society Organisations have already put a halt on essential conferences, meetings and training workshops for participants at the community level which necessitate face to face meetings due to failure to raise the 50 USD testing fee per invited participant. An average of a training workshop, meeting or conference of 50 participants would cost a supplementary unplanned budget of 2,500 USD. Following the Cabinet meeting, the City of Kigali issued measures that included imposing fines on defaulters of covid-19 enforcement regulations, but CSOs say the fines and proposed additional penalties passed by the City are too exorbitant to be afforded by the majority residents. Enforcement of such fines, they assert, would rather escalate into unintended negative social and economic consequences for the majority of citizens who are already struggling to recover from the economic crisis caused by Covid-19. The organisations also say some measures are ineffective, highlighting that making testing mandatory and a precondition for everyone attending a meeting, workshop or wedding reception is not the most effective strategy in the fight against Covid-19 compared to rigorously respecting hand hygiene, mask-wearing and social distancing.
