District mayors across the country plan to increase agricultural production as part of efforts to uplift people out of poverty.

The revelation is found in districts’ draft performance targets – locally known as Imihigo – presented to Prime Minister Dr. Pierre Damien Habumuremyi this week in Kigali.

The targets were presented during a planning meeting that drew the local government and the central government institutions.

Governors of provinces and the Mayor of the City of Kigali highlighted their performance targets of their respective districts in order to enable the central government see whether the priorities suggested to the districts were captured and for districts to suggest what support was needed for greater implementation.

According to highlights, the districts promise to increase health insurance coverage Mutuelle de Santé, support the needy, and increase TV penetration, among other things.

Prime Minister Habumuremyi commended the mayors for the efforts they put in the implementation of their performance contracts. 

Some points however were identified as cross cutting issues in all the provinces, especially due to the centralisation of some activities at ministerial or institutional level, which at some point the participants found frusttated implementation.

The Director General of good governance in the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC), Fred Mufuruki, and his team have identified some issues that need to be fixed as they assessed the quality of target pledges.

Several districts were reluctant to make pledges about roads because they didn’t have enough information about contracts and tenders from the institution in charge of roads, the Rwanda Transport Development Authority (RTDA).

The same problem was also recently raised in the retreat of the Kigali City councillors and Mufuruki said that it was clear districts were avoiding making some errors in planning things that would mismatch with the available budget.

That’s why the roads Vunga-Nyakinama in the Northern Province and Ngororero-Rutsiro in the Western Province were not completed as part of planning initiatives in districts.

Again in infrastructure, districts that have airport projects like Rubavu, Rusizi, and Bugesera were not handling expropriation properly.

Also, districts avoided planning for asbestos eradication because they had no roadmap of the activities it requires, while others had not planned enough in developing kitchen stoves, waste management, biogas and rural electrification.

The Prime Minister advised the districts to take over full implementation and the central government would give them technical support.

He assigned concerned ministries to sit with the Ministry of Local Government and address all outstanding issues so that all districts can present final drafts of their performance contracts on July 10.