Focus Media (Kigali)
Shyaka Kanuma
10 January 2009
opinion
The problems of the national information office (Orinfor) will never end, it seems. Now it is a real circus there, with the institution's director Oscar Kimanuka dealing with issues any manager shouldn't.
But before we go any further we will remind you that Focus has not been one of Kimanuka's biggest fans. Our past investigations have revealed the man is not the best of managers-and we have published accordingly. To his credit Kimanuka seems to have been listening to criticism.
We can point out for instance that everything finally is in place to have the by now controversial printing press at Gikondo installed. We have visited the site several times and today it looks as ready as can be. And as you read this we have communications from the London-based firm, Kalca Global-which sold Orinfor the press-that their engineer should be in Kigali this Monday to install the machine.
Owners of newspapers that have to cross to Uganda to be printed and those whose publication routinely is delayed because all printers in Rwanda currently use obsolete or slow technology finally have something to celebrate.
On another important score, Oscar Kimanuka has been making progress: to upgrade Radio Rwanda's capacity to reach all corners of the country.
Possibly the man could be achieving much more.
But in comes new-kid-on-the-block Louise Mushikiwabo to team up with everyone's nemesis, TV Rwanda Director Kije Mugisha (who also is Orinfor Deputy Director) to make Kimanuka's life a daily nightmare.
Kije Mugisha lives and breathes intrigue and everyone-Orinfor employees, the institution's director, its board chairman, poor businessmen who supply Orinfor with goods and services...everyone is well used to the fact by now. (Talking of suppliers, this is a woman who for instance will contrive to scrawl her own signature badly on a check if it is to pay some business person for his or her services to Orinfor. The businessperson takes the check to the bank and it is rejected.
People in the finance department of Orinfor inform us this has happened more than ten times. But not once has it happened when Kije was signing for her own payment. Why is this so? People familiar with the lady say it is more of her cynical manipulations of events to make her boss look bad, i.e. if Orinfor is in the habit of issuing bad checks then of course the person to take the blame is the head of the institution.)
An out of order administrative letter
Last month an employee problem fueled Ms Mugisha's fertile imagination for intrigue and cynical trickery. Orinfor employees had not received their pay for a couple of months and were seething with anger. Kije Mugisha, instead of taking ownership of the problem, saw an opportunity (to cause Kimanuka more grief) and pounced.
The lady wrote a letter to the information minister to the effect that the minister needed to intervene with the Ministry of Finance on behalf of Orinfor employees who "are starving and badly in need of help." The insinuation was that either the institution has no leadership, or its leader is so incompetent he can't even take care of fundamental things like people's salaries.
The letter-written in Kije's appalling grammar and syntax, and primary six level spelling-was wrong on many counts.
To begin with, she is not the head of Orinfor and so shouldn't be writing letters pertaining to the institution's administration to anyone. Secondly, she did not copy the letter to the director, meaning it was a calculated attempt to cause the man harm behind his back.
Yet Louise Mushikiwabo received and even acted on the letter, summoning both Oscar and Kije to her office "to explain matters".
So, what is the deal between Mushikiwabo and Kije?
We ask because, a) by acting on Kije's letter Mushikiwabo practically endorsed this administratively wrong document and b) by calling her together with Kimanuka she was blatantly belittling the Orinfor director.
The proper procedure for the minister should have been to put Mugisha in her place by informing her in writing that she was out of order to be doing things behind her boss's back. Afterwards she should have asked Kimanuka what the problem was. Instead she simultaneously dignifies Kije Mugisha's transparent machinations and inflicts agasuzuguro on Oscar by calling them both for a ménage a trois discussion.
We can point out here that Louise Mushikiwabo herself was way out of order by summoning Kimanuka to her office for any discussion pertaining to Orinfor matters. Maybe the woman has not read its governing statutes, but this is an autonomous government agency whose head is appointed by cabinet decision. Just like Mushikiwabo was appointed herself.
The statutes of Orinfor make it very clear there is no scope for ministerial interference in the day to day running of the institution-that is the sole prerogative of the director.
Out of order ministerial directives
Mushikiwabo is always interfering in the institution's affairs to the extent, we have it on inside information, that she even issues directives which programs to run and which not to. And at times she bothers not to inform Kimanuka of her decisions but, as if to undermine the man further, she issues her instructions through Kije Mugisha.
An example is recently when the minister and Kije decided that every Sunday TVR will be running a live discussion program on the arrest of Rose Kabuye, and on France. Kimanuka was unaware of this and one Sunday morning ordered a live broadcast of a talk show with the public Ombudsman.
To his surprise employees informed him that wouldn't be possible since the deputy director had ordered something else. Kimanuka was very angry but he could do nothing about being so dissed (you will excuse us for using American inner city slang for disrespect here, but the term is quite descriptive in this case).
On other occasions the information minister has gone as far as threatening individual Orinfor employees with dismissal if they didn't do exactly as she or Kije Mugisha bade them to, thus contributing to the already appallingly low employee morale at the national information office.
She has even threatened Kimanuka himself that she would sack him. Uzi icho ndi cho?, (do you know what, or who I am?) she seems to be asking him with an attitude that is similar to that of many public officials of regimes past. (Kimanuka should have retorted that she has no powers to sack him, but he chose the softer route of silence).
Now the Orinfor director is thoroughly cornered. One realizes he is even more cornered after a statement Kije Mugisha made in a recent meeting of managers of different departments of the national broadcaster.
In the meeting the managers took Kije to task and were demanding an explanation why she wrote the letter to the minister. They pressed her for an answer and finally the woman blurted out that it was Davina Mirenge (one of the President's personal assistants) and the President's chief of staff Frank Mugambage who advised her to be writing such letters about her boss. Everyone in the meeting was slack jawed with surprise.
Kije Mugisha's latest ploy to cause her boss problems is so transparent and juvenile one has to seriously ask (with absolutely no disrespect intended) what the Rwandan leadership is thinking in retaining a person like this as head of such an important institution as TV Rwanda.
For one thing, only employees of TVR were unaware of the reason behind the salary delay-which was that the Ministry of Finance now insists public institutions hand over their monthly financial statements before it releases funds for salaries. Orinfor hadn't conformed to this new rule (and it wasn't the only government institution to delay to conform).
Orinfor's human resources manager Nuliyat Mukankusi had informed all the managers of the different Orinfor services-TVR, Radio Rwanda, Community Radios, Pecipho and others of the problem. All the others informed their subordinates, except Kije Mugisha at TVR. This can only mean that she intentionally kept TVR staff in the dark so as to let their discontent with the leadership simmer on.
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