The government has, over the years, been involved in lawsuits that ended up costing taxpayers billions of francs in litigation.

For instance, in 2013, it was disclosed that in five years, government lost Rwf2.3 billion in litigation.According to Justice minister Johnston Busingye, the government has been waging war to check some of the endemic causes for the losses such as laxity of accounting officers, or bad advice from government lawyers, with the view to realise zero litigation involving public institutions.

During the opening of the 13th National Leadership Retreat, on Saturday, President Paul Kagame said such litigations are hurting the national coffers, with lots of taxpayers’ money being put to waste through litigation and corruption-related cases.

Kagame asked for "immediate response” toward litigations against government, through, accountability, and ensuring that government’s offence-related assets are recovered on time, when the cases have been won.

Busingye, who doubles as the Attorney-General, had incidentally addressed a meeting on Friday, bringing together legal advisors from all public institution, during which he said that at least 90 per cent of such losses come from cases that can be easily avoided, had the officers always done due-diligence whenever they transact business on behalf of government.

"We have to find all possible ways of avoiding public lawsuits, and in case any comes up, we have to win it. Zero litigation involving public institutions is possible. Our ultimate goal is to reduce losses to the lowest level possible,” Busingye told legal experts for public institutions.

In 2015 alone, 402 cases were registered involving public institutions, of which 119 were lost, with the government winning the remaining according to Busingye.

"This comes with a lot of financial implications. If we are buying cars or drafting contracts for infrastructure projects, we need to make sure that all details are catered for to avoid future losses,” he said.

However, Busingye said the government had come a long way in ensuring minimum litigation.

"At some point we would win only 30 per cent of all the lawsuits involving government. We are improving, but we need to set our standards higher,” he said.

The minister added that minimising lawsuits against government requires legal advisors to cultivate a culture of institutionalism lawfulness and accountability, providing legal opinion on contracts and legal matters, and supporting the Office of Attorney-General in legal suits.

How possible is zero litigation?

Busingye knows that asking zero litigation is too much, but he is optimistic that it is possible, if the legal advisors knew the price of losses to the government and did their best in public procurement and contract drafting.

"We need to have a goal, and I think zero litigation is achievable. We should have a very ambitious goal that will help us to know where we are aiming,” Busingye said.

He said the high standard may hardly be achievable but will act as a caveat. "We are either at zero or we are winning whatever litigation we are sued against.”

Dominic Rurangirwa, the legal expert at the Ministry of Infrastructure, said the goal to achieve zero litigation is possible with the introduction of the new ministerial instruction establishing standards and guidelines for public sector legal officers.

The instruction was enacted last month.

"This instruction gives us clear guidelines and procedure of following different lawsuits. Normally, the biggest cause of lawsuits against government is the procedures of contracts management,” Rurangirwa said.

The ministerial order, plus an earlier enacted Prime Minister’s instruction governing the organisation and functioning of the committee in charge of out of court settlement, which was gazetted in December 2015, are said to have boosted the efficiency and confidence of public sector legal advisors.

Anselme Niyonzima, the legal advisor and notary Nyarugenge District, said district legal officers were faced with challenges originating from less involvement by the district executive, meaning that their advice was not sought on some of the decisions.

"Sometimes district executives thought that procurement managers would do everything including the drafting of contracts, which were recklessly misleading the institutions. But this has changed,” Niyonzima said.

He added that the pressure from the state attorney has forced district executives to vigorously involve district legal advisors in every contract, hence minimising government losses.

Minister Busingye said local government entities have registered a large number of lawsuits involving the government, reason being that they use 90 per cent of the national budget—which mostly goes towards infrastructure development projects.

Recovering litigation-related assets

In a related development, Busigye urged public legal officers and ensure that they recover offence-related assets, in ensure that public servants who cause losses to the government by omission or commission are held liable.

"Ensure that public servants who cause loss to the government by omission or commission are held liable and the funds ordered to be paid to the government by court are paid and returned in the public coffers.

"We have new local government leaders, we need to build new momentum of transparency, especially in districts, which account for the majority of public expenditure,” the minister said.

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