HIDA HOSTS NEW MINISTER OF PUBLIC SERVICE
Minister of Public Service and Labour, Hon. Prof. Mannaseh Nshuti
is awelcomed by HIDA Director - Mr. Charles KARAKE to HIDA
The new Minister of Public Service and Labour, Hon. Prof. Mannaseh Nshuti visited the Human Resources and Institutional Capacity Development Agency (HIDA) on Tuesday, 28 March 2006 at 3.00 pm.
Prof. Nshuti was accompanied by Ms. Charlotte Mukankusi who is also the new Secretary General of MIFOTRA. The Ministry Directors were also part of the delegation.
The Minister was received by the Director of HIDA Mr. Charles Karake flanked by HIDA senior staff and representatives from KIST/ CITT and HIMO. The Minister was taken on tour around the CNFPP premises which houses HIDA, CITT/ KIST, KAVUMU and HIMO. During his tour, HIDA's Administrative Officer showed the Minister, the planned architectural design of the HIDA Complex. Next, he toured the CITT workshops to see the appropriate technology exhibits.
Technical Presentations by HIDA staff were preceded by an overview by the Director, Mr. Karake, who explained that the role of HIDA is to coordinate the implementation of the national Multi Sector Capacity Building Programme (MSCBP) and that currently the available funding, was provided by the World Bank to support the Public Sector Capacity Building Project (PSCBP). He elaborated on each of the seven MSCBP components, but mainly emphasized on the components of strategic human resource development, improvement of institutional environment, enhancing agency performance and capacity building support to ICT. He also reported to the Minister that vocational training and professional skills development was an urgent capacity building intervention HIDA had identified which had a blessing from the recent Government Retreat at Akagera. He concluded by stressing the challenges HIDA was facing in undertaking its capacity building support. He stressed on the element of ownership by beneficiary institutions hence the slow progress of the identified activities. He also reported that there was a prevalent problem of managing technical assistance at the level of beneficiary institutions and said that HIDA was packaging a short in service training programme for these institutions and also other relevant public institutions.
The subsequent presentations by the staff focused on the progress and the challenges of capacity building activities earmarked in their Action Plan 2006. Mr. Emmanuel Rutsimba, the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist gave a synopsis of the Action Plan 2006 which entails HIDA's capacity support to the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Public Service, Parliament, Institute of Policy Analysis and Research , Rwanda Information Technology Authority and four local training institutions.
The Procurement Management Specialist presented on the procurement implications of the Plan, explained scenarios of delays of implementation and advised that thorough planning was a perquisite for managing the procurement process at the level of beneficiary institutions. Mrs. Stella Mugabo, the Human Resources Development Specialist explained the progress in the support under the components of strategic human resource development with special emphasis on the professional skills development fund, vocational training and strengthening of local training institutions to create the required capacity to match the labour marker demands.
While Mr. Pascal Niyigena, the Public Sector Reform Specialist concluded on HIDA's support to the Ministry of Public Service in order to empower the Ministry to coordinate the implementation of public sector reforms.
The Minister, Prof. Nshuti, in his keynote speech promised full commitment and support to HIDA at whatever level required. He appreciated the capacity building interventions HIDA is undertaking and encouraged the staff to be more vigilant to see that these plans are effected. He stressed his support to the initiative HIDA is envisaging concerning restructuring vocational training. He said that the investment in capacity building should be balanced at all levels to meet the demands of the country. He advised the Agency to reach out to all stakeholders and interest them to come on board to support the capacity building programmes.
