Rwandan courts have ordered the government to pay out Rwf164 million to individuals and firms it lost cases to last year.

The Ministry of Justice said that government has been losing many court cases, which has forced it to spend millions of taxpayers’ money to pay off individuals and firms that dragged it to court.

Members of parliament argue that such money should instead be used to finance development projects and that government should seek credible ways to cut down on the number of court cases it loses.

In the 2014/15 financial year, government was sued 516 times, of which it lost 116, won 248, settled two out of court and 150 are still pending.

The most sued institution is Rwanda Natural Resource Authority (RNRA), which was dragged to court 63 times.

The Special Guarantee Fund under the National Bank of Rwanda follows with a total of 33 lawsuits, and Rwanda Broadcasting Agency (RBA) with 35 cases. It has to date managed to pay Rwf114 million.

MPs expressed concern, citing “careless mistakes” and mismanagement of projects by ministries as causes for government legal suits.

“It is indeed a concern how government is dragged to court all those times. However it is a good sign that they have been able to pay most of the money they are ordered to pay, but they should ensure that they pay it all,” Justin Mukobwa, said on Monday.

Her view was echoed by Esperence Nyirasafari, who said that: “There should be willingness to sue public servants who, through their negligence or mistakes cause government to be sued in court.”

The Minister of Justice, Johnston Busingye, said that important steps are being taken, such as continuously explaining to high level authorities in public sector how making “uninformed decisions” causes government to lose money in lawsuits.

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Another method of averting this unwelcome cost, according to Mr Busingye, is by ordering sued agencies to pay the costs in case they lose a suit.

“The government paid all lawsuits that its institutions lost previously. This made ministries and government agencies not care much when they were summoned in court and usually did not even provide quality defence files,” said Mr Busingye.

Cases still high

“But things changed and each ministry is required to pay such costs directly. With this new method, many ministries and agencies provide quality defences whenever summoned, because they know that their budgets will suffer directly if they lose lawsuits.”

The government also created the Civil Litigation Services under the Attorney General’s office, which has a pool of lawyers whose goal is to prepare quality defence for government agencies in case of lawsuits.

Despite these initiatives, the number of cases involving government is still high, according to Mr Busingye, and this has increased pressure on government lawyers as well as compromised the quality of some of its representations.

Government is expected to utilise the money it wins to pay off costs in lawsuits it loses, but what worried some MPs is that there are minimal efforts to collect the huge sums owed to government by individuals and private firms who lost cases.

Statistics from the ministry of justice indicate that government won over Rwf799 million in court cases against individuals or private firms in 2014/15. But it only managed to collect Rwf85 million.

“There seems to be no clear mechanism on following up the cases that Government wins, in order to ensure the timely execution and recovery of Government funds. Due to importance of this activity in ensuring public accountability, this activity should be improved,” Ms Mukobwa said.

The minister also suggested that settling disputes out of court should be streamlined and strengthened as an amicable and less costly way of solving disputes.