Competitive pay is also planned for institutions’ and ministries’ personnel to address the increased trend of outsourcing, particularly of foreign expertise.

To do away with pay disparities, currently high paying institutions with index values of 400 or Rwf400,000 ($671) and 500 or Rwf500,000 ($839), salary enhancement will be frozen, except for benefits accrued as a result of performance appraisal, until harmonisation is achieved with index values.

Institutions with low index values such as the judiciary, ministries, higher education and research institutions will be granted a new index value of 300 or Rwf300,000 ($504) in July.

Rwanda by law requires all civil servants to sign performance contracts that are appraised annually. 

Based on appraisal, a score of 80 per cent and above earns a salary bonus of 5 per cent; from 70-80 per cent earns 3 per cent while less than 60 per cent leads to dismissal.

“The salary scale must be linked to performance to improve service delivery and efficiency. We have realised that government ministries that pay their workers well retain them longer, and this improves efficiency,” Mr Murekezi said.

However, in order to reduce expenses, the government will also phase out top allowances gradually as public sector salaries improve, with the target of stopping them altogether by 2016/2017.

Further, it plans to set up a special salary support scheme for posts that require extraordinary qualifications.  
Currently, the Rwandan civil service has a total of 81,868 employees excluding soldiers and the police.