World Labor Day: Nyaruguru district personnel asked to live in Nyaruguru

Nyaruguru district Mayor, François Habitegeko, has asked the rest of Nyaruguru district senior personnel to reside in Nyaruguru, their work place, as a way of improving service delivery to the local population.

The move trickled in yesterday as the district joined the rest of the world to celebrate the World Labor Day, observed on May 1 yearly.

“The mayor of the district, the vice mayor [different vice mayors], executive secretary of the distrcit, executive secretary of the sector [for all 14 sectors], executive secretary of the cell [for all 72 cells], for these leaders, it’s not negotiable. They have to live within their work place so that they can be much grounded in the problems that the population face”, said Mayor Habitegeko, and hardly had he made the remark that he got a cheerful applause from an about 120-people audience at Regina Pacis mini-hotel conference room in Nyaruguru, packed to its capacity.

“That’s a principle for leaders, it’s an order”, the mayor added, as he addressed a gathering of different administrative leaders in Nyaruguru district.

However, there was a mix of reactions among some leaders who spoke to this news website on condition of anonymity.

“This district is yet to develop. There are still poor infrastructure like houses and the available houses may still be too few to accommodate all the leaders”, one said.

“I don’t think it’s a problem if one still lives in neighbouring Huye district [a town district] and gets to work on time”, another stepped in.

For the mayor though, there seems to be no alternative.

“Facilities are to be brought by leaders. They are the ones to be wooing investors into building more houses in the district. It sounds unfair if a leader urges the population to build good houses [in the district] and yet the very leader can’t set an example”, Mayor Habitegeko said, composed.

Final touches on the mayor’s decision are expected to be high on the agenda when the next district council meets later this month.

Further “development” for the rural Nyaruguru district seems to be within reach, if one goes by recent remarks by some in the country’s top leadership.

As of January 2012, an article run in a local news website said the Rwandan government has allocated Rwf 66 billion to support development activities in Nyaruguru district, aimed at eradicating both malnutrition and poverty through promoting agriculture and construction of relevant infrastructure.

Nyaruguru district Mayor, François Habitegeko, acknowledged having, by then, already received part of the amount, the first phase of which, he said, was to be used in buying fertilizers and supporting other irrigation schemes.

In yet a similar move, on his recent visit to the district early this year, Prime Minister Pierre Damien Habumuremyi noted that the government is yet to embark on a programme aimed at eradicating malnutrition in Nyaruguru “within six months.”