MPs welcome probe into graft claims in recruitments

The Public Service Commission (PSC) has announced it will investigate allegations that corruption is rampant in recruitment process for civil service. The commission’s chairperson, François Habiyakare, while presenting PSC’s activities in the last financial year and action plans in the current year, told legislators in the Lower Chamber that investigations into corruption cases in the recruitment process for public service jobs will also look at issues that sexual-based corruption could be happening in the recruitment process. Several legislators welcomed the plan, saying certain cases suggest that corruption is involved in some placements. “How can someone with training in literature pass an exam meant for IT professionals? We still have such cases,” MP Theodomir Niyonsenga said. MP Jean Marie Vianney Gatabazi said investigations are needed because there are many testimonies about corruption in the recruitment process. “The commission needs to be more careful in assessing the performance of the public service,” he said.According to the Auditor-General’s report for the Financial Year 2011/2012, many of the errors committed in the public service were due to incompetence. Habiyakare said probing circumstances under which ‘incompetent’ civil servants get jobs in the public service remain critical. “We are getting complaints that there is corruption in the recruitment process; so we need to investigate the allegations. The research will be a kind of public opinion vetting to check how true the allegations are,” he said. “We hear rumours about corruption in the recruitment process; so let the research be conducted to clear them,” MP Francesca Tengera said. Officials at the Public Service Commission say they will hire consultants to conduct the study in order to identify cases of corruption related to recruitment in public service and their impact on the performance of public servants and institutions. Among other sources of information for their study, the consultants will be asked to analyse reports from the Office of the Ombudsman and Transparency International-Rwanda to rate corruption in the public recruitment process. eugene.kwibuka@newtimes.co.rw

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MPs welcome probe into graft claims in recruitments