UK ex-premier Blair arrives today

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who last month revealed that he would serve as President Paul Kagame’s advisor, arrives in the country today for a two-day visit on what is set to become his first direct involvement in issues here, in his new capacity. Blair, who last June was appointed Middle East envoy by the Quartet of international mediators (US, Russia, the UN and the EU), is due to meet with President Kagame Sunday, to whom he will present some of the proposals he brings to the Office of the President and to government in general . While Blair will be welcomed with full honours deserving of a former world leader and key player in international affairs, Rwandan officials will also accord him treatment of a true friend intimately associated with local politics. Officials say already Blair, who served as UK premier from 1997 to June last year, has put forward two high-level proposals, which the Government of Rwanda has decided to implement after thorough scrutiny. He recommended that a cabinet reform be carried out to streamline certain activities, and that is in the pipeline, Dr David Himbara, the Head of Strategy and Policy Unit in the Office of the President, said on Thursday. He said that the reform will include establishment of a new government ministry in charge of Cabinet Affairs to ease and fasten decision-making processes, while at the same time relieving the President and the Prime Minister of a certain amount of workload. He has suggested a two-colour code decision-making process in which policies are adopted in a less hectic procedure starting from the stage of the ‘green paper’. This is where a problem is first identified, then discussed broadly (among all stakeholders) and then a number of scenarios that will help address the problem at hand are drawn, Himbara explained. At that stage, you have what is called a ‘white paper’ which has, say five options, out of which you have to finally zero in on one of the scenarios to solve the identified problem. After reaching a consensus on the best option to take, that is when a small part of the document is transformed into a ‘cabinet paper’ which is then presented to the cabinet. This system makes the whole process much easier and you will find that the cabinet takes far less time discussing a particular policy because they would be dealing with (a refined) smaller document, Himbara said. He said currently Cabinet meetings take too long discussing draft documents which are always bulky and lacking in scrutiny. They can take hours on one article. But under the proposed reform, a separate ministry will have to conduct that process and only a small fraction of key elements of a policy document be brought to cabinet, thus saving time, he said. Britain has been using that system for centuries. Himbara said that the reform will enable the President to concentrate more on high-level political issues instead of the routine work, and the Prime Minister to coordinate rather than running government business. To achieve that it will take enormous training. The official said the proposed ministry will be placed under the Office of the Prime Minister, which already has two ministries under it; that is, the Gender and Family Promotion, and the Information ministries. The second proposal from the former UK premier, is that Rwanda needs to have think-tanks for independent policy views, Himbara added. Currently, the country almost has no active think-tank apart from one which Himbara said is still at the stage of assembling. We are now developing the Institute for Policy and Research Analysis (IPAR), Himbara said. Think-tanks play a key role in politics of mainly developed countries and serve as independent reference for the media. Blair arrives just as the cabinet and other top government officials are warming up for next week’s fifth Annual Government Retreat, but Himbara says the timing is purely coincidental and not pre-arranged so as to integrate Blair’s proposals into the retreat agenda.Ends

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UK ex-premier Blair arrives today