{"id":20786,"date":"2015-10-22T00:17:52","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T00:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/senators-call-for-increased-accountability-in\/"},"modified":"2015-10-23T02:37:27","modified_gmt":"2015-10-23T02:37:27","slug":"senators-call-for-increased-accountability-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/senators-call-for-increased-accountability-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators call for increased accountability in local govt"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-8680 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/gasabo-district-headquaters.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>{{Senators have concluded scrutiny of the 2013\/14 Auditor-General\u2019s report with a call to the government to help districts ensure proper accountability of their subordinate institutions.{}}}<\/p>\n<p>The AG report was scrutinised by the senatorial Standing Committee on Economic Development and Finance.<\/p>\n<p>The senatorial committee recently expressed discontent over the reported wasteful expenditures and abnormal losses of public funds as raised by the previous AG report.<\/p>\n<p>The senators\u2019 analysis states that non-budget agencies (NBAs) \u2013 local government sectors, cells and health centres \u2013 needed adequate follow-up to verify the accountability reports submitted to districts.<\/p>\n<p>Presenting the analysis of the report before a Plenary session, Senator Perrine Mukankusi, who chairs the committee, said the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning needs to find a suitable channel of accountability for these agencies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo reduce mismanagement and unauthorised expenditures by non-budget agencies at the lowest levels of government, the Ministry of Finance should help parent districts to establish suitable and credible channel to ensure non-budget agencies are fully accountable,\u201d Mukankusi said<\/p>\n<p>{{Make NBAs fully-fledged\u2019}}<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on this recommendation, Senator Jean Damascene Ntawukuliryayo called on the government to find means for non-budget agencies to grow into fully-fledged budget agencies since they also indirectly account for quite a fair share of public funds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf districts cannot account for mismanagement done by their subordinates, then there is a need to help them turn into fully accountable public institutions,\u201d Ntawukuliryayo said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe decentralisation system has been in place since 2002, the government should have found a way to have these small public entities grow into complete budget agencies.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Public enterprises such as Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB), the now defunct Energy, Water and Sanitation Authority; Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) and Onatracom were also faulted over misuse of huge amounts of taxpayers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n<p>Senators recommended that RSSB revises its strategic plans, mostly on housing projects that initially should be built to benefit, among others, its loyal clients.<br \/>\nThe senators had earlier raised concerns over RSSB housing projects with low or no occupancy rate, mostly for infrastructure that were built in remote areas, which are now lying idle.<\/p>\n<p>While the report will be submitted to the National Public Prosecution Authority for further investigation on possible public fund abusers, Senators committed to carry-out extensive studies on more approaches to hold public enterprises more accountable.<\/p>\n<p>The New Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{{Senators have concluded scrutiny of the 2013\/14 Auditor-General\u2019s report with a call to the government to help districts ensure proper accountability of their subordinate institutions.{}}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000069788,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-20786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-48","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":2000069788,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20786.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20786.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20786.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20786.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20786.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20786.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20786","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000069788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20786"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=20786"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=20786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}