Musoni tells leaders to involve grassroots in planning

Local Government minister, James Musoni, has urged leaders in the City of Kigali (CoK) to strengthen the bottom-up approach in governance across the city in order to improve services. He was speaking yesterday at the General Assembly of the City of Kigali, a bi-annual gathering of 1,500 CoK leaders, representatives of the civil society, and security officials to discuss governance. The bottom-up approach gives priority to the handling of issues and planning of development programmes at the lowest level of government first before involving officials at higher levels of government. “Let’s get more invitations to tackle issues from local leaders instead of them responding to invitations from top officials. You need to build your own capacities. You need to build enough confidence to solve problems at the local level,” he said. Participants at the meeting came from the districts of Gasabo, Nyarugenge, and Kicukiro that make up the City of Kigali. The city is at a critical stage of planning priorities for activities that will be implemented in the next fiscal year 2014-2015, which will involve the implementation of different infrastructure projects such as building roads and sewerage systems, as well as protecting poor urban dwellers through social protection programmes. CoK vice mayor in charge of finance and economic development, Alphonse Nizeyimana, told The New Times after the meeting that the entire budget of the city headquarters and its three districts for the next fiscal year would be about Rwf 53 billion, about one billion more than the current budget. “What we will need from residents is the protection of the infrastructure in the city as well as human security in their local areas. We are very interested in the city’s infrastructure; roads and sewerage systems as well as getting plots ready for developers of housing units remain our priority,” he said. Most of the local leaders pledged to be more dynamic in their efforts to provide better and faster services to residents in their communities. Dr Dieudonné Sebashongore, the chairman of the City Council, said leaders would spend more time listening to residents’ issues in order to better solve their problems. “Being a representative of the people is a major responsibility. Good governance remains an important pillar for people’s development; so let’s build a better country for future generations,” Sebashongore said.