The National Public Prosecution Authority (NPPA) surpassed its targets in litigations and convictions for the last financial year, but criminal cases were on the rise compared to the last annual report.

This was revealed during a general assembly of national prosecutors who gathered, yesterday, to assess the sector’s progress and challenges in the last financial year.

During the 2013/14 financial year, 83.6 per cent of the 14,357 cases registered were handled, while the 2014/15 financial year saw a rise in cases to 28,864, of which prosecution officials handled 99.2 per cent.

Addressing participants, Prosecutor-General Richard Muhumuza said last year’s performance targets were met, with some being surpassed despite trending issues like minor corruption cases recorded amongst prosecutors.

He attributed the achievements mainly to the decentralised prosecution systems and high commitment demonstrated by staff.

"The use of jurisprudence shows maturity in the way these matters are handled on a daily basis, and this has had a big impact on the conviction rates. We have seen people applying a number of cassations or rulings from different courts without hesitation, which is very commendable,” he said.

No room for errors

However, Muhumuza warned of some mistakes that could reflect badly on the authority’s image stating that one person’s mistake affects the whole team and the entire sector as a whole.

"There were reports of at least four cases of corruption in our institutiion in the last financial year, and we keep getting tips of such misconduct from either members of the public and or senior leaders. We must fight this by all means,” he said.

Other challenges noted during the assembly include lack of sufficient facilities and information communication technology equipment, which had been hampering proper storage of case files and archives, on top of sluggish efforts to bring genocidaires roaming outside the country to justice.

Muhumuza decried NPPA’s limited budget, saying it cannot cater for all businesses in the sector, but urged prosecutors to be innovative and use all means available to attend to all cases.

NPPA is allocated about Rwf4 billion, of which only Rwf2 billion goes into operational activities, while the rest covers recurrent expenditures such as salaries of workers in the sector.

Presenting achievements, Marius Ntete, the inspector general of NPPA, said more than 28,000 cases filed at the national, intermediate and primary levels, were all handled accordingly, leaving only 343 pending for the current fiscal year.

Ntete said of the 12 intermediate levels across the country, Nyarugenge leads others in recording high number of filed cases with 5,674, followed by Gasabo which recorded 3,606 cases, while the least recorded instance was in Nyamagabe District with only 781 cases.

Ntete also said they were working closely with Rwanda Development Board to ease issuance of criminal record certificates.

"While people are used to come and process these certificates at the headquarters and other levels, we are working with RDB on how the criminal record certificates could be issued online,” he said.

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