In this interview, Joel Ntihemuka talks about moving the paper-based operations of the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) online. He discusses the challenges of starting this process from scratch, without infrastructure or skilled personnel. Ntihemuka talks about having several stand-alone IT systems for internal functions and different types of taxes, as well as the process of buying software from foreign vendors and customizing it to Rwandan needs. He shares his view on the RRA as providing a public service and emphasizes the importance of high quality service delivery. Ntihemuka discusses the RRA’s attempts to use technology to make filing taxes convenient for Rwandan citizens. This was the motivation behind introducing online and mobile tax declaration. He also talks about the process by which the RRA set up online and mobile tax declaration and stresses the importance of having tax personnel take charge of these projects as they are better aware specific requirements than IT personnel. Ntihemuka emphasizes the benefits of having support from government leaders in terms of investing in infrastructure and bringing partners together. Lastly, Ntihemuka discusses his future vision for the RRA as working in tandem with the government to have a fully digitized and integrated system that provides a single view of a tax payer across various tax departments. 

In this interview, Richard Tusabe talks about the early challenges that the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) faced in terms of capacity building and reinvigorating the economy after the Rwandan genocide. He discusses the RRA’s methods to find skilled people outside the country for assistance, including engaging international partners and joining the East African Community to collaborate with other countries. Tusabe talks about the benefits of the RRA remaining outside the mainstream of public service as this allows the institution more flexibility compared to a bureaucracy. He emphasizes the importance of the RRA’s autonomy and zero-tolerance policy for corruption as well as the larger government’s endorsement of technology as an enabler. Tusabe also stresses the need to reduce the costs of filing tax to encourage people to leave the informal sector. He sheds light on the RRA’s methods of redeploying human resources after moving to an online system to better suit the institution’s needs. Tusabe talks about some of the remaining challenges of the RRA as losing staff to the private sector, and having a large informal sector, despite the government’s encouragement to move away from a cash economy. He describes the path forward for the RRA as using big data and analytics to monitor compliance, in line with the broader national shift towards having more mobile phone and internet penetration.  

In this interview Aimable Kayigi Habiyambere talks about the creation of the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) as the tax collection agency of the government. He discusses the structure of the RRA, specifically that the agency is accountable to a board of directors that represents both the private sector and various ministries of the government. Kayigi Habiyambere talks about the RRA’s internal audit department, that reports directly to the board as opposed to the leading Commissioner of the RRA. He discusses a dedicated staff training institute for the RRA and various programs including an anti-corruption strategy and a whistleblower policy. Kayigi Habiyambere also talks about restructuring the RRA to have departments that were divided by the nature of the taxpayer rather than the nature of the tax. This made is easier to solve tax compliance issues by having a single file for each taxpayer. He shares his experience during the transition from filing paper returns to filing returns online and via mobile phone for those with limited internet access. Kayigi Habiyambere stresses the importance of targets for the tax collection agency as motivation to perform. 

Fabien Majoro explains how the Rwandan government was able to adapt and utilize the traditional concept of imihigo to improve the delivery of programs and services to the people of Rwanda. Imihigo, a traditional approach to motivating youth that was employed in the military service during the precolonial era, involves, in Majoro’s words, “pledging to do things beyond the normal assignment and effectively doing them.” Beginning in 2006, this concept served as the basis for national campaigns to promote healthy behaviors such as handwashing and shoe wearing; its success led Rwandan officials to adapt it to more comprehensive programs designed to address larger issues, such as “fighting soil erosion, mobilizing the population for health insurance [and] reforestation.”  Currently, the concept is utilized as the foundation of competitions whereby provinces and their subdivisions--districts, sectors, cells, and villages--compete at each level to determine who can carry out government programs and initiatives most effectively. The Prime Minister presides over quarterly evaluations and assessments of the competitions; results are publicized on a website and disseminated to the Rwandan people via radio.     

Case Study:  The Promise of Imihigo: Decentralized Service Delivery in Rwanda, 2006-2010 and Improving Coordination and Prioritization: Streamlining Rwanda's National Leadership Retreat, 2008-2011

Protais Musoni, current Cabinet Minister, describes his experience in building institutions, first as deputy secretary-general of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, then governor of Kibungo province, and finally as Minister of Local Government for Rwanda. Musoni initiated a community-building exercise in which communes were invited together for seven-day workshops to discuss ethnic and class divisions, and then ten-member commune committees were elected, with representatives for each group. After Musoni pioneered the workshops in his province, they were implemented nationwide in 1996. The initial state-building efforts laid the groundwork for an ambitious program of decentralization that Musoni later oversaw.  In the first stage of decentralization, sectors and cells gained the right to elect representatives; administrative decentralization followed with a massive recruitment effort at the district level, counterbalanced by large-scale retrenchment at the central ministries.

Case Studies:  Shifting the Cabinet into High Gear: Agile Policymaking in Rwanda: 2008-2012, Improving Coordination and Prioritization: Streamlining Rwanda's National Leadership Retreat, 2008-2011, Enhancing Capacity, Changing Behaviors: Rapid Results in Gashaki, Rwanda, 2008, Rebuilding the Civil Service After War: Rwanda After the Genocide, 1998-2009, Government Through Mobilization: Restoring Order After Rwanda's 1994 Genocide, and The Promise of Imihigo: Decentralized Service Delivery in Rwanda, 2006-2010

Fred Mufulukye describes the territorial administrative reforms implemented in Rwanda in 2005-06 that reduced the number of districts to 30 from 106. Local leaders are now elected. Pay for district staff was raised and recruitment became based on qualifications and merit. At the instigation of the president, the government initiated the imihigo process to inspire district performance and achievement of outcomes in governance, economic development, and social development. Based on a cultural tradition from the days of chiefdoms, the process requires that each district develop specific goals and priorities from the bottom up each year. Achievement of these goals and priorities is evaluated and scored each year by the government, motivating each district to out-compete other districts in performance. The program and results in each district are widely publicized in order to engage the citizenry in setting priorities and judging results.    

Case Study:  The Promise of Imihigo: Decentralized Service Delivery in Rwanda, 2006-2010 and Government Through Mobilization: Restoring Order After Rwanda's 1994 Genocide

Tito Rutaremara, chief ombudsman of Rwanda and former secretary-general of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), offers an account of his role first in building the rebel movement and then in restoring basic services to the country after the rebel victory in the war of 1994. As the civilian leader of the RPF between 1987 and 1993, Rutaremara led the training of the movement's “political cadres”—civilian members who were in charge of organizing Rwandan refugees in exile and then organizing the Rwandan population immediately after the war. The political cadres, trained in the bush in an ideology that emphasized Rwandan unity and participatory democracy, built the RPF by founding cells, each of which had an elected executive committee. The committees resolved basic disputes within cells and contributed to the recruitment of new members. Finding that this decentralized structure helped the RPF grow quickly, Rutaremara adopted it as a method of restoring order in Rwanda both in the so-called demilitarized zone established by the Arusha negotiations in the early 1990s and immediately after the war and genocide of 1994. Using the country’s existing administrative borders, RPF political cadres held elections for executive committees to bury bodies and coordinate the delivery of basic services such as health care and food.

Case Study:  Government Through Mobilization: Restoring Order After Rwanda's 1994 Genocide

Charles Munyaneza speaks about his role as executive secretary of the Rwandan National Electoral Commission and the efforts to rebuild the country after the 1994 genocide. He begins his discussion by describing his experience working as the director of Political Affairs and Territorial Administration for the Ministry of Internal Affairs immediately after the genocide. He describes the situation in Rwanda in which many refugees had fled their land years before the genocide. With the new government, many refugees returned, causing a shortage of land and jobs. The Ministry of Internal Affairs was forced to look for innovative solutions to restructure the division of territory in Rwanda. Finally Munyaneza speaks about his efforts in the National Electoral Commission to push decentralization through promoting local self-determination.    

Case Studies:  The Promise of Imihigo: Decentralized Service Delivery in Rwanda, 2006-2010 and Government Through Mobilization: Restoring Order After Rwanda's 1994 Genocide