Western Province calls for budget increase

Western Province districts want respective budgets increased because they are prone to disasters more than other regions, mayors told Parliament.Presenting the next fiscal year’s budget to parliament on Thursday, the district mayors said their geographical location present them with unique challenges.Nyabihu District regularly grapples with landslides that not only leave people homeless, but also destroy public infrastructure like roads and bridges, they said.According to Abdoulatif Twahirwa, the district mayor, they have very limited capacity to cover running costs due to limited internally generated revenues.Nyabihu district’s 2013/14 budget estimates and Medium Term Expenditure Plan (MTEF) as presented by the mayor showed a total of Rwf9 billion.In the 2012/13 budget, as per end March performance, Nyabihu absorbed all its recurrent budget worth Rwf831,479,380. It had a total budget of over Rwf9.4m which was executed at 75 per cent.Oscar Nzeyimana, the mayor of Rusizi District also said he is burdened by “presence of a great deal of disasters or calamities, lack of a budget to implement the asbestos removal policy, among others.In its new 2013/14 budget, Rusizi District has a total expenditure of Rwf11 billion, including total development costs of Rwf2. 9bn. Nzeyimana said the district plans to inject Rwf1.6bn of the 2013/14 allocation into development of infrastructure and Rwf8. 5 in human development and social sectors.In Karongi District, apart from insufficient own revenues, mayor Bernard Kayumba said they are bogged down by “disasters that lead to the destruction of infrastructure yet this is not budgeted for.”Rutsiro’s Gaspard Byukusenge also highlighted challenges of a “geographical location prone to landslides and erosion, inaccessibility and poor transport infrastructure.”Last year, Rutsiro had Rwf9.2bn as total budget but will get only Rwf8.9bn in the new budget, even though its projected to increase to Rwf10.1 billion in the 2014/15 budget.The district’s 2013/14 priorities include increasing rural settlement sites with basic infrastructure; agricultural production and productivity through the soil protection and development of cash and food crop, livestock, fish farming and beekeeping sub sectors; and electricity accessibility and reducing the use of wood as source of energy, Byukusenge said.Special treatment schemePaul Jabo, the Western Province’s Executive Secretary, said the Ministry of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs has an ‘intervention fund’ but noted that it is not decentralised and “what we decided to do is have our own disaster budget” however small it might be.Jabo could not readily provide figures on how much money districts have put in these small emergency funds but stressed that districts decided to have them as a safeguard.Legislators, including MP Charles Kamanda, promised that they will consider the province’s request. Some even argued that districts such as Rutsiro need a special budget.Kamanda said: “Almost the entire Western Province is in a high risk zone. I feel that it could be necessary that we delay some other activities but make sure that no other human life is lost because of disasters.” Kamanda also requested that other lines budgets are sliced to cater for disaster management.Elias Bayingana, the Director General of National Budget in the Ministry of Finance, said there are other high risk districts in the country.Bayingana said: “We are going to propose a special treatment, but we shall base everything on the available sources of funds.