Members of Parliament have asked the Prime Minister to look into issues that are impeding the productivity of Girinka -- One Cow per Poor Family Programme, which was supposed to contribute to uplift the poor out of poverty.

Parliament also indicated that fixing issues within Girinka should be complete within four months.

The August House adopted the resolution on Thursday, December 15, after approving its Committee on Land, Agriculture, Livestock, and Environment&039;s analysis of the Auditor General's performance audit of Girinka programme.

Though the Chamber of Deputies did not explicitly mention the entities in question, some of the institutions involved in Girinka programme implementation include the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) through its implementing agency - the Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB) , and the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC).

Marie Alice Kayumba Uwera, Chairperson of Committee on Land, Agriculture, Livestock, and Environment, said that while analysing the performance audit of Girinka progamme, it found that the implementation of this programme was marred with many problems, including lack of effective planning and monitoring and evaluation.

Since the Girinka progamme was initiated in 2006 through October 2021, Uwera indicated, 406,866 cows had been distributed under it.

"To implement this initiative, she said, the Government invested a lot of money, citing the period from January 2016 to June 2021, during which it spent Rwf18 billion on buying 38,491 and related items associated with livestock farming and treatment," she said.

On the evaluation and monitoring aspect, she pointed out that there was no appropriate way to monitor the execution of this programme whereby the entities in charge of its implementation are in a blame game in terms of responsibilities, though each has its own responsibilities.

"Again, there are no measurements for the improvement that this programme has had in the lives of the citizens in terms of tangible data," she said.

Talking about planning, she said that the programme started being implemented without an assessment of beneficiaries, and ensuring all the requirements for its effective execution.

According to the Committee, there was ineffective collaboration among the initiative partners, the beneficiaries who were given cows but they do not have means to breed them, lack of effective approach to prepare beneficiaries, inadequate care for the provided cows, and entities that do not effectively fulfill their responsibilities as indicated in the instructions of the Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources.

"As a result, there is still a large number of residents who are given cows and they fail to keep them," Uwera said.

MP Valens Muhakwa suggested that as it was indicated that through talks with the Ministry of Local Government, even some of the citizens who get the cows based on the set Girinka instructions, had no means to take care of them which led to inability to achieve the intended yield, and amendment to the instructions was needed.

"I think the review of the instructions should be expedited so that the cow be given to a citizen who can afford to take care of it," he said.

Uwera said that the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources argued that the issue is in the selection of the beneficiaries (which is a responsibility of the Ministry of Local Government and districts), while districts claimed that the issue lies in the instructions where cows are given to poor families that lack the required resources to breed them.

As that has some contradiction, she said that they requested the Prime Minister who "will consider what is necessary so that this programme yields results."

MP Theogene Munyangeyo said that Girinka is a good initiative in line with speeding up development in the country, calling for the support to the vulnerable people so that they are able to breed cows they are given and get enough productivity, including milk for improved nutrition and manure for increased farm produce.

"There is a need for ownership of this initiative as a homegrown solution. A cow of the poor person might even be kept together with others in a shed of their neighbour who is well-off, and the former can look for fodder to feed it," he said.