Parliament Tuesday afternoon granted the Prime Minister’s last-minute request to postpone the appearance of Infrastructure minister Amb. Claver Gatete for questioning over mismanagement issues in two key government agencies. Gatete was set to appear before a virtual plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies today, June 29, to respond to concerns related to the performance of water and electric utilities. The two agencies, Water and Sanitation Corporation (WASAC) and Rwanda Energy Group (REG), are under Gatete’s docket. Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente was Tuesday afternoon set to announce a new raft of national coronavirus measures at a news conference. Ngirente chairs the national Covid-19 taskforce set up early last year in response to the virus outbreak. “Based on the request of the Prime Minister, the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies has deferred the appearance of the Minister for Infrastructure who was due to provide a verbal explanation on longstanding issues in WASAC and REG,” the Lower House posted on its Twitter account. No new date has been announced for the minister’s appearance. MPs say WASAC and REG have continuously been characterised by issues pertaining to mismanagement and operations, with concerns around idle assets recorded over several years among major issues. According to the media office at the Chamber of Deputies, Gatete was expected to respond to the concerns during a virtual plenary sitting. In November last year lawmakers singled out WASAC for what some referred to as abysmal performance over the previous five financial years (from 2014/15-2018/19), which earned it a disclaimer audit opinion from the Office of the Auditor General of State Finances. A disclaimer of opinion is issued when an auditor is unable to complete the audit report due to the absence of financial records or insufficient cooperation from management of the concerned body. At the Rwanda Energy Group (REG), parliamentarians expressed concerns over public asset mismanagement cases, which made it impossible for the parastatal to be audited for the fiscal year 2017/2018 and 2018/2019.
