Igihe

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  • Over Rwf 64.6m State Funds Lost

    The Ministry of local government (MINALOC) caused a loss to the government worth Rwf 64.6m, it has emerged.

    It was disclosed during the on-going inquiries by parliamentary Public Accountants Commission (PAC) into different government institutions and ministries implicated in the 2009/10 auditor general’s report for mismanagement of public funds.

    According to 2009/10 auditor general’s report Rwf9.7 billion ($16.3 million) could not be accounted for.

    The report cites lack of support documents, embezzlement or mismanagement of public funds in many of the government entities.

    About 36 public entities incurred wasteful expenditure amounting to Rwf 1,054,529,243 (2009: Rwf 610,396,260 in 27 institutions) that could have been avoided had they complied with laws, regulations and procedures in force.

    Wasteful expenditure was mainly incurred to pay penalties to Rwanda Revenue Authority for failure and/or delayed remittance of statutory deductions.

    According to a press statement released by the lower chamber of parliament the loss of Rwf 64.6m was due to failure to demand for timely payment of loans, debts of motorcycles which were given to executive committees in different districts not recorded in the books of accounts by June 30, 2010.

    Others included debts in cheques that were not banked and not recorded in books of accounts by June 30, 2010 and funds for Vision 2020 Umurenge Programme(VUP) which were paid to individuals instead of collective funding.

    The quizzed team from MINALOC led by Cyrille Turatsinze the Permanent Secretary accepted having poorly recorded and mismanaged state finances and vowed to revise their management of funds.
    It was also disclosed that a deal to supply 1000 laptops to the Ministry of Local Government turned into a counterfeit computers supply.

    The laptops worth Rwf493.6m of which an advance payment of Rwf 98.7m was made, were meant for local leaders at cell level, aimed at facilitating them to have proper service delivery.

    Ends

  • Rwandan Enterprise Scoops International Quality Crown

    Rwanda’s successful entrepreneur of Entreprise Urwibutso Sina Gérard has been awarded an International Quality Crown 2011.

    This recognition is based on the criteria of the QC100 quality model, implemented in over 100 countries, and will be sponsored by ImarPress with 26 publications.

    The annual International Quality Crown Convention took place on November 26th and 27th, 2011 in Great Britain, in the Guoman Tower Hotel Convention Hall of London. Companies from 74 countries gathered to receive the International Quality Crown Award.

    Business leaders presented their companies for an international audience and participated in conferences regarding quality case studies in companies in search of quality and excellence.

  • 6000 Young People HIV Infected Daily

    The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that HIV infects 50% of young generation between 15 and 24 years, which meant between 5000-6000 new infections every day across the world.

    Dr Anita Asiimwe briefing the press Monday

    According to Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC); the same age group HIV prevalence is estimated to be at the rate of 1.0% which is relatively lower than many other countries.

    This figure varies from 1.5% among women to 0.4% among men. This means that 380 women in this category are infected over every 100 men.

    The updated statistics were released Monday 28, 2011 by RBC during a press briefing a head of three months World Aids Day campaign which will be launched on Dec. 1, this Thursday.

    Speaking to the press, Dr. Anita Asiimwe the Deputy Director General of RBC said that according to the behavioral studies among youth in Rwanda, the proportion of young men and women aged 15-24 years who have had sex, the number increased from 34% to 39% among young men and from 20 to 26% among young women between the year 2006 and 2009 respectively.

    The study show different factors as lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS, lack of educating and life skills, poor access to health services and commodities, early sexual debut, early marriage, sexual coercion and violence.

    Others include human trafficking and growing up without parents or other forms of protection from exploitation and abuse among others has been behind the cause.

    Asiimwe said the number in Rwanda was still low compared to other countries in the region and that the government intends to reduce it more to zero point.

    “Prevalence in the youth is low in Rwanda and we want to fight new infections to zero maximum,” Asiimwe said.

    After the launch, the campaign will be done in different folds, sensitizing youth, in and outside the schools on comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS, and encouraging parent-child dialogue on sexual reproductive health.

    Others will include empowering young girls and boys to negotiate safe sex, raise awareness for young people on HIV transmission and sex work, mobilizing the community to provide youth friendly services including availability and accessibility of condoms, carry out VCT activities targeting the youth and educating the general population on HIV prevention among others.

    Ends

  • Umusingi Editor To Be Tried in Absentia

    The Nyarugenge court of first instance is slated to try in absentia Nelson Gatsimbazi the Editor-in-chief of Umusingi vernacular tabloid.

    In the case Gatsimbazi is allegedly accused of propagation of Discrimination and divisionism punishable by law and subject to the provisions of articles 33, 34 of the constitution of the Republic of Rwanda.

    “They fixed a date for my trial saying I was nowhere to be seen in the country. All they wanted was to arrest me and detain me,” Gatsimbazi told Igihe.com late Monday.

    However, Gatsimbazi further explained that his lawyer earlier appeared in court to represent him to prove to them that they (prosecution) actually planned to arrest and detain his client. They wanted to try me in absentia, yet I was around and they hadn’t informed me that I had a case to answer.

    If found guilty, Gatsimbazi is likely to serve a sentence of between one and five years in jail, and pay cash of between Frw500,000 and Frw2million or one of the two sentences.

    Meanwhile a local online publication reported that Gatsimbazi is allegedly holedup in Sweden for an unknown duration.However, Gatsimbazi neither confirms nor denys about his present location. On insistance, Gatsimbazi told Igihe that he is in the United Kingdom where he is studying Journalism.

    Recently he alleged that his tabloid’s editorial Line had been hijacked and switched to a different editorial line by Stanley Gatera his elder brother currently managing the tabloid.

    Gatera told local press that he will not suspend operations of the tabloid despite requests by Gatsimbazi to Media High Council (MHC) to suspend the tabloid operations until further notice.

    “We had agreement before Gatsimbazi left the country. The deal was that I would fund the operation of the tabloid. So if he wants to terminate the agreement, let him come and we sit again and see the way forward” Gatera earlier told a local online publication.”

    Gatsimbazi contacted the MHC through an email bearing no signature but later accompanied the email with a phone call asking the MHC authorities to suspend the tabloid temporarily.

  • New Evidence Implicates Rusesabagina

    The National Public Prosecution of Rwanda has announced that it has new evidence implicating Paul Rusesabagina a Rwandan living in exile popularly known for the Hotel Rwanda film.

    In a statement signed by Alain Mukurarinda the spokesperson of national Public prosecution, the new evidence implicates Paul Rusesabagina including other Rwandans living in the United States that have been providing support to FDLR terrorist organization currently based in the DR-Congo. The support comprises of various equipment and other kinds of help.

    Prosecution says with this new evidence now available, its ready to present the new evidence to judicial institutions of countries including Belgium, USA where Rusesabagina operates and also in Rwanda.

  • MINALOC Vows To Strengthen VUP Reforms

    Members of the Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) have urged the ministry of local government to strengthen reforms in the Vision 2020 Umurenge Program aimed at assisting vulnerable people.

    Reacting to the auditor general’s report 2009-2010, the PAC parliamentarians chaired by Juvenal Nkusi, grilled the MINALOC permanent secretary Cyril
    Turatsinze and his colleagues on the uncountable funds in the project.

    However, journalists were denied the statistics. “We are still verifying the figures,” he said.

    Meanwhile during the four hour Question and answer session , Turatsinze agreed that a good number of things didn’t go as expected during the program’s inception.

    He noted that financial institutions at the local level for example refused to work jointly with MINALOC in issuing credit to those who had promising projects. Hence the project was integrated to Ubudehe a fund used to support common community activities. “The banks were afraid to take the risk that’s why we had to come up with another option”

    “Most of the beneficiaries were living in extreme poverty and didn’t have collateral as a requirement for them to get credit but since our aim is to help them we gave them the credit with agreements on how they will pay but it’s unfortunate that some didn’t respect the agreement,” he pointed out.

    “However, there have been measures to reduce the non performing loans; they now stand at 50%.”

    Also there are those who took credit with specific projects but later changed to cheaper ones in order to save some amount. Others took the loans as a group and later divided the amount amongst them a fact that affected the accountability process.

    Illiteracy and lack of awareness also complicated the process, “can you imagine some people were not aware of the bank account to pay the loan and rather deposited in their own accounts thinking by doing so they were paying back the loans,” Turatsinze remarked.

    Also some leaders of cooperatives swindled the funds; in Ruganda sector a similar cooperative dealing with agriculture produce was left stuck after their leader ran away with the funds.

    This behaviour is believed to be influenced by those who faked to be vulnerable yet they’re wealthy people who wanted to swindle the funds.

    Lastly, evaluation of VUP funds was not done competently, that’s why a committee in charge of the program enforced reforms to strengthen the program.

    Among the reforms, beneficiaries involved in agriculture activities are obliged to pay the credit within two years.

    In terms of issuing credit, priority will be given to cooperatives since groups seemed disorganized. In addition the funds will be given in intervals to verify whether the amount was effectively utilized in each stage of their project proposal.

    In regard to enhance transparency and evaluation the fund’s management, district offices will also oversee the implementation of various funded projects. The fund’s committee will be meeting monthly to review progress.

    ENDS

  • RRA Refutes Public Claims Over Tax Ignorance

    Following Sunday’s Rwanda TV and Radio’s live talk where a member of public called in complaining of lack of information about tax issues, the tax agency has refuted the claims saying members of public pretend.

    In an interview with Nkusi Mukubu Gerald the Director of Tax Payers Services Department at Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) said that his institution had a lot to ensure public awareness on tax related issues.

    “It is so unfortunate if they are complaining, however we have done much to make the whole country covered with tax education, of course I can’t say it is 100% but at least 98% which wouldn’t result into such complaints,” Mukubu said by cell phone.

    Mukubu said that RRA has been carrying out several tax education in the country citing different events in up country including one that was carried out in Burera District in Northern Province.

    “Taxation issues are complex, you can’t know all of it but some of the tax payers do exaggerate and fail to see what government is doing for them and so some pretend they have not received any tax education, just yesterday I received a call from Burera District the same area we carried out a workshop and had a celebration of tax payers day recognizing the best tax payers,” Mukubu added.

    He however revealed that some of them have fear of arrears of taxes not paid in the past three years and end up creating pretext that they have no information about taxes.

    Mukubu called upon the public to suggest the best channel and way RRA can help them to be tax educated.

    “We have a hotline 3004 which one call and get answered by an expert who answers almost every query, we have a system that they can use to pay taxes or ask anything about taxes but they can propose to us which way we can use, we can adjust, we are flexible,” he added.

    Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) has set a target of collecting at least Rwf 533.8 billion in tax revenues during the current 2011-2012 fiscal year.

    Recently, the Commissioner General of RRA, Ben Kagarama, during the last fiscal year, the tax body had set a target of Rwf 458 billion, which they surpassed by collecting Rwf 491 billion.

    Among the challenges Kagarama cited were mainly tax evasion, giving an example of taxpayers registered for Valued Added Tax (VAT) but who fail to issue VAT invoices.

    The RRA chief further noted that some traders use forged documents by under-declaring their taxes through a reduction in turnover.

    ENDS

  • Why Women Beatup Their Men

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    The media has recently moved away from biased reporting about domestic violence in which previously women featured as the only affected parties in domestic wrangles yet men have equally been affected.

    Domestic violence also known as domestic abuse, battering or intimate partner violence – occurs between people in an intimate relationship. Domestic violence against men can take many forms, including emotional, sexual and physical abuse and threats of abuse. It can happen in heterosexual or same sex relationships.

    Of recent there have been an increased number of cases of Rwandan men killed in domestic wrangles. In domestic violence cases that have resulted into death, dangerous weapons have been used including; machetes, iron bars, hoe handles, knives, electric equipment among others.

    National Women Council findings indicate that in Rwanda 2011 at least 94 men were brutally beaten by their spouses. There are various cases that have resulted into death of men.

    However, there is need to determine why actually men are hit by women. People hit and abuse family members because they can.” And in today’s society, as reflected in movies, and feminist doctrine, women are openly given permission to hit men. For example, a woman slapping a man in the face is rarely, if ever, viewed as “domestic violence.”

    It’s a lost war against family violence until society withdraws permission from women to hit their intimate partners. The problem and causes of female violence must also be recognized and addressed. It has been suggested that female assaults on males are almost always for reasons of self-defense.

    However, there does not seem to be any support in the available data for the feminist proposition that women only use violence against men in self defense.

    Researchers Fiebert and Gonzales (1997) deduced in their study that most-common reasons the women assault their male partners included; My partner wasn’t sensitive to my needs, I wished to gain my partner’s attention, My partner was not listening to me.

    However, in our local context most causes of domestic violence stem from family disagreements on land, money, individual liberties and infidelity.

    The lack of sensitization of the population on the true meaning of Gender Equality has also accelerated family disagreements where women have always interpreted that they are favoured most.

    Gender Equality is a social order in which women and men should share the same opportunities and the same constraints on full participation in both the economic and the domestic realm.

    Studies have also suggested that men violated against prefer to remain in such abusive relationships due to various reasons including; Shame, Love for Spouse, Self-Worth, Denial, Reluctance to Give up the Good, Inertia, The Kids factor and mostly the Fear of calling 112 Police line.

  • MTN Introduces Youth Games Competition

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    Rwanda’s main telecom service provider MTN Rwanda has innovated a new activity intended to empower the youth and help them earn from their talents through game competitions.

    Dubbed ‘MTN yellow hoops’, the game competition targets youths particularly the high school leavers and university continuing students.

    This weekend in the competitions which was held in Nyamirambo, different young men and women competed in different games including basketball, music dance and drama, and graffiti among others.

    According to MTN Publicist Robert Mugabe; the youth game competitions intend to bring closer Rwandan youth bearing in mind that approximately 50% of the population are the youth segments.

    “We came up with popular games that are liked by many people across the world and we intend to coordinate Rwandan youth and empower them use their talents as source of income, make them recognized in the community and also to bring entertainment closer to the youth especially during holidays,” Mugabe pointed out.

    “We also intend to encourage youth discover their talents and to develop the spirit of ‘I can do’ in them,” he added.

    Among the participants, Emmanuel Ndungutse who competed up to the finals in the basketball said the competition motivated him and made him weigh his level in the game.

    Ndungutse challenged fellow youth to come and get involved in such games as one way to develop carriers.

    Gerald Kanuma who never participated in completion but available at the competition ground recommended the competition as an important initiative to promote the youth. He added that next time he must also be involved in the competition.

    MTN brought other products and services targeting to facilitate the youth like using the face book, twitter, please call me and the promotion of getting bonuses to the incoming calls.
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  • Foundation Honours Kagame for Exemplary Leadership

    The Leon H. Sullivan Foundation has honoured President Paul Kagame for his exemplary leadership. The event will take place in Washington D.C.

    Also honoured by the foundation include presidents Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania,Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia.

    Former Heads of state including William J. Clinton and George Bush of the United States and Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo.

    Sullivan Foundation will salute the 2011 Sullivan Honours Recipients in a star-studded, international affair with notable performers from the United States and across the African Continent.

    US based Leon H. Sullivan Foundation empowers underprivileged people worldwide by promoting the principles of self-help and social responsibility.

    Kagame has improved Rwanda through the promotion of education, health, infrastructure, transparency, reconciliation, debt relief, and increased foreign relations among others.

    President Kagame’s good governance practices and positive economic policies have been an example of strong positive leadership for the world.

    Kagame in 2006 was honoured by the foundation by thanking him for his exemplary leadership in moving Rwanda forward.