Senegal’s President Macky Sall has called for the country’s Senate to be abolished, with the money saved going to pay for flood relief. President Macky Sall argued that  the money reserved for the Senate, more than 12m Euros (£9.5m; $15m), would go towards preventing further flooding. 

“Closing the Senate comes as a result of the urgent and crucial need to find substantial funds to deal with all the issues generated by the flooding,” the president’s spokesman, El Hadj Kasse, argued.

In this article I will also argue that small jurisdictions like Rwanda with limited resources with half of its national budget funded by donors why do we have two chambers? Since members of both houses are elected by, and represent the people, wouldn’t the lawmaking process be more efficient if bills were considered by only one body?  While in the United States and UK the two-chambers or “bicameral” setup of Congress, Senate, House of Commons and House of Lords respectively work in the spirit and belief that power should be shared among all units of government. Dividing Congress into two chambers and UK Parliament, with the positive vote of both required to approve legislation, is a natural extension of the concept of employing “checks and balances” to prevent tyranny.

As mentioned above, US and UK have developed not only the concept of checks and balances but has also a duty and responsibility to uphold this concept by putting the legislators in both houses on their toes with the  intent that the House and Senate or Commons and Lords respectively  are  not be carbon-copies of each other.  In the United States members of the House – U.S. Representatives are elected by and represent limited groups of citizens living in small geographically defined districts within each state. Senators, on the other hand, are elected by and represent all voters of their state. When the House considers a bill, individual members tend to base their votes primarily on how the bill might impact the people of their local district, while Senators tend to consider how the bill would impact the nation as a whole. Similarly in the UK, when the House of Commons and House of Lords have a conflict, the House of Commons will prevail because it is believed that the House of Commons represent the views of the majority of the electorate of the United Kingdom.

On contrary Rwanda’s senator in its own survey revealed that the political environment in Rwanda has impaired free political participation and this is not only happening in the local population but also in the very institutions that would be checking the accountability of the executive. While countries like Senegal which are far richer than Rwanda have decided to abolish this institution, Rwanda is still funding this rubber stamp of the RPF policies. It is absurd that Rwandan people spending billions of money on an institution that is not only independent but also a financial burden of the people of Rwanda. Indeed, this institution is not only digging deep in the pockets of the Rwandan tax payer who is already overburdened by the exorbitant taxes and also the RPF Contributions after brain washing them in the name of KWIHESHA AGACIRO. I will therefore argue in this article that, Rwanda should emulate Senegal and save the people who are not only overtaxed but also milked without mercy.

Apparently Rwanda is the only country in the region that pays exorbitant taxes, yet the population is so scared to question the accountability of the taxes they pay. The cost of living in Kigali and Rwanda in general is unbearable and unaffordable for many Rwandans. The overall cost of living is determined using the prices for defined quantities of the same goods and services across the country. Kigali in Rwanda is currently ranked as the most expensive city in the region. I will therefore argue that as the government has suspended non essential services in government expenditures, it should abolish non essential institutions like the senate so that the money is spent on the development projects, their business empires or injected in the Agaciro Fund and stop the continuation of milking the Rwanda people under the disguise of KWIHESHA AGACIRO.

Jacqueline Umurungi

Brussels