During last weekend’s Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) Political bureau meeting, President Paul Kagame called on the leaders to focus on improving service delivery.

And rightly so! There has been a tendency whereby some leaders think that they are doing the public a favour, whenever approached for a particular service.

Leaders need to understand that the positions they hold carry along a responsibility to improve the lives of the people they represent.

Each of us recognises the importance of leadership when we vote for our political leaders. We recognize that it matters who is in office, so we participate in an election, to choose the best candidate.

The reason they are referred to as leaders, is because they have been selected to take the lead role in guiding the people towards prosperity and general welfare 

Instead, there are situations, where policies such as land consolidation, construction of classrooms in our schools, health insurance, savings schemes, the one cow per family, and the thatched roof eradication programme (Bye-bye Nyakatsi) are excelling in one area, and lagging in another.

The areas that perform well are headed by leaders who understand their responsibility and act accordingly.
Many of these policies are critical to development and if poorly delivered, everyone loses out.

The public too, should make it their responsibility to criticize and reject bad service. If leaders are not delivering, and the public does nothing about it, when they are aware, then they are by and large accomplices to poor service delivery.

No one should be indifferent whenever things are straying from the course. Everyone has a share of responsibility in improving service delivery.

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