Home Voices Himbara Shoots Himself In The Foot By Praising Biraro In Isolation

Himbara Shoots Himself In The Foot By Praising Biraro In Isolation

by Ignatius R. Kabagambe
6:46 am

David Himbara

Here I go for Himbara David again, ahead of the elders. For once it is not to shoot at him. This time it is rather to help remove a bullet he shot himself in his own foot. Wait when he will plant it in his own head. Point of no return.

Following the appointment of Mr. Alex Kamuhire by Cabinet as the new Auditor General, Himbara rose to the story, making a mess of it. In the process, he confirmed to be what many people have said of him before – a disgrace. In this story, Himbara disgraced himself five times. He wrote on his blog that “Kagame Retires Biraro, Rwanda’s Extraordinarily Courageous Auditor General, who Persistently Exposed Deep-Rooted Ruling Party Corruption.” Below I enumerate.

Disgrace number one: As someone who prides himself in doing research, how could Himbara have failed to conduct a very simple search for basic information? Mr. Obadiah has not been retired. It is his second and final term as Rwanda’s Auditor General that has ended. Himbara could have found out by cross-checking with Law No. 79/2013 of 11/09/2013 Determining the Mission, Organization, and Functioning of the Office of the Auditor General of State Finances. In paragraph three of Article 13, it stipulates that “The Auditor General and Deputy Auditor-General shall be appointed for a five (5)-year term renewable only once.” Mr. Biraro was appointed Auditor General from 1st June 2011, succeeding his predecessor Ms. Kamagaju Evelyn, the pioneer head of the esteemed office.

We all know that Himbara’s performance in math as attested to by his F9 Ordinary Level score at Ndejje Senior Secondary School in central Uganda is as unhelpful as that. But as one who later recovered to somehow become a professor of something with economics somewhere therein, the calculation should have been very simple. Merely subtracting 2011 from 2021 is all it required of him. Doing so would have left him with 10 years, which is equal to the two five-year terms Mr. Biraro has already served. That is simple arithmetic that did not require a calculator.

Disgrace number two: The Rwanda Patriotic Party which Himbara wants the world to believe is corrupt, I will remind him is the one which in the first place introduced the Office of Auditor General way back on 4th June 1998. It was around the same period that the Rwanda Revenue Authority was established too. Prior to this time, there were no mechanisms of corporate governance and good governance in Rwanda worthy of mention. The country had absolutely nothing in terms of measuring, directing, or controlling how public institutions conducted public affairs, including the key component of usage of public finances.

Disgrace number three: Commending an Extraordinarily Courageous Biraro Obadiah without viewing in a similar light the President who appointed him in 2011 and five years later went on to renew his term in 2016 is an act of sheer folly. By attempting to praise Biraro in isolation, Himbara inadvertently gave credit to the government which always provides the right environment for the Office of Auditor General to function independently.

Disgrace number four: Having in his professorial head a part that admits RPF brought good governance to the country as we know it in the modern-day, and in the same head have another part which accuses the very Party of Deep-Rooted Corruption, indeed can only make sense to the disgraced.

Disgrace number five: Singling out Mr. Biraro on one hand for deserved praise after depicting high standards of professional conduct during his long tenure as Auditor General is appropriate. However, on the other hand, to think the accolades are exclusive to him and not shared evenly among the policy-making organs, appointing authority, and the institution he worked for, is severe inadequacy in thoughtfulness. This is like loving the server of food but cruelly chastising the cook and the person who bought the food. Done on intention can backfire, and it did.

I will sign this off with a line that you are now familiar with about Himbara – addiction. Because Himbara’s new addiction is smearing President Kagame, quite often he ends up smearing himself instead. His daily task is to find some decision taken by the government and either quote it out of context, deliberately misinterpret, or totally distort it for ulterior motive made in RNC and sponsored by Uganda. When these bad faith actions boomerang on him, the whole thing can strangely look like an auto-mudslinging. There is a proverb for it in Kinyarwanda. INKUBISI…

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