EDITORIAL: MPS should carry out more grassroots tours

Legislators in the Lower House are set to compile a fact-based report on the welfare of citizens. The recommendations from the report will be submitted to the government to inform future interventions. The weeklong tour of the country by the legislators mainly seeks to assess the implementation of the country’s policies to fight malnutrition, improve public hygiene, and fight poverty. They will also assess how the distribution of fertilisers and manure to farmers is going, sensitise the local population to be actively involved in development programmes, visit major development programmes in districts such as infrastructure projects, and seek to understand challenges that citizens are faced with while implementing development programmes. Very commendable efforts. Rwandans are lucky to have such servant leadership at their disposal. While in some countries leaders will only take actions to address citizen frustration and disillusionment, here are leaders who go out to assess what is on the ground to shape action plans for positive socio-economic change. However, such genuine efforts need to be more focused than as open as the legislators have taken on the current assessment. There is just too much to be assessed that chances of the efforts yielding half results are many. It would be more productive if targets are grouped on sector basis and assessment made accordingly. For instance, if legislators assessed healthcare and hygiene in January, they can go and look into the state of education in March, then another sector in June or so. Such a focus would lead to more solid report and recommendations to the government. Nevertheless, Rwandans can always take pride in their legislators’ capacity to go to the grassroots and seek firm understanding of issues that form the basis of their oversight work. It is as well good that, alongside national concepts such as Umushyikirano, Umuganda and others through which the people’s aspirations are made known, MPs can take time to complement such efforts which only raises hope in the direction the country is taking toward transformation.

Opinions

EDITORIAL: MPS should carry out more grassroots tours