IT is around 10:00 a.m. and Evelyne Maniramuha arrives at the office of Tumba Sector in Huye District to register her first baby boy. Before she enters the building, Maniramuha has a stopover at a big placard fixed to the facility wall and she is keenly reading from the long list of services the sector offers daily, checking whether she fulfils all the requirements for her baby to be registered. Among the requirements is a birth certificate from the hospital where she delivered from, National Identities of the baby’s parents and parents’ marriage certificate, among others. Luckily enough, Maniramuha finds herself fulfilling all the requirements. Besides the requirements, she can also know from the service charter the official in charge of providing her with the service, the service fee and the timeline to get the service. “This service charter is timely given challenges that one faced previously while seeking services at the sector level,” she told this reporter. “You would waste most of your time revisiting an office as you were not aware of the requirements but with this service charter that challenge has become a thing of the past, it, therefore, helps optimize our time as it tells everything you are required to get a certain service in time” added Maniramuha. Jean Habanabakize, who spoke to The New Times at the office of Mukura – another sector of Huye District echoed Maniramuha sentiments stressing that the establishment of the service charter has been a catalyst for good service delivery. “For instance, I have come here to apply for a certificate of vulnerability to get government aid; I now realise through this service charter that I am not eligible for the service at the moment as officials at the cell level have not signed my papers,” he said. Grassroots leaders reiterate the importance of service charter in fostering good service delivery in local government entities. “Service charter has started bearing fruits, previously people used to waste time at the sector without getting services as there were no other means to guide them on who was supposed to provide them with their desired services,” noted Assoumpta Dusabe, the civil registration and notary officer at Tumba Sector. “However, with the service charter service seeker and service provider are both satisfied,” she added. In 2010 the Rwanda Governance Board introduced the Citizen Report Card (CRC), which is carried out annually countrywide with a focus on citizens’ participation and service delivery as core parts of governance. The CRC2018 findings indicated that the overall people’s satisfaction with service delivery in all the districts of the country stood at 69.3 per cent with most showing satisfaction local administration at 71.96 per cent. According to figures from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR), the service sector contributed 48 per cent of the national GDP in 2018. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
