• Eastern Province hits target

The government is planning to have 36,021 houses built for vulnerable people by the end of this year. According to a document obtained from the Ministry of Local Government, out of the 36,021 houses that have to be ready by December, 1907 (5.3 per cent) have been completed while 17,807 (49 percent) are still under construction.

The document also details the achievements of every province and Kigali City. The Southern Province with 13,278 to be built is in the top spot.

Out of the 13,278 houses planned for the province, 35 per cent are currently under construction with only 8 per cent completed.

The Western Province with 10,758 houses needed to be constructed for the vulnerable, is ranked number two because of the large number needed.

So far, 6,238 houses are being constructed in the Western Province and only 7 per cent have been completed.

The Eastern Province is ranked third because of having many houses to construct with 8,200, of which 3,907 (48 percent) are still under construction while those completed are 19 percent (748).

The Northern Province has a task of having 3,037 houses constructed by the end of this year, and so far 2,810 are being constructed, while 250 have been completed.

Kigali City has the least number of houses need by December, with 748 houses; 267 houses are being constructed, with 100 houses already completed.

In a related development, all provincial governors and the mayor of Kigali City gathered Friday to present achievements attained in 2006 and 2007 in constructing houses for the vulnerable.

The Eastern Province is the only province that managed to hit the target by 100 percent of constructing houses for the vulnerable people.

Those expected to benefit from the houses include survivors of the 1994 Tutsi Genocide, orphans of the Genocide and the historically underprivileged locally known as Abatwa.

However, the Secretary General in the Ministry of Local Government Eugene Barikana raised the concern of some people benefiting from the houses yet they don’t fall in the category of vulnerable people.

Governors were requested to compile a final report of vulnerable people that need to benefit from the houses and eliminate those who don’t fall in that category.

The final report is expected to be submitted to the Ministry by the end of September this year. The history of vulnerable people’s houses has long been rocked by mismanagement by individuals and companies that win tenders to construct them.

Some of those people have managed to walk away freely without being punished; one of them is allegedly a former Member of Parliament who is suspected to have fled the country to Madagascar with his wife and children.

He managed to fly out of the country after the resumption of reports implicating him in an aborted project for the construction of houses for disadvantaged Genocide survivors.

Asked what the government is doing to minimize such cases, the State Minister in the Ministry of Local Government in charge of Social Welfare, Christine Nyatanyi, answered that those cases are being handled by the judiciary.

Ends