A team from Mo Ibrahim Foundation that compiled the 2009 Index on Good Governance is in Rwanda to hold consultative meetings with the government on how best they can produce reports based facts. Rwanda contested the 2009 Mo Ibrahim Index report which had ranked Rwanda 32 out of 53 African countries that were assessed. “The team is here to show us the indicators on which they based to do their assessment and we will also show them where they went wrong,” said Local Government Minister, James Musoni. “What is more important at the moment is acknowledging the errors made and jointly work out plans of availing Mo Ibrahim Foundation with the right facts about Rwanda,” he added. The Minister expressed optimism that the consultative meetings would bring out the true facts about Rwanda in the future Mo Ibrahim Indices. Speaking to The New Times, the Director of Mo Ibrahim Index, Hania Farhan, said; “every country has a right to consider the data we provide relevant or not. We collect our data from credible sources. We would be very happy if Rwanda shared their data with these sources.” Farhan pointed out that some of the sources where they pick data from include Human Rights Watch, Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Freedom House - Freedom in the World and Freedom of the Press Index (FH) and the World Bank among other many international agencies. She however admitted that part or their reports have errors citing ‘marginal errors’ and ‘data missingness errors’ Meanwhile, following the publication the 2009 Index, Rwanda immediately commissioned a similar study with produced contrary facts. It’s upon the results from a study by the Executive Secretary of the Rwanda Governance Advisory Council, Prof. Anastase Shyaka, Yusuf Murango and Dr. Mohammed Alibata of the National Institute of Statistics that the government based on to contest the Mo Ibrahim ranking. According to Shyaka, the team that compiled previous reports on Rwanda did not come down to the field to also listen to the citizen’s views. “The government does not give data to some of the sources that feeds Mo Ibrahim with statistics which means there is a possibility that they can be give misleading data,” said Prof. Shyaka. Ends
