By Martin Tindiwensi Rubavu — Decentralization is a main pillar and will be the core of future national development, the president of the Rwanda’s parliamentary commission on politics and good governance Immaculate Gahima Kayumba has said. The speech was made during a recent visit by the commission to Rubavu, where parliament member’s met with local leaders over decentralization progress and how citizen’s impacted good governance. “The Rwandan parliament through the powers entrusted to it by the Government is committed to ensuring good governance at all levels of public administration. Laws have been passed that create checks against the abuse of executive power, mismanagement and corruption,” she said. “There are political ambitions that our government designed and put in practice. Decentralization is one of them that is to say bringing leadership to grassroots level and giving people the authority in solving most of their problems as well as giving them chance to participate in decision making.”Rubavu’s vice-mayor in charge of finance and economic development Everest Bizimana said that the district had tried to educate people on various issues such as the cooperation between ministries, the districts and the people. The way people’s problems were solved by leaders at the sector level, he said, impacted citizens’ role in decision making.Various sectors in Rubavu district have tried to deliver quality services to the people though problems have been met, specifically with property management and succession rights. Bizimana said that the district was doing every thing possible to get all its residents in civil marriage and to adopt family-planning methods, which he said would reduce such cases in future Joyce Mukaminega, a woman living in Rubavu sector, said that decentralization simplified the way residents received various services. “Because of decentralization, it is easier these days to acquire documents. It recently took me very few days to get a travelling document unlike in the past where one would move to various administrative levels to get one,” she said. The commission’s visit will result in a general report on the problems faced in the decentralization process; its achievements, failures and the way people understand it in addition to finding solution to hindrances of the process.
