Ingabire was speaking yesterday on the occasion of TI Rwanda presentation of findings and recommendations from the Auditor General’s Report on districts performance as well as the City of Kigali for the financial year ended 30 June 2016.
The AG report identifies performance shortcomings that include; unsupported expenditures; wasteful expenditures; overstated expenditures; fraudulent expenditures; unrecorded transactions for Non-Budget Agencies (NBAs) as well as non-respect of laws and procedures among others.
The report indicates that the government suffered loss of Rwf99.57 billion in 2015/2016 financial year up from Rwf27.26 billion in 2014/2015.
The report reveals that mismanagement of public tenders continue to be the top cause of losses to government.
Ingabire observed that for the nation to terminate embezzlement and misuse of government resources, they need to first terminate impunity.
“It requires ending a culture of impunity and whoever mismanaged or embezzled government resources should return them. Many culprits are acquitted by the justice system as innocent,” she said.
She said that in the tendering process, bidders do not report circumstances when they encounter impropriety because when they do, it affects them from winning future tenders.
Speaking at the event, the Deputy Ombudsman, Clement Musangabatware said that different concerns reported must be responded to by the local government authorities and the City of Kigali.
“Actions must be taken to avoid such weaknesses,” he said.
Using an example of the just concluded national leadership retreat, Musangabatware said that the government has put in place measures in terms of laws, institutions and capacity building to put an end to the weaknesses in financial management.
The last National leadership Retreat recommended the strengthening of strategies to fight corruption in all public and private institutions, fast track recovery of embezzled public funds and put in place measures for compliance with the Auditor General’s recommendations.
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