Kagame interjected…“Connections? What do you mean? I want more explanations about that”.
Mugabo continued explaining and Kagame wanted exactly to know the kind of connection that Rwandans must have to access jobs in their country.
“…connection of a friend …or a relative…Is that REAL…can I have an example,” Kagame pressed Mugabo further to explain.
“I had received your question with a sort of bad taste. If it is happening it is terrible and it must stop. To think that one has to have a connection to get a job,” a seemingly surprised Kagame said.
However, Kagame asked the line Minister to explain about this whole issue, “My understanding your Excellency is that people compete and get the jobs when they demonstrate that they have the right skills and not because they have connections.”
“I hope it is not the case. I hope there are no grounds by which that impression is created. And we, are maybe taking a very serious problem we are discussing trying to find a solution for and trivializing the effort to actually address it. That statement trivializes the effort of trying to address a very serious problem of finding jobs. Leaders should find a way of dealing with this matter,” Kagame said.
President Kagame may be denied information about deeply entrenched acts of nepotism, favouritism and public officials that behave with impunity in suffocating the highly competitive local job market.
With about 120,000 Curriculum Vitaes in the government’s database of employable citizens with a range of qualifications, most of them have encountered different scenarios in their continuous attempt to access jobs.
Taarifa has credible a case study.
Information from the National Industrial Research and Development Agency (NIRDA) one of the public agencies that would shed light on some of the things President Kagame may probably never know about.
Unblocking the matrix at NIRDA
On August 31, President Kagame in consultations with new Prime Minister Dr Edouard Ngirente, appointed a new cabinet including other attached office holders of various government agencies and institutions.
In the same announcement, the National Industrial Research and Development Agency (NIRDA) was given a new Director General, Pichette Kampeta Sayinzoga from her previous position as Director of Cabinet.
NIRDA was established in 2013 with a mission to implement national industrial development policy, patent inventions and traditional knowledge in relation to industrial development and promote trade of research products and conducting research that would lead to the development of competitive products.
As Kampeta concludes one year at the helm of NIRDA, the atmosphere in this highly scientific institution can be described as a time bomb waiting to explode any time.
But one would ask why?
Taarifa on June 12th published an article titled ‘Rwamagana Banana Wine Factory Was ‘Eaten’ Before It Was Built’ – this was just the beginning of cracks in NIRDA stemming from abuse of recruitment and procurement procedures contrary to prevailing laws in public service.
In this part of Taarifa Investigative series we shall focus on how recruitment at NIRDA is one of the most abused procedures in this public agency which has cost the taxpayers an enormous loss that will take years to fix.
On 18th July 2018, Kampeta summoned NIRDA staff to a meeting at Gorilla Hotel Nyarutarama and announced to them that she was introducing a new structure for the agency.
The perplexed staff looked on as Kampeta continued saying that her new changes had been approved by the Cabinet.
In that meeting, she said 90% of staff would be kicked out and re-do examinations.
She said that recruitment would be done in three batches and that all new staff would be in place by September 30, 2018.
She requested all those that wished to become Heads of Departments and Division Managers to go and see her.
The required procedure is that she was supposed to draft a new structure, list of staff and new positions and send this file to the competent authority for verification and endorsement.
However, Taarifa has reliably learnt that people that Kampeta promised jobs under the new structure are already working even before being recruited.
No law recognises these new staff.
Even before jobs are advertised to the public as per required recruitment procedures, Kampeta has single handedly already hired 16 officials and some have started their jobs.
A whistleblower revealed to Taarifa that Kampeta is colluding with Claire Mukeshimana, the Division Manager for Corporate Services and other persons outside the agency, to effectively smuggle into the agency people of their choice especially, friends, relatives and acquaintances to fill up the jobs under the new structure.
“It is actually a done deal. These new people are already working,” a source privy with internal matters of the agency told Taarifa.
The whistleblower also revealed that these people have even been given NIRDA email addresses and are being delegated to attend official meetings on behalf of NIRDA.
Kampeta has even approved overseas trainings for some of these NIRDA prospective employees.
For example, Ekisa Monique (not yet recruited) holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Economics from University of Rwanda, and Kampeta has already authorized her to represent NIRDA in India for training in Technology Commercialization in Fruits and Vegetable Processing Industry (from October 22 to November 4,, 2018).
Other NIRDA employees are extremely bitter by this nomination of someone that is not even a recognized staff of the agency.
Ekisa works with UNIDO Project and documents show that her contract will expire in October 2018.
She is paid by the project and has her own boss in the project. She is a consultant for open calls.
In otherwords under UN rules, Ekisa is not supposed to engage in the internal issues of NIRDA. She is only supposed to represent UNIDO interests as long as she is still under the UN contract.
Because India had insisted that NIRDA sends a staff of the agency, Kampeta had to fake that Ekisa is an employee of NIRDA working as Program Operation Officer in the Department of Technology Acquisition, Transfer and Commercialization and that she was recruited in 2018.
This position is in the new NIRDA structure but has not been filled. According to the structure on the agency website, this position does not exist.
Kampeta Spoke to Taarifa.
She refused all the allegations and said that NIRDA has not recruited any staff this fiscal year, apart from an accountant deployed by MIFOTRA.
The additional human capital available to lead the very successful Open Calls process aimed to boost implementation of the” Made in Rwanda” Campaign was sourced by UNIDO.
“UNIDO has recruited these local consultants using UNIDO procedures, and these consultants are working in partnership with our current staff team,” Kampeta explained.
She added in an email that UNIDO is also providing NIRDA with technical assistance to implement the restructuring approved by our Cabinet in full compliance with Rwanda Labour laws and with continuous guidance per MIFOTRA as advised for all public sector agencies restructuring.
With all these turbulent times at NIRDA, the agency has been idle since July 2018- employees have not signed performance contracts. NIRDA will have nothing to report by the end of September 2018 when Q1 will be ending.
Jobs Bonanza To Friends and Relatives
NIRDA is losing dozens of millions every month meant for capacity building to employees but this entire lump sum is now being paid to a single sourced individual allegedly outsourced as an international expert.
Someone at NIRDA with a job title of international Industrial Technology Advisor was allegedly hired using a fraudulent method that faults recruitment laws of Rwanda.
This international expert is paid a massive monthly salary of Rwf 5,448,162 higher than that of the Prime Ministers monthly salary of Rwf4,346,156
Taarifa verified the terms of reference and found that this expert was hired to coach the NIRDA staff in Department of Research and Development to partner with the private sector to develop new industrial products and or improve the competitiveness of existing enterprises.
Looking at this expert’s CV, he holds a master’s degree in industrial physics from a small college called Haute Ecole Paul-Henri Spaak located in Brussels.
But when this expert started his job at NIRDA in May 2018, he told some of the staff that he does not understand what he is supposed to do.
“He said most of the industries in Rwanda are agro-based, which does not match his expertise in industrial physics. He said he hoped to learn from NIRDA staff,” another source told Taarifa.
The expert reports directly to the Director General of NIRDA. Since this expert joined NIRDA in May 2018, he has never done anything related to the terms of references that were used to recruit him.
How Kampeta Recruited the International Expert
According to Imvaho Nshya, the terms of reference were published on Friday 23rd February 2018 and closed on 28th February.
The Candidate submitted application and CV on 26th February – these terms of references were obviously prepared to target a favoured candidate. This expert is the only candidate that was able to apply.
Kampeta then requested the Public Service Commission to allow her to not give the expert a written exam. She got authorisation to examine the candidate orally. This candidate, who was living outside Rwanda, was examined via Skype.
Taarifa has learned that when it was time just before to examine him, one of the examiners asked Kampeta how they were going to examine a technical candidate without questions prepared by another expert in the field that the candidate would be examined.
Kampeta was overheard replying; “that is none of your business.”
According to the Presidential Order N°144/01 of 13/04/2017 Determining Modalities for Recruitment, Appointment and Nomination of Public Servants; Article 11, paragraph 3: “All examiners must have sufficient knowledge of the subject matter with regard to the vacant post”.
Kampeta and others on the panel that interviewed this expert are not scientists of any kind. This expert was therefore asked all sorts of questions and scored 90%.
The money that is paid to this expert was supposed to be used to train NIRDA’s staff in the Division of Pharmaceutical and Chemical Industries on drug analysis. After Kampeta became the Director General, she immediately changed the plan and used the money to hire this expert.
Some staff in NIRDA are perplexed to find an expert admitting that he does not understand what he is supposed to be doing. Kampeta is very feared that nobody in NIRDA dares question her.
Very surprising, this expert, Nzengou Eugene Desire Wenceslas, a national of Central African Republic holds a Rwandan National ID but was recruited as a foreigner.
Worse still, using the same illegal process, Kampeta hired a Program Development Expert with an assignment to help NIRDA researchers to write winning research and grant proposals that would generate more funds for research.
When this international expert applied for this job, he included some interesting information in his file about what motivated him to seek this job.
In his first application form which he signed on 26th February 2018, the candidate indicated that he applied for the job because he knew Kampeta and Mukeshimana.
At the beginning of March, Mukeshimana advised Kampeta to send an email to Nzengou asking him to change his motivation and put what he contribute to developed of NIRDA other than saying that he knew them.
This expert holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resources and a Master’s degree in Women Development from South Korea.
It is not clear how this expert will train researchers to write grant proposals when the candidate is not a scientist. This expert is also the only person who applied for a job and got it and is paid a monthly salary of Rwf 1,933,587.
These two experts started working almost the same time in May 2018 but have not yet met with the staff that they are supposed to be working with.
Unwanted Staff Harassed
Conditions for some employees at NIRDA have increasingly become unbearable as harassment, ridicule and constant punishments continue to target those that are likely to leave the gates of the agency.
The targeted employees have been served with several intimidatory letters requesting for explanations on small issues just as a way to traumatize the employee, they said.
Taarifa has also learned of a plot by Kampeta and Mukeshimana to terrorise a NIRDA staff at a level of Director until he leaves this job to allow their favoured friend to take it. This Director has been issued several warning letters.
When Kampeta entered NIRDA, this director had just passed exams for this position and was only waiting to be given formal contract.
However, for all these months, MIFOTRA has repeatedly requested NIRDA to submit this candidate’s file so that competent authority can confirm him but Kampeta has kept a deaf ear.
“At a director’s level, you sit for an exam. They give you an acting letter. In the meantime, the institution prepares a file to be submitted to the candidate and is then confirmed by competent authority,” an official at Public Service Commission told Taarifa.
Kampeta and Mukeshimana have allegedly tipped a one Alexis Mujyasi to takeover this DAF job; as a means to terrorise the current director into submission.
On condition of anonymity, another source at NIRDA told Taarifa that Kampeta may not be able to fire as many current NIRDA staff as she wished due to professionalism of the technicians that work for Public Service Commission and Ministry of Public Service and Labour.
“The problem for Kampeta is that MIFOTRA and Public Service Commission are going to apply existing restructuring laws that exist in Rwanda it is very unlikely that they be biased,” the source told Taarifa.
When the girl told President Kagame of connections, this is what she meant.
Yet, Kampeta told Taarifa that all this is gossip being peddled by unprofessional and indisciplined staff.
