KIGALI-Government has approved a move to increase the budgets for the police, army and teachers by 10 percent.  

The development was announced recently by the Minister of Public Service and labour Anastase Murekezi.

He revealed explaining that the ongoing reforms in the public service will not mean automatic increment of salaries to all public servants as has been speculated by many.

Internal Security Minister Sheik Musa Fazil Harerimana said that the 10 percent increment was used by the Ministry to remunerate officers who had been promoted but their salaries were not commensurate with their ranks.

"We used this increment of close to Rwf 1 billion to align the salaries to the promoted officers. You cannot promote officers in rank without increasing their salaries. Of course not all of them benefited but the majority did benefit in one way or another,” he said.

In May this year, the cabinet meeting approved the promotion of 954 Senior and Junior Police officers including the Acting Commissioner General of Police Mary Gahonzire who was promoted to the rank of Deputy Commissioner General of Police (DCPG).

He said that it was initially impossible to effect the promotion at the current budget they were allocated.

"Promotions had been pending for many years because our budget could not support the promotions, despite an earlier decision to have officers who had served diligently for many years promoted.”

For the teachers, the 10 percent rise will not translate into a direct increment of their salary but will form a common pool from where they could seek soft loans.
 
"We thought10 percent increment would be very minimal and unnecessary so we are looking at other options. We are discussing with MINECOFIN to see whether we can channel this money in Umwalimu-SACCO to accumulate interest or make it a fund where teachers can borrow from,” said Dr. Mathias Harebamungu, the Permanent Secretary at MINEDUC.

Umwarimu-SACCO is a teachers’ saving cooperative.

Without revealing the total amount, Harebamungu said that after agreeing on this arrangement, the Finance Ministry will then disburse the money through districts depending on the number of teachers per district.

Current statistics show that there are over 42,000 teachers in the country with 35,672 in Primary Schools (including head teachers) and 16,105 in secondary schools (9,076 in public schools 6,099 in private ones). 

A Primary school teacher with the secondary school level A2 currently gets a take-home salary of Rwf 39,500, those with level A1 earn about Rwf 98,000 while degree holders with education training A0 earn Rwf 113,000.

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