Frequent change of district staff to blame for poor use of funds – Watchdog

The frequent change in staff by district authorities is partly to blame for the challenges related to poor use of public funds, anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (T.I) Rwanda, has said. This is part of the comments made by T.I Rwanda on Friday, as it released an analytical report scrutinising the 2020/2021 Auditor General (OAG)’s Report. ALSO READ: Auditor General speaks out on unimplemented recommendations The annual report aims at creating a basis to increase the understandability and transparency of OAG’s reports to the general public and local government officials, and provide evidence-based information for the steering of local public financial management activities. As part of its findings that were gathered through focus group discussions with district staff and key informant interviews with officials at decentralised entities, the report showcased poor performance of districts in regard to implementing the OAG’s recommendations. Only Huye district managed to implement 70 percent of the recommendations in the past two fiscal years. ALSO READ: Auditor General: Irregular expenditures reduced by 43% Public financial management weaknesses at the district level have remained an issue, according to the report. It estimated that expenditure related weaknesses in districts amounted to Rwf 21 billion, while weaknesses in the management of fixed assets were at more than Rwf 665 billion. Speaking in a media interview, Enock Byiringiro, a researcher at T.I Rwanda, said the discussions they had with district officials showed that some districts can even change their finance staff more than once in a year, and this, according to him, is an issue that may contribute to poor use of funds. “Huye district is performing better because it has stability of workers especially in the finance department. Some districts change such staff more than once a year,” he noted. In addition to this, Byiringiro said there is a need to build the capacity of district officials and closely work with them in the monitoring of the resources. The OAG’s report for 2020/2021 urged public institutions to chart out plans for implementing its audit recommendations, adding that these plans should be monitored to ensure timely implementation of audit recommendations to achieve desired improvements. The report showed that the audited districts had fully implemented 828 recommendations for the previous year, partially implemented 221, and had not implemented 456. As part of its report, T.I Rwanda issued recommendations to districts and the City of Kigali, among which it urged them to put more efforts in studies that inform their investment decisions in order to reduce the idle assets continuously reported. It noted that the Ministry of Local Governments (MINALOC) and Rwanda Association of Local Government Authorities (RALGA) should further strengthen peer review and peer learning between districts, particularly in the domain of public procurement and implementation of audit recommendations.

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Frequent change of district staff to blame for poor use of funds – Watchdog