If you have been around this town for a while and have been paying attention to national politics and matters of development then you know that this is a very sensitive time of the year for our district mayors, with the source of their anxiety –and perhaps insecurity – built around the Imihigo, which is an evaluation of their performance over the previous Financial Year.

Take this as free advice. If you have any business with district authorities, or their sector counterparts for that matter, it is better you do it well before the month of August or thereafter.

If you fail to heed this advice you are likely to find your phone calls unanswered, with the polite ones able to send you a quick SMS that reads something like this: "Turi mu Mihigo.”

The pressure point of the entire process is the reading of the evaluation results, which is normally conducted by the Prime Minister, in the presence of the Head of State.

And so it was this past week, and as is now tradition, the results produced moments of ecstasy for the winners and sadness for the losers, who had to watch in envy as their colleagues, awash in pride and heads held high, matched towards the Head of State, to collect their plaques that symbolise recognition for work well done.

Chin down, tails tucked between their legs, the losers sat in silence, their claps appearing disingenuous and out of courtesy.

The whole thing can be fun and games for the winners. But I suspect bouts of self-reflection and perhaps self-doubt from the losers. Of course, the intention of Imihigo is not to shame anyone.

Indeed, they serve an important role in inculcating a culture of accountability, transparency, and responsiveness in local government. Most importantly, it is much clearer now that they are serving as an important tool not only for development planning but as a monitoring tool whose intention is to accelerate the implementation of national development programmes.

And for the most part, they are living up to their objective. "Before the introduction of Imihigo,” a government official once pointed out, "no district had a practical strategy to implement their goals, but this has since changed because no district wants to be seen as lagging behind.”

In this regard, the Imihigo should be viewed as a healthy competition. However, this fear of ‘lagging behind’ had forced some to tamper with the integrity of its process.

For instance, they would set soft targets which were easily achievable and later claim to have scored perfectly, with some going as far as congratulating themselves, a phenomenon that this column once described as an exercise in "premature jubilation.”

The problem with soft targets is that their contribution to national development was insignificant and therefore of less value in transforming people’s lives, which is the ultimate objective of the Imihigo exercise.

In other words, what is to be said to a mayor who sets himself a target of planting flowers in all sector offices in his district and upon evaluation it is discovered that indeed this was done at the rate of 100 per cent.

On the other hand is another mayor who promised to provide water or electricity to all residents of his district, only to find upon evaluation that this was done, say, at a 60 percent rate.

This, and other dubious practices, used to be called Tekiniki. Such shenanigans, for the most part, have been done away with as of recent. As a result, as President Paul Kagame pointed out, the reasons some districts perform well while others seem destined as perennial losers are becoming increasingly clear.

Indeed, a closer scrutiny of where every district stands over the past couple of years reveals an interesting phenomenon: Imihigo zones. It appears that there are three distinct zones of performers.

The first zone is the pressure zone and is occupied by the top ten performers. They enjoy the limelight that comes with the distinction of being the best, which means they are very visible and subject to all kinds of attention which also implies high expectations. Notable examples are Kicukiro, Ngoma, and Huye districts.

The ‘problem’ with belonging to this zone is that it fluctuates a lot. It is almost impossible to remain in first place, for instance. As such, the risk involved in membership in this zone is that, as a result of high fluctuations at the top, present success exposes one to future humble pie. This zone is exciting but not dangerous.

Then there is the zone of those mayors who are living dangerously. By coming among the last, they expose themselves not only to present ridicule but also to the potential for job loss, as the ability to hold on to their positions becomes extremely precarious. Why? The short answer is because they are aware of the fate of their colleagues who were among the worst performers previously.

Finally, there is the Teflon zone. This is where the ‘smart’ mayors hide themselves. We can call this the comfortable middle, made up of districts ranked between the 10th and 20th positions.

They are the invisibles. No one talks about them. For them, they feel they should not improve too much because the light will shine on them, and with that will be higher expectations. Nor do they want to descend into the danger zone for obvious reasons.

You don’t believe me? Just look up the performance of these districts over the years: Bugesera, Gicumbi, Nyamasheke, Rutsiro, and Nyarugenge, for instance.

As others are moving forwards or backwards, they are comfortable moving laterally. In sum, they may be matching but they are not moving – Marche Sur Place!