A Rwandese born in Mityana District in central Ugand, Dr. Frank Habineza was last Sunday elected Presidential candidate for Democratic Green Party of Rwanda to vie for the top job in the upcoming elections slated for August 2017.
The congress that sat for the first time had party representatives from all the thirty districts and four provinces plus the city of Kigali with each district and province being represented by six executive committee members and five advisors. All members of the Central Executive Committee, National Executive Committee and the political bureau also compose the party’s national congress.
DGPR’s national congress also validated the party’s political program for the next seven years (2017-2024), which highlighted several crucial matters as summarized below
Agricultural Sector
Fight food insecurity and hunger by introducing better methods of farming, replace land consolidation and mono-cropping policy, with a better land -use policy and mixed farming in rural areas. The party will also put emphasis rain water harvesting, tap ground water and use existing water bodies for crop irrigation during dry seasons.
Economy
Fight un-employment by establishing Rwanda Employment Board, which will set-up a database for job-seekers and employers and as well provide living stipends for the unemployed citizens while utilizing their skills in other sectors. The party will also revise and replace the taxation policy which has made it so difficult for small and medium enterprises to do business by introducing sustainable progressive taxation.
Security and Foreign Affairs: The northern and western parts of the country are always threatened by external attacks and innocent citizens are killed due to these periodical attacks, because it’s so difficult for our soldiers to patrol this mountainous region. To solve this problem, we will construct a wall surrounding the Volcanoes National Park. This will be an improvement to the stone wall which was constructed previously to prevent will animals from destroying people’s crops. The Party will also stabilise diplomatic relations with Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and France. We shall also increase salaries for the military and police.
Education
We will work hard on improving the quality of education by re-introducing French as a language of instruction, so that teachers can use the language they understand better. We will promote bi-lingualism policy in Rwanda, where English and French will have equal status as official languages and languages of instruction. We will also increase teacher’s salaries and provide incentives to teachers so that they can do their jobs much better.
Environment
We will fight poor methods of mining, which cause a lot of environmental degradation, landslides, water pollution and soil erosion. We will fight climate change, by making climate resilient policies and ensuring citizen and civil society engagement in all activities and key decision making process.
Health Sector
We shall establish at least one hospital per each district and a reference hospital per each province, all sectors will have health centres. We will also increase salaries for medical professionals. We shall improve service delivery and enforce equal respect and access to medical services and medicines to clients under mutual-insurance scheme.
Democracy
We will work hard in ensuring respect of the constitution, promote freedoms of expression, association, worship, media and all other civil liberties. Citizens will play a key role in the decision making process by providing them with opportunities to evaluate and contribute their ideas in policy making. Respect for human rights will be enforced and a wider opening of political space will be ensured.
Media
We shall introduce a Media Development Fund, which will especially support the private media to survive. We will ensure that public advertisements are not monopolised by the state media, so that private independent media could have equal access to those funds. We shall make sure that unfair policies and laws against the media professionals are replaced with better ones.
Justice Sector
We will ensure the principal of separation of powers and more independence of the judiciary. We will make sure that un-gazetted detention centres are abolished and those in prisons and police custody be given a quick and fair trial. We will support the National Commission to Fight Genocide to quickly finalise pending Gacaca appeal cases through the traditional court system and support national reconciliation initiatives. We will ensure that prison officers respect the sanctity of life and stop shooting to death escaping prisoners. We will establish a Constitutional Court that will help to interpret maters issues related to the respect of constitution.
The conference also the party officials that they already have two million dollars in the country to help them throw out the Kagame led government.
