MPs in heated debate over Imihigo in private sector

The idea of including private sector in performance contracts, Imihigo, stirred a heated debate in Parliament, yesterday, as lawmakers discussed the Bill governing results-based performance management in public service.The draft law, tabled by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee for final approval by the plenary, met with serious criticism from a section of the lawmakers, who questioned why it remained silent about having Imihigo in the private sector. Minister Uwizeye defended the Bill. / File While currently a 2010 Prime Minister’s Order governs Imihigo management and procedures of appraisal, the new draft law, that seeks to institutionalise and govern results-based performance management in public service, remains silent on the idea that the private sector, too, should be tasked to take up the annual homegrown approach of weighing leadership results through performance contracts.“Imihigo started way back in 2006, and its growth has been significant since it started from the districts until it spread in other sectors. We are discussing the law here on its management and appraisal procedures, yet the private sector is no where mentioned, this does not add up,” said MP Ignatienne Nyirarukundo.“The concept of Imihigo, which was started by the President, had a bigger vision in itself, yet there is exclusion of the private sector in this draft law. Aren’t we building the same country?” asked Deputy Speaker Abbas Mukama.The 2006 management model, which was launched by President Paul Kagame mostly to improve services in local governments in all districts, later expanded to other institutions to direct efforts towards achieving a common set of results.PAC opposed to the ideaExplaining what the committee analysed in the draft bill, Juvenal Nkusi, the chairperson of the committee, told the lawmakers that it would not make sense to include private sector in the Bill whose basis was approved earlier.“The scope of this law was designed and presented based on the Government’s policy governing results-based performance management in public sector. This is a Bill that you have approved before it was handed to the committee, we could not have gone out of that orientation,” he explained.Nkusi further told lawmakers that the idea of the draft law was not to water down the rationale behind Imihigo but that it was to help public service deliver efficiently and according to the targets.“It was a good step to have a comprehensive law in charge, because before it was governed through orders, in the first place, especially after some new components were added to make it more meaningful,” he added.Part of the additions in the draft law, for example, was that, on top of fulfilling responsibilities a public servant would be evaluated based on the impact it made on the sector.The Minister for Public Service and Labour, Judith Uwizeye, told the lawmakers that the private sector was not meant to be catered for in the same draft law simply because its accountability cannot be supervised by the central government.“This law specifically was meant for the public sector, it was very difficult to set accountability provisions on the private sector whose enforcement we could not guarantee,” she said.Minister Uwizeye explained that the private sector, which is not entitled to public finance, cannot be evaluated on the same basis as public institutions that operate on National Budget.“It should be understood that actually public sector has been trying to cope with speed at which accountability is ensured in the private sector. These people are profit-driven, workers who do not deliver according to targets mostly face serious consequences,” she added.The House yesterday adjourned before lawmakers could vote to adopt the Bill.

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MPs in heated debate over Imihigo in private sector