A survey commissioned by the Ministry of Local Government, aimed at assessing community perceptions on service delivery in order to improve decentralisation and good governance, has pointed out some loopholes that undermine progress.

The survey known as the Citizens Report Card (CRC) and the Community Score Card (CSC) was conducted by Deloitte and Touche and aimed at getting feedback from individuals and communities countrywide on service delivery, public accountability and involving citizens in decision making.

According to the preliminary report seen by The New Times, those surveyed expressed some dissatisfaction on how public offices deliver services to the ordinary rural folks.

It identified a number of areas that need urgent attention ranging from poor information sharing between administrative levels to the need to develop participatory mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating performance contracts.

The CRC, a quantitative statistical survey whose final report is yet to be released, covered 1,680 households selected from 60 villages countrywide.

The CSC-a qualitative process involving beneficiaries and service providers in assessing the level of satisfaction and formulating actions to improve on service delivery covered 48 Sectors.

The study covered eight areas of administration, agriculture, education, health, hygiene, sanitation, infrastructure, justice and water.

Despite the loopholes, the survey whose findings were partly presented to the Central and Local Government meeting last week shows administration and health as the most appreciated sectors by citizens. Education took third place.

The sectors of justice, hygiene and sanitation, infrastructure, agriculture and water followed in ascending order in how they deliver services to the Rwandan population.

The survey pointed out areas of improvement in different sectors.

In the agriculture sector, the survey indicates a need to expand the ‘One cow per family’ programme to all households as the number of cows distributed is still low.

UBUDEHE program funding also needed an increment.
The findings of the study also reveal that there is limited information dissemination to improve access to agricultural credits and poor artificial insemination services while at grass root levels, a lack of technical support was noted.

Education sector showed weaknesses in areas of teachers’ motivation, insufficiency of educational materials and equipment.

Poor service delivery was noted in the health sector, especially in urban areas, while in rural areas poor attitude of service providers and distant health care centres were a major concern.

Insufficient electricity and lack of alternative energy sources were noted as major bottlenecks within the infrastructure cluster.

The population sampled complained about low public awareness and understanding of some laws as bottlenecks within the justice sector.

The study shows that there is inadequate water supply infrastructure, long distance to water sources and high cost of water. Priority problem is the low level of hygiene resulting into water-borne diseases.

It was suggested that Government supply water at Umudugudu level, control prices, recruit technicians and facilitate access to credit

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