Lack of teamwork and poor coordination among Rubavu District officials and members of the district advisory council has been cited as the major cause of the district’s underdevelopment.

This was revealed last Friday at the closure of a two-day retreat for district officials and members of the advisory council.

The retreat aimed at discussing challenges hindering the development of the district and forging the way forward.

District officials, together with area MPs, admitted that there was need to build team spirit among workers and enhance coordination efforts so as to push the district to another level.

Officials were urged to ensure accountability and exploit untapped tourism opportunities in the area.

Rubavu is among the towns set to be developed as secondary cities to offset the population pressure in the City of Kigali.

But critics say the city is lagging behind in infrastructure development.

Nelson Mbarushimana, the president of district advisory council, said the retreat gave them a platform to discuss challenges facing the district and devise possible remedies.

"We have agreed that team work and coordination, which are key to development, are lacking and that we need to find a solution for the good of the district,” Mbarushimana said.

"We agreed that the district has potential to be among the best districts in the country. We have realised that we used to set high targets but we agreed that we should set realistic performance targets and are optimistic that we can emerge the best,” he added.

Mbarushimana said the district would tap into to tourism opportunities in the area to boost revenue collection.Rubavu District mayor Sheikh Hassan Bahame called on all employees in the district to work together to ensure improved performance.

He said in the recent past, the district faced some challenges but it was time all local leaders in the district worked together to further the district’s development.

"Our district has a lot of potential and with team work, we can develop much faster,” Bahame said.

Other factors blamed for poor performance include delays in disbursement of donor and central government funds which officials said affect projects implementation.

The Western Province governor, Caritas Mukandasira, challenged district officials to work hard to improve their performance.

She said it was unfortunate that the district trials others yet it has a lot of potential for development.

"It is not clear how rural districts such as Ngororero can beat you in annual performance contracts, you can do more and even emerge among the top performing districts,” she said.

Rubavu scored 71.8 in the recent performance contract rankings (Imihigo), emerging 25th out of 30 districts in the country.