{A cabinet meeting on Wednesday approved the retirement of 79 soldiers, including 33 commissioned officers.
\n}<\/p>\n
It also discharged 642 junior non-commissioned officers and troopers of the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) who had served out their contracts, according to a statement.<\/p>\n
Commissioned officers range from the rank of Second Lieutenant up to General and their retirement is sanctioned through a presidential order. <\/p>\n
Senior non-commissioned officers range from the rank of Senior Sergeant up to Warrant Officer One. <\/p>\n
The statement did not identify those who were retired.<\/p>\n
Brig Gen Joseph Nzabamwita, the defence and military spokesperson, also declined to give details, only saying that it was a routine procedure.<\/p>\n
The Newtimes quoted Nzabamwita as saying, \u201cAll commissioned officers can be retired when they reach the retirement age, just like other civil servants\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to the law, a soldier can be retired on other grounds other than age.<\/p>\n
The retirement age for military personnel varies. <\/p>\n
Its 55 years for a General Officer (highest ranking category), 50 for a Senior Officer (middle category), and 45 for a junior officer or senior non commissioned officer, according to the RDF statute. <\/p>\n
Also there were no further details about the soldiers who were discharged, whose contract, according to the Cabinet statement, had expired.<\/p>\n
On successful completion of training, an RDF soldier signs a five-year contract with the State renewable twice except for those with special skills whose contract can be renewed more than twice. <\/p>\n
According to the RDF Statute, troopers and junior non commissioned officers serve on contract terms only. This category includes servicemen and women from the rank of sergeant down to private. <\/p>\n
Soldiers with higher ranks, otherwise referred to as senior non commissioned and commissioned officers, have the option to serve either on contract or career basis until retirement age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{A cabinet meeting on Wednesday approved the retirement of 79 soldiers, including 33 commissioned officers. } It also discharged 642 junior non-commissioned officers and troopers of the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) who had served out their contracts, according to a statement. Commissioned officers range from the rank of Second Lieutenant up to General and their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000048998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-11145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000048998,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11145.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11145.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11145.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11145.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11145.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11145.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000048998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11145"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=11145"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=11145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}