Senate report on FARG out today

KIGALI - Following a senatorial report that unearthed probable mismanagement of funds meant assist Genocide Survivors, an ad hoc committee set up to investigate ill practices within FARG is expected to table its final findings today. FARG is the Fund set up to Support Genocide Survivors, and it is financed by government. According to a statement from the Senate, the ad hoc committee was charged with assessing the Fund’s expenditures and its budget and how the government’s programme of constructing houses for Genocide survivors has been executed. The statement adds that the committee will today table its final findings before the Senate from which a decision will be taken on the future of the Fund Initially, Senator Agnès Kayijire, the President of the Committee on Social Affairs, had informed the Senate that more than ten years since its inception, FARG still faces major challenges and appealed for immediate intervention by the government. It is against this background that the committee was set up. Among the major setbacks that Kayijire had highlighted was the existence of ghost students. The findings had also showed that last year alone, 492 students were listed and funded by FARG and yet documents to support these claims were not available. Related cases include 100 students who were listed twice as FARG beneficiaries and 276 others were registered as boarding students only for it to be discovered that they were in day schools. Kayijire’s committee also established that some schools had made business out of FARG. Mentioned in the report were College Indangaburezi of Ruhango district, which has 1,505 students, 1,020 of whom beneficiaries of FARG. Another discovery was Kabuga High School of Gasabo district, which is home to 1,112 students, 777 of whom beneficiaries of this Fund. Kayijire had analyzed that most of FARG’s problems stem from the fact that it lacks a verification mechanism. However, not all was ugly with FARG as the senatorial committee established some progress in the housing section of the Fund’s services. Ends

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Senate report on FARG out today