By Kyetume Kasanga The Annual Report of the Inspector General of Government in 1996/97, defined corruption as abuse of office for private gain. The vice takes place in the course of service delivery and in enforcement of rules.
In that process, it stands in the way of economic growth and democratisation for socio-economic transformation, by compromising policy implementation. It does not only hinder vital services such as health care, education and infrastructure development from being delivered but also perpetuates poverty and inequality.
Cynthia Werner, an American anthropologist classifies corruption into two genres: political and bureaucratic corruption. The former occurs at the highest levels of politics, while the latter happens at the implementation end of politics. In quite a number of cases, fellow civil servants are the culprits or accomplices who fan the embers of corruption even among politicians.
Various local and international anti-corruption agencies have put the annual loss Uganda as a country incurs due to corruption at US$500million – US$5.5billion (Uganda Shillings two trillion – 20trillion). However, its true extent and cost is difficult to quantify due to its clandestine and under-the-table nature.
Nevertheless, the NRM Government has put in place a robust system and legal framework to address it. The Leadership Code Act, 2002 is one of the legal instruments which requires public officials to declare their income, assets and liabilities before the Inspectorate of Government (IGG) every after a specified period.
When the Act was amended in 2021 to provide for online declarations, three main benefits were envisaged: detecting and preventing corrupt behaviour and conflicts of interest, stemming under-declaration, and building integrity in the public service to enhance public confidence in the Government. Up to here, the system is effective enough to deliver all the mentioned objectives.
The public had for a longtime lost trust in how public resources are handled. Now they expect more accountability, more transparency and more clarity. Public officials contracting their own companies to procure goods and services for Government should stop because the owners of the businesses are known, courtesy of Uganda Registration Services Bureau. There should, therefore, be no opportunity for officials to inflate budgets in order to benefit as behind-the-curtain suppliers and contractors through smokescreens.
Former IGG Justice Irene Mulyagonja is on record to have said: “We have been receiving complaints about leaders’ declarations. This time around in our verification process, we shall put up a list of leaders to be verified and ask the public to tell us what they know about these assets of these people.” The measure would facilitate public criticism and verification of the leaders’ assets. At one time statistics from the IGG’s office showed that 22,645 leaders successfully submitted their declarations online. It was not clear whether or how many members of the public were exposed to these figures and took interest to interrogate.
Anti-corruption agencies, investigative journalists, civil society groups and scholars now have an opportunity to join the fray and investigate basing on declared assets to fish out corrupt public officials for the guillotine. Unfortunately, these potential avenues have not been fully exploited to end corruption in Uganda.
We must all be part of the anti-corruption Movement. The theme for the 39 th NRM Anniversary celebrations this year was “39 Years of NRM/A: Salutations to those who Re-Sanctified Our Homeland”.
Heroes of our Liberation Struggle cannot rest in peace if corruption continues to gobble away 20% of the national cake every year, depriving the Ugandan population of vital social services, youth employment and equity, and perpetuating poverty which our nationalists resisted in 1981-1986 and have since scored a number of successes.
The writer is the Ag Assistant Commissioner for Information Monitoring and Secretary to the Media Council of Uganda at the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance.
