President Yoweri Museveni recently created the State House Revenue Intelligence and Strategic Operations Unit to fight corruption in the Uganda Revenue Authority. This was added to the Criminal Investigation Department of Police (CID), Inspector General of Government (IGG), State House Anti-Corruption Unit (SHACU), State House Investors Protection Unit, and others.
Regardless of the fact that some of these institutions have been in existence for many years, the corruption vice has increased and continues to ravage the country, as well as dirtying the image of Uganda internationally. Has the fight against corruption failed because we have a few agencies or fewer human resources to fight it?
Some of the agencies put in place to fight corruption are more corrupt than the agencies they are meant to monitor and supervise. The creation of more agencies and duplication of roles is not enough to fight corruption. It instead places more burden on tax payers since a lot of money is needed to operationalize these agencies.
Additionally, more stringent laws and policies aimed at fighting corruption are what are needed to fight the vice, along with serious willingness by the executive and all stakeholders. For example, why don’t the convicted corrupt officials have their properties confiscated? If a convict serves ten years and comes back to enjoy the wealth accumulated through dubious means, he will obviously feel unaffected by the punishment because he wouldn’t have earned those billions in the ten years he served.
On several occasions, President Museveni has been seen as lacking the will to fight corruption. He has defended the corrupt simply because they steal and invest in the country, something that motivates others to steal as long as they will invest in Uganda. However, in building a better society, we need to condemn corruption in the strongest terms possible, no matter if corrupt officials invest here or not.
One of the reasons the previous governments were overthrown was corruption, and there is no doubt that corruption will put down the NRM government if nothing is done to fight it. The levels of corruption have escalated to the extent that officials do it with impunity and imprison whoever condemns it. This is against the NRM ideology and should be dealt with expeditiously.
This time around, the executive needs to be serious and prove the citizens wrong because we already know that the arrested will eventually be released and they will come back to enjoy the loot while the tax payers are suffering from a lack of better services. We have already lost hope as Ugandans, and we want to see something being done. It is not a multitude of anti-corruption agencies that will help; instead, they will end up creating more problems instead of offering a solution.
Despite the fact that similar arrests have been made before and nothing has changed, Ugandans need to see action rather than the usual rhetoric. Confiscate their properties, suspend them from jobs, ban them from active politics, and put sanctions in place. Massaging the corrupt and handling them with gloves will definitely increase the vice, no matter the number of agencies we put in place.
