Editor,

I agree with Arthur Asiimwe’s Op-Ed entitled " Why all the hullabaloo over Ombudsman’s report?” Yes we have indeed been treated this week to something spectacular in the Rwandan government circles.

Who would have thought that the Ombudsman’s report could draw such fierce reaction as it did?

If anything, I say ‘bravo’ to the Ombudsman, he has achieved what these types of report are meant to achieve.

These kind of reports are meant to push the institutions mentioned to take a retrospective look and assess why they are perceived as corrupt.

The judiciary has unknowingly just done that, albeit in a very unprofessional way using lame excuses such those used by Ngoga.. Now they know, that the public is aware of and watching what they get up to.

As for those who wanted the office of the Ombudsman to share his findings before publication, there is only one thing they ought to know.

This report was not the judiciary’s internal report. Only in the event of internal reports commissioned by an institution, are the findings shared before publications, especially when they don’t look good, so that the concerned institutions get a heads-up and mount a strategy to deal with the consequences (the public outcry and the ensuing fall out in the case of public institutions or customers for commercial organisations)

I only take issue with this paragraph of your op-ed:”Though the Ombudsman’s mondus operandi is indeed questionable especially after confessing that he relied on pubic perceptions to come up with his findings, his report should not entirely be thrown to the gutters.”

When you say that the Ombudsman’s modus operandi is questionable because he confessed to using public perception, you forget that these kinds of reports rely exactly on public perception.

If and when you get a chance go to the Transparency International, an NGO which deals with corruption and see how they rank countries according to how corrupt using exactly that method used by the Ombudsman that we seem to be decrying.

It is called the "Corruption Perception Index” CPI and has been scientifically proven to be a reliable way of measuring how corrupt institutions or countries are.

You can even see on the Transparency International webpage how this kind of data is collected from the public and computed.

If we want to find faults or lay the blame on the Ombudsman’s table, we ought to be methodical and as objective as we can be.

The only thing worth mentioning here is that he could have done better in explaining how and why this report relied on public opinion, he could have referred all those shouting from the rooftops to the internationally renowned institutions like the Transparency International and IMF who conduct this type of study in exactly the same way his office did. Again, bravo Mr Ombudsman.

Jean-christian
christian42002@yahoo.fr