INTEGRITY OF PUBLIC SERVANTS AS THE BASIS OF PREVENTING CORRUPTION

Every person in his/ her work should be the person of integrity to prevent the activities that are hindrances to his or her work and focus on the activities that can promote his/ her institution. Particularly the public employees should be persons of integrity in their work and in the management of public finance and assets.

There are some public employees who are not honest in their work. An example of the employee who lacks integrity is a woman working at Gahanga Health Centre in Kicukiro District of Kigali City who was paid by two institutions which are Gahanga Health Centre and Gasabo District at the same time.

When the Office of the Ombudsman received information about the case, some investigations were made at Gahanga Health Centre and Gasabo District where employee was working as in charge of Hygiene in Kinyinya Sector.

The information given by employees of the Health Centre shows that this woman was appointed to this Health Centre in October 2008, but she did not attend work regularly in the first three months the management board and the committee of health in February 2009 requested her to attend work regularly.

Later on the investigation continued to Gasabo District, and according to some documents like payment roll, letter written by the employee in question and another written by the District, it was found out that the woman was an employee of the District until December 2008 at the time when she wrote a letter of stopping work for personal reasons. This means that she got the salary until December (December included). By using its dishonesty, the woman got the salary knowing that she does not deserve it because she was assigned to another institution.

After verifying this, it was seen that this employee used malice in getting salary from two institutions at the same time while she knew that she was employed by the Ministry of Health at Gahanga Health Centre and refused to resign from Gasabo District, then she continued earning salary as the employee of Gasabo District as well as working at Gahanga Health Centre where she was employed, she earned a gross salary amounting to 534.552Rfw of three months at Gasabo District. These habits are contrary to the Law governing public servants.

With reference to the article 106 of the Law n° 22/2002 on general statutes of Rwanda public service, which says that every Government employee has the right, after accomplished service, to a monthly salary comprising the basic salary to which is added, if necessary, family allowances and possibly compensations, bonuses and other benefits relating to his/her post specificity. The dishonest employee did not deserve any salary from the Gasabo District because she was no longer its employee and she did not perform any duty at the district during the period of three months but due to her malice of working in two institutions at the same time, she earned salary contrary to the Law.

The article 17 of the Law n°23/2003 of the 07/08/2003 determining the prevention, the suppression and the punishment of corruption and related offences provides that “Any public servant who will be found guilty of misappropriation of public funds by arranging to receive, demanding or knowingly receive what was more than due for fees, taxes, contributions, fines or surety, revenues or interest, benefits or salaries shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of between and five years and a fine ranging from twice to ten times the value of illicit profit received”.

The article 221 Decree law n°21/77 of August 18, 1977 establishing Penal code states that “Will be punished by an imprisonment of six months to five years and a fine of twenty thousand francs to the maximum, or one of them only, all magistrates, civil servants, officers or all other people charged of a public service, which will have been made guilty of misappropriation while ordering to perceive, by requiring or receiving what they knew not to be due or to exceed what was due, for rights, taxes, contributions, fines or surety, revenues or interests, benefits or treatments”. Basing on the articles mentioned above, we could say that the employee committed an offence provided for by the law by receiving what she knew was not deserving and she is not an employee with integrity as the reason why she must be prosecuted and have disciplinary sanctions.

The Office of the Ombudsman in collaboration with other competent institutions is working hard on the investigation and the follow- up of the case so that the suspected person should be punished according to the law. In order to eradicate corruption in public institutions, it is very important to drag file to court and to give disciplinary sanctions to person who commit such offence and to oblige him or her to refund the received amount. This can be an example to other employees.

BY

THE UNIT IN CHARGE OF FIGHTING AGAINST INJUSTICE, CORRUPTION AND OTHER RELATED OFFENCES AT THE OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN.