Government funds earmarked for capitation grants and subsistence allowances for vulnerable senior citizens all amounting to Rwf13billion have been idle for four and ten months respectively, according to a report of Transparency International Rwanda. Presented on Tuesday, November 30, the report aimed at analysing the implementation of the recommendations made by the Auditor General’s Office in their audit report for the financial year 2019/2020 in districts and the City of Kigali. Findings of the report indicated that Rwf11billion allocated for capitation grants to help subsidise public schools were lying idle for at least 139 days – over four months – which affected schools where these funds are supposed to be sent. Capitation grants are funds dispatched to all schools under 12 Year Basic Education, where each student is allocated between Rwf 4,860 and Rwf 21,000 per student per year to subsidize education and therefore allows a way of ensuring all Rwandan children attend school. On the other hand, Rwf2.4 billion meant for distribution to vulnerable elderly citizens under the Vision Umurenge Programme (VUP) were not distributed to their beneficiaries and instead lay idle for over ten months. Shedding light on the report, Enock Byiringiro, a researcher at Transparency International said that the capitation grant delays were a result of ‘blame games’ between the local authorities and the ministries of education and that of finance. “The local authorities often cited that the software that they use to distribute capitation grants - School Data Management System (SDMS) - was not accessible to enter the data of the student beneficiaries. On the other hand, the Ministry of Education said that they were late to receive the lists of beneficiaries and approved them to receive the money from the Ministry of Economic Planning,” he said. On VUP, Byiringiro added that missing information of one beneficiary often ended up affecting the entire process, which he did not agree with, noting that if one beneficiary was missing, they would have provided the funds to those who fulfil the requirements. On this particular point, the watchdog recommended the ministry of local government and affiliated agencies to create a dedicated team of staff for VUP-financial services as loss or delay of these funds heavily deteriorates living conditions of beneficiaries. Non-compliance to the laws and regulations in public procurement was also cited among the issues that marked the financial year reviewed by the Auditor General. On a positive note, the watchdog commended the government’s efforts to incorporate technology in service delivery as well as investing more to curb expenditure-related weaknesses. Commenting on the report, the Minister of Local Government, Jean Marie Vianney Gatabazi attributed the malpractices to the lack of accountability. “It is clear that we do not lack funds, resources or skills to address these issues, what we need is accountability and a sense of responsibility to have our people served as they deserve,” he noted. Addressing the attendants, Marie Immacule Ingabire, the Chairperson of Transparency International also hailed the government of Rwanda for providing the space to advocate for the citizens through this research. “Since we kick-started this initiative back in 2012, we had the ambitious target of finding out the challenges and making advocacies on how the auditor general’s resolutions should be implemented,” she said referring to the reviews they make on the implementation of recommendations entailed in the annual reports by the Auditor General. Since that time, the watchdog has been able to establish regional offices in all provinces, she continued, and hence we are glad that the government of Rwanda has provided this space to our institution.
