Senate to summon Prime Minister over discrepancies in public service

Senators have agreed to summon Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente in a plenary session to give explanations to unanswered questions surrounding public service. The decision was reached on Wednesday after the standing committee on social affairs and human rights, presented to the plenary the analysis they did on the 2017-18 annual report of the Public Service Commission. One of the major concerns that attracted the attention of senators was the findings highlighted in the report that about 30 per cent of job applicants in the public service do not trust the process. The applicants attribute the mistrust to corruption and favoritism that exist between personnel from recruiting public institutions and applicants. Senator Gallican Niyongana, the chairperson of the committee said that despite the fact that there has been progress in streamlining recruitment in public service, there were still challenges in terms of transparence. “We can say that there is an improvement in public service recruitment. When 70.9 per cent say they trust the process, that is progress, but then you have another 30 per cent that do not trust the process and that is significant, there must be an explanation to this,” said Niyongena. As a result, the senators agreed, there was need for the head of government to come and explain to them on what is being done to improve job recruitment processes and other prevalent issues in public service. Another concern highlighted during the session was the issue of some public servants (medical personnel, university lecturers and diplomats) who have special status, which senators said need to rectify to ensure they are properly mainstreamed in public service. Reacting to the distrust reported in public service recruitment, Senator Prof. Chrysologue Karangwa said that special attention should be given to the issue of lack of trust because it has been around for some time. “The trend might be even higher than the 30 per cent said in the report when you hear from more job applicants out there. There is need to dig deeper to come up with a lasting solution,” he said. The Prime Minister will also be tasked to show the improvements made in terms of capacity building with in public service and a clear strategy to prepare and make timely payments for all emoluments of all public servants to avoid arrears. Recently, the education sector has been on the spot over the delays in paying allowances teachers who marked national examinations for primary and secondary schools.

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Senate to summon Prime Minister over discrepancies in public service