Author: b_igi_adm1n

Rwanda will host a Police Command Post Exercise (PCPX) scheduled at August 19 at the Police General Headquarters in Kacyiru.

The exercise is organised by Rwanda National Police is expected to attract participants from Uganda, Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania, South and North Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Cyprus, Eretria, Ethiopia and Rwanda.

The exercise is aimed at equipping participants with skills and knowledge that will help address cross boarder crimes in our Region.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Felix Namuhoranye said,“Cross border crimes have today become not only a regional threat but also a challenge to the whole world.

“It is therefore important that Police Institutions in the region have a similar knowledge and a more harmonized approach of handling the vice.”

ACP Namuhoranye made the remarks while participating in a weekly-televised Police talk show ‘Kubaza bitera kumenya’ aired on the national broadcaster.

Chief Superintendent Elisa Kabera, the Director of International Cooperation in Rwanda National Police emphasised Regional Police cooperation.

“Due to existing differences, it becomes a big challenge for a country to follow and apprehend a person who after committing a crime crosses to neighboring or distant countries.”

Rice farmers in Nyamasheke district have asked government to consider establishing a rice factory in their district to cut down on the high costs they incur while transporting unprocessed rice to a factory located at Bugarama, Rusizi district.

However, rice production in Nyamasheke is currently commendable despite complaints from farmers citing high transportation costs and delayed payments after delivery.

The local official in charge of economic affairs in the district, Bahizi Charles said there is need to increase rice production in the district especially expanding acreage by tapping into Nyagahembe marshland that is currently idle.

The rice farmers have also been urged to pool together all the rice produced in the area, consolidate all the acreage onto which rice is grown in the district and improving their working methods and also strengthening their cooperatives.

Reports from Uganda indicate that Uganda military UPDF has been able to only find two of the four missing helicopters that went off radar while navigating Kenyan air space on their way to Somalia.

The four choppers were flagged off from Entebbe air force base to support a planned military operation against Somali extremist group Al-Shabaab.

Uganda military has withdrawn its own initial report that all of its missing four helicopters have been found.

The army now says two of the aircraft are still missing after they dropped off the radar while in Kenyan airspace.

However, the Kenyan government remained non-committal on the matter.

On Monday, UPDF said it could account for all of its four attack helicopters that went missing Sunday.

It also stated that all its 28-crew members in the four helicopters were safe. One had landed safely at the Kenyan base in Wajir, another crash-landed on Mt. Kenya, while two crash-landed in Garissa.

Today afternoon, UPDF spokesperson Col. Felix Kulayigye said that one helicopter – MI-23 transport chopper – made it to Mogadishu, while two of the three MI-24 attack helicopters were yet to be found.

Col. Kulayigye added that one MI-24 attack helicopter operated by Lt. Col. Chris Kasaija crash landed in Mt. Kenya and all its seven-man crew were rescued and evacuated by the Kenyan military to nearby Nanyuki.

The UPDF spokesperson however, could not account for two of the attack helicopters.

Kenya’s Mau Mau veterans of the famous Mau Mau rebellion against British colonialists are back in the media where government of Kenya insists on fully supporting the ex-fighters’ case against Imperial Britain in a case of human rights violations.

Kenya Prime Minister Raila Odinga said there is total commitment in Cabinet to ensure the freedom fighters and their families get justice.

He said, “the atrocities committed on the Mau Mau cannot be passed to Kenya.”

“The perpetrators were part and parcel of the colonial system. The responsibility for their actions cannot therefore be shifted to the independence government which was essentially part and parcel of the liberation struggle,” Odinga said.

Odinga made the comments when he met Daniel Leader, one of the lawyers representing Mau Mau veterans, in London Friday.

“There is commitment in the government, from the President down, to ensure this case is settled once and for all.

“The wheels of bureaucracy may be slower than those of justice, but the will is there and we will fully support the Mau Mau case,” he said.

Mr Leader briefed the PM on the status of the case, presented him with a summary of the judgements so far, and letters of support for the Mau Mau from prominent members of the international community, who have thrown their weight behind the freedom fighters.

Among those who have supported the Mau Mau case is Bishop Desmond Tutu and former South Africa First Lady Graca Machel.

The PM told the Mau Mau lawyers that he fully appreciates their volunteer work on behalf of the Kenyan nationalists.

Former Ghana president John Atta Mills has finally been laid to rest.

His body lay in state early Friday, for a third straight day, for a final viewing before being placed in a black limousine for the short drive to the funeral site under military guard.

Thousands of mourners from presidents and dignitaries to ordinary Ghanaians arrived in the capital’s Independence Square on Friday for the funeral of former President John Atta Mills.

Among those who viewed Mills’ body before the service were Cote d’Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia as well as the leaders of Benin and neighbouring Togo.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also attended the funeral.

“He was like a brother to me. I will surely miss him,” Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe told journalists.

Benin’s leader, also the current African Union chairman, Thomas Boni Yayi, described Mills as “passionate about peace in Africa and in the region.”

His death on July 24 following an illness came as a shock to many Ghanaians, despite rumours that he had been sick and reports that he suffered from throat cancer.

Mills’s death just five months ahead of polls in which he was to seek re-election upended the presidential race in a country that recently became a significant oil producer and is praised as a stable democracy in an often turbulent region.

Eleven Congolese were killed Friday by armed men in the town of Kashuno, between Kalonge and Nindja in Kabare territory in South Kivu.

According to the commander of the 1002nd regiment of FARDC and stakeholders from civil society, the killers were FDLR fighters.

FARDC based in the region have announced that this massacre occurred away from their positions, which does not allow them to react.

The victims were among a group of 15 hawkers who went to the market Bitara from Kalonge. The attackers, using both firearms and knives, robbed them of all their property before killing them one after another.

One of the survivors was injured. He is under medical supervision at the General Staff of the FARDC 1002nd regiment.

Soldiers of the regular army embarked in pursuit of the attackers in the vast forest of Kahuzi Biega, but until then, there is no trace of suspected Rwandan Hutu combatants, according to the commander of the 1002nd regiment.

He said that the ambush took place in 3 hours walk from the FARDC positions. Which has not allowed his troops to prevent or limit damage.

Family members of victims have recovered their bodies and buried them at home in Kalonge Saturday morning.

At the beginning of August, eighteen persons including four women and five children were abducted in their fields in the forests devices Byonga in Mwenga, by suspected FDLR fighters.

In mid-July, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), combined with Mai Mai militia Nyatura, killed seven people stabbed to death and seriously injured seven others in the locality of Nyaluchangi, Ufamandu 1, in Kalehe territory (South Kivu).

In Tanzania, 12 people died Friday at Bagamoyo when a lorry ploughed into a stationary bus and passengers who had stopped at the scene of an accident that had occurred a few minutes earlier on the Chalinze-Segera highway.

Twenty-five people were injured, some seriously, in the twin accidents in Makole Village, Bagamoyo District.

All those who died are Kenyan women, who were members of a Presbyterian Church delegation that was travelling to Dar es Salaam to attend a gospel music concert.

local media quoted eyewitness, Mrisho Ali who said on Saturday that the accidents involved two Kenyan registered buses that were travelling about half a kilometer apart when one of the vehicles overturned into a ditch after one of its tyres burst.

He said the driver of the other bus, which was several kilometres away, turned back and drove to the accident to offer assistance after his fellow driver had informed him of the crash by telephone.

As the rescuers were about to finish assisting their fellow travellers, a lorry ploughed into the group and the bus parked on the roadside, killing seven people on the spot.

Five others died at the scene before they could be taken to hospital.

The truck dragged the bus and some of the victims about 50 metres before colliding with another lorry and landing in a gulley.

In its commitment to helping governments, the World Bank is releasing “General Guidelines for the Development of Government Payment Programs”, that promotes best practices and establishes standards for developing and improving government payments programs.

Improvements that make government payment programs more efficient, safer and more transparent can cut related administrative costs by as much as 75%.

Millions of people in developing countries worldwide receive their salaries, benefits and pensions through government-to-person (G2P) payments. But in many cases, they are not being delivered in a cost-efficient way.

“Only 25% of low-income countries process cash transfers and social benefits electronically and this percentage is only slightly higher for public sector salaries and pensions,” says Gaiv Tata, World Bank Director, Financial Inclusion Global Practice.

“This means that many governments are stretching limited resources, and spending more than they should on paying benefits and salaries.”

The report focuses on cases such as Brazil’s “Bolsa Familia” social safety net program, where the government saved 75% on administrative costs by going electronic.

Bolsa Familia easily brought universal coverage to 12.4 million low-income individuals, representing about 30% of the population below the poverty line.

By providing beneficiaries with access to a payments account, G2P programs can also expand financial inclusion for millions of the unbanked by serving as their gateway to other financial services.

Programs like “Bolsa Familia” provide a lifeline to low-income families so that they can spend on essentials such as food and education.

More efficient government payment programs not only optimize government payouts, but they can also improve revenue generating activities.

“It is estimated that government expenditures and tax collections, which make heavy use of government payment systems, amount to 15%-45% of the GDP,” explained Massimo Cirasino, World Bank Manager of Financial Infrastructure.

“More efficient electronic payment systems not only save the government money, they can also potentially benefit taxpayers and all other users of electronic payments.”

The guidelines also address operational challenges government payment programs face, providing recommendations on; ensuring that payments and collections support the sound, efficient, and transparent management of public financial resources; making government payment programs safe, reliable and cost-effective and ensuring that efforts to modernize government payment programs accelerate the development of national payments systems and promote financial inclusion.

The guidelines were developed in consultation with the International Advisory Group for Government Payments (IAG).

Members of the forum for people with vision impairment (Rwanda Union of the Blind) have commended the government of Rwanda for assistance delivered to them in their daily life.

Mugisha Jacques will graduate this year (2012) from the National University of Rwanda in school of Journalism and communication.

He said that since he began to study until now, he has found no difficulties in handling production tasks despite of sight disability.

” It is possible; I work together with camera man. I use my sound recorder and after having all necessary information from field, I come back for editing tasks and those in charge of mixing images with audio clips, they use my narration voice in order to have an audio visual product” Mugisha said.

Today Mugisha works at Rwanda television as an intern journalist.

Apart from blind people who work in media sector, there are others who have graduated and now work in different institutions both public or private.

Innocent graduated in Kigali Institute of Education and today he is a teacher of ICT in Rwamagana.

Among difficulties reported by blind people; they said the most challenge they meet are people who think that people with sight disabilities cannot perform any task and this is likely to end up with employment denial because of vision disabilities.

In an example given during their visit in Ngoma District while explaining their potential, people with sight disability pointed out that some time they are prevented from participating in development activities.

They said some are deprived a chance to benefit from “Gira inka” in Southern province where local leaders never considered them saying that they cannot care for cows because they are blind and some who were given cows were taken away again saying they are not capable of rearing cows.

However, blind people said they have got different skills in agriculture and animal husbandry, and hence there is no need to deny them to benefit from development activities such as “ Gira inka munyarwanda” and many others.

Currently the union of blinds in Rwanda counts 35 blinds who are studying in different Universities, 12 have graduated and 3 are working in different institutions in Rwanda.

In secondary schools, the number of vision impaired people is higher than the number in Universities due to government initiative that promotes equal access to education without excluding people with disabilities.

In 2008, the first blind people in Rwanda registered for University studies while in 1996 the first blind people attended secondary school