From President Yoweri Museveni’s public speaking notes these days, corruption in government is a major problem delaying and derailing Uganda’s socio-economic transformation and has recommitted to “crush it.” According to the president, the subterfuge is widespread down to the parish levels where officials extort money to provide public service meant to be free of charge. The ongoing retreat of the entire cabinet, permanent secretaries and NRM Central Executive Committee (CEC) dubbed ‘self-introspection’ ought to come out decisive and with concrete measures to nail the thieves in government to effectively deliver efficient services, assuage public disappointment and anger.
President Museveni’s recent repudiation of the Appropriation Bill 2024 was an embarrassment and indictment to the Finance ministers, cabinet of 82 comprising the vice president, prime minister, her three deputies, 75 ministers, and 325 NRM MPs and independents allied to them who constitute an overwhelming majority in a thicket stacked with 529 MPs mostly lining up their pockets.
It exposed ministers and NRM MPs as either incompetent, absented-minded, unable to persuade parliament on government priorities or were complicit in fiddling with the budget for selfish narrow interests, if not being the Biblical Judas Iscariot. It’s inconceivable that throughout the year-long budget circle, ministers abandoned or shied away from persuasively explaining the rationale for government priorities, and the PS-SST Ramathan Ggoobi as a lone ranger to tussle with parliament and pitching several media rounds for the budget.
In 1987, barely a year after NRA/M assumed power, then minister for Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Dr Shem Chemangeny Masaba, told the National Resistance Council (parliament) that corruption had infested the young cabinet because ministers lived opulent lifestyles their official salary could not afford. For daring his collogues, he was forced out.
What followed were policy formulation, clothed in a law called the PERD Statute 1993 which led to the liberalisation and privatisation of many government entities among them pool residential houses and parastatals saddled with unpaid utility bills for over two decades. The controversial sell of the Uganda Commercial Bank, Cooperative Bank, Coffee, and Lint Marketing Boards, and a chain of government hotels remain a stain to-date.
Much later, the attempted repeated sale of Apollo Hotel and Nile Hotel, now Sheraton and Serena hotels respectively fell through the floor shrouded in corruption allegations against ministers with some resigning under the heat.
During the thirty-eight years, Uganda has witnessed big corruption episodes where the so-called ‘big fish’, two vice presidents, an Attorney General, three ministers under GAVI-Global Fund for HIV/Aids and Malaria, several PSs and Chief Executive Officers of Parastatals have fallen, some convicted in courts of law.
NRM admits that corruption has become widespread and even endemic cobwebbing through government structures engulfing the civil service, politicians and private sector businesses that supply public entities. In fact, President Museveni has repeatedly and publicly said there are syndicates involving civil servants and politicians in parliament. The current trail of sleaze has so far led to the arrest and ongoing criminal prosecution of four MPs and a civil servant in the ministry of trade, industry, and cooperatives. Last year corruption in the distribution of roofing sheets for Karamoja engulfed almost the entire top echelon of parliament and cabinet with twenty-five MPs and ministers named, with three ministers now facing prosecutions.
While many Uganda are living through austerity, limping private businesses, and public service, government officials especially ministers and MPs are scolding them with impunity, extravagance, and corruption. The decadent political behaviour by leaders is building a vengeful impulse of the citizens who see politics and leaders are being through cynicism and low repute. The stench of self-interest, nepotism and pocket lining in government institutions is so shocking that it has taken this without being decisively knocked down.
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