CSOs coalition on motorcyclists’ grievances, the best approach towards effective advocacy

By MUHIRE Desire.

Unity is really strength,, best experience of different Civil Societies Organizations (CSOs) working in justice and human rights , based in Huye District, Southern Rwanda’s coalition has revealed that united entity can achieve more than working as solo.

The triumph of coalition was exposed during the meeting organized by Ihorere Munyarwanda Organization that took place in Huye District on 3^rd June 2022, whereby CSOs whose mandate are cantered in justice and human rights discussed the issues affecting citizens and how they can curb them by applying effective advocacy.

Mutiganda Fabien, representative of CSOs in Huye District, who was the mentor during the meeting shared the experience of CSOs that operate in Huye District of how they rolled up their sleeves and were determined to advocate for the issues and grievance of motorcyclists in the district and all over the country, regardless of them, operating in remote area.

“CSOs operating in Huye, ever since have been determined to form coalition and advocate for the citizens, as we submitted the documents to advocate for motorcyclists, MPs were surprised as we were coming up country while some of our colleagues in Kigali were silent on that issue” He said adding that ES of Sectors should be aware that they no longer ride motorbikes thanks to the advocacy made from Huye in early 2006.

According to Ephrem Nteziryayo, CCN Rwanda country coordinator, as long as some CSOs remain solitary and are not willing to collaborate with their counterpart, their goal and mandate of advocacy will be successful in vain.

“We have petitioned to the parliament over  the regulations that were negatively and miserably affecting motorcyclists such as; worthless fines of parking, their deceitful cooperatives which were stealing their adherents through vague fines and savings , unlawful auctioning of their motorbikes by the police, all these problems had been resulting in the profit of other people rather than the motorcyclist who were spending their whole day on the job” Ephrem testified revealing that if this petition was organized by one CSO, the result could not be the same.

Mutiganda advised his colleagues to always have self-confidence since they are not abusing any law.

“Initially, we had approached different CSOs, but at the end they fearfully withdrew their petitions, as long you are fighting for something which is in your rights, while you are not abusing any law, you do not have to fear, as CSOs we are the voice of voiceless, and our power lies in our voices, amazingly those who had a panic  to continue with us were the first to chant the victory which we do not regret as long as our goal and mission were achieved”  Fabien told the participants whom he was mentoring on the best way on carrying out effective and evidence based advocacy.

Taxi moto riders speak out

Though the CSOs are celebrating the victory thinking that the advocacy carried out are successful, on the other hand the issue of motorbike insurance and smart meters is still a challenging issue.

“We are still struggling with moto insurance which has increased to around Rwf 170,000 from Rwf 63,000 per year. For smart meters also, we do not see any improvement, this new technology only benefits the investor, but at least we appreciate the decision of banning those security agents and some cooperatives that were stealing our wealth.” Kalia said.

His colleague Tuyishime Innocent challenges Insurance fee but he does not see any problem in smart meters as long as he earn the same money he used to before the adoption of this technology.

“I think the issue of Taxi moto insurance should be reduced as we were promised by high level officials and we thank CSOs for the advocacy, we are no longer experiencing regular fines for bad parking, illegal auctioning, we hope also those pending challenges will be carefully analyzed and we continue our jobs in a conducive manner because we have so many family members who are dependent to our daily work” He said.

According to the figures from Rwanda Cooperative Agency (RCA) there are nearly 46 thousand, comparatively, three people depend on one motorcyclist, which means over 138,000 people who can survive because motorcyclist has ridden and earned money.

theinspirerpublications@gmail.com