RUYIGI June 22nd (ABP) – The people of Ruyigi and particularly the youth, are called on to the definitive abandonment of concubine behavior and illegal marriages, in order to achieve sustainable development.
The grassroots administrative authorities are called upon to abandon the bad habit of protecting couples who unite illegally and not to give in to the bribes offered to them. This appeal was made on Monday, June 19, 2023, during a retreat of all partners involved in the family welfare and development sector in that province.
During this retreat, the provincial controller of marital status in Ruyigi, Mr. Eric Nduwamahoro, indicated that the province has a total of 120,610 households. Among the latter, he continued to reveal, until May 31 of the year 2023, 6233 families were formed by illegal couples, not recognized by law.
He further specified that the commune of Gisuru occupies the first place, totaling, on its own, 3897 couples not registered in the marital status. That provincial official also regrets that some grassroots administrators, attracted by bribes they receive from those families in a state of irregularity, proceed to protect such an irregularity instead of displaying firmness in respect for the law.
In the same vein, the provincial director of family and social development, Mr. Dominique Havyarimana, deplores the fact that there is no remarkable positive change that has taken place in this area, despite several awareness campaigns that his management operated via its communal branches, to encourage the people to register their couples in the Civil Registry.
According to Mr. Havyarimana, the Ruyigi province will never be able to achieve sustainable development, and the 2040 vision of an emerging Burundi and that of 2060 of a developed Burundi, advocated by the President of the Republic of Burundi Evariste Ndayishimiye, if people continue to behave in such a way. He therefore invites the entire population to abandon that bad habit of concubine behavior and illegal marriages, which is observed especially during harvest periods and more often during the dry seasons.
To top off the advice given to those people, the governor of Ruyigi, Mrs. Emerencienne Tabu, has stated that illegal couples constitute a major and very dangerous handicap for the development. Indeed, she underlines, any planning of a development project of an entity or a region, starts from statistical data to identify the context of the project, the desired positive change, and finally measure and evaluate the step already taken during and at the end of the project.
To that end, she insists, any household in a state of irregularity constitutes a potential danger, because it distorts all the data necessary and essential for development. To all the young people who would like to start a family in the future, the governor asks them to think twice before committing themselves and above all not to give in to the temptation to form a family not recognized by law.