Kirehe mayor Protais Murayire resigned from office yesterday. A source at the district confirmed the development last evening, saying the decision was taken during an extraordinary meeting of the district’s advisory council that ended at about 7:30pm. Details of reasons behind the mayor’s resignation were still scanty by press time, but sources said questions about Murayire’s leadership style emerged during last week’s visit to Eastern Province by the Local Government minister Francis Kaboneka. It is reported that the mayor warned his subordinates against raising any complaints during a meeting with the minister. “In that meeting, several local leaders from Kirehe sent text messages to the minister informing him that the mayor had convened a meeting the day before and warned them against posing questions without him knowing exactly what the question was about,” an official who attended the meeting said, adding that Minister Kaboneka went ahead and asked the same people who had shared the texts to publicly spill the beans. The meeting ended unceremoniously after several officials left prematurely. Murayire, who first became the district mayor six years ago, led Kirehe to the fifth position in the 2013/14 performance appraisal (Imihigo) countrywide. He steps down with the end of his second and last term in office just a year and a few months ahead.
