Independent Ganza to revamp health sector if elected MP

• By Jean de la Croix Tabaro

Ganza campaigns during a recent rally. The New Times/ Timothy Kisambira.

Clovis Ganza, an independent candidate in the parliamentary elections slated for next week, has said once elected, his focus will be to champion legislation that addresses health and education challenges.

Ganza focuses his campaign on rallying people toward the “well-designed government programmes, which derail in implementation because people are not well-educated of the significance of these programmes.”

One of these programmes, he said, is the community health insurance scheme, commonly known as Mutuelle de Sante.

“It is quite interesting to have all citizens contributing a relatively small fee to access medication for the whole year. But in practice, the programme has many challenges,” Ganza said during a news conference in Kigali on Tuesday.

Ganza said patients spend hours at health facilities waiting for medication and when they succeed to meet the health staff, they are referred to private pharmacies. This way, he added, the genuine goal of health insurance is jeopardised.

Ganza said the few medical staff who give bad image to the health sector personnel by giving poor service should be reprimanded and where need be weeded out

He added, “It is unfortunate that we keep saying that we have few medical staff, while we have a medical school, a health institute and a number of nursing and midwifery schools that keep churning out graduates.”

According to the Rwanda health indicators, the country has 1 doctor per 18,000 inhabitants and 1 nurse per 1,476 inhabitants.

Education

As far as advocacy in education is concerned, Ganza is taking into campaign the latest issue concerning the recent decision to scrap bursary to those university students that have billed as capable of paying for themselves.

Committees have been instituted at the district level to scrutnise complaints filed by more than 6,000 students who said they cannot afford raising the school fees.

Government role in education
The rationale behind the new move, according to the Ministry of Education, is to make sure parents should finance their children’s tertiary education as the government has a prime role in basic education.

However, Ganza is of the view that “the government should behave like a parent; lets it take prime responsibility of educating Rwandans through the entire process.”

 In other programmes, Ganza said he would, once elected, push for a more robust parliamentary diplomacy, mainly to ensure security within the Great Lakes Region.

 “Development without peace and security is not possible, and parliament can go a long way in ensuring this,” he said.

“Since they represent citizens, other MPs would listen to our call to advise their government on peace dividends. It is well known that where there is peace, there is business.”

Ganza, 32, a consulting accountant, has a bachelor’s degree from the School of Finance and Banking.

“If elected, I will get a single seat, but my voice in parliament should not be misconstrued as insignificant; many people might not buy your idea at first, but with consistence in giving articulate ideas, you gain a following,” he said.