The President reasoned that because the war in Northern Uganda consumed most of his time for the last 23 years, civil servants had a field day pillaging public funds.
He vowed that the Government would win that war, like others before. Many skeptics laughed off the vow saying those were the usual rhetorics from the President.
Admittedly, Uganda has been doing poorly in the fight against corruption. Most civil servants have been depleting public funds. As a result, Uganda was recently ranked the third most corrupt country in the 2009 Corruption Barometer by the Transparency International.
While the Government tried to trim corruption in other state institutions like the Police, Uganda Revenue Authority, donor-funded projects, the problem still exists elsewhere.
The recent presidential directive to reshuffle all government accountants in various departments should be applauded. However, transfers alone will not heal the bad habits. Serious mechanisms ought to be put in place to end the vice once and for all.
The proposed e-governance (which is unfortunately being bungled by a bunch of unscrupulous men and women in the ICT ministry) could be the only solution to this cancer.
Whereas some ministries used to receive very minimal budgetary allocations, Permanent Secretaries and their accountants almost chose ‘to share it amongst themselves’. This has rendered the otherwise good government programmes fail to take off or shoddy work being done.
The famous judge of the anti-corruption court, John Bosco Katutsi, while committing former ISO chief in charge of economic monitoring, Teddy Ssezi Cheeye to Luzira, referred to him as no different from the mass murderers.
Indeed, these civil servants who are siphoning money meant to improve and protect the lives of millions of Ugandans should be handled with an iron hand.
Uganda was virtually becoming a laughing-stock in the region. However, this war cannot be won if the judiciary does not join hands with the President in the crusade to wipe out corruption. As long as thieves continue finding it easy to access the court bonds, nothing will stop them from stealing.
Since the mid-1990s, the issue of corruption has gained a prominent place on the global agenda.
International organisations, including the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations, have adopted conventions requiring that their members enact laws prohibiting bribery and extortion.
International financial agencies, notably the World Bank, have announced programmes aimed at ensuring fair and open contracting for their projects. They have urged governments to stop their officials from misappropriating funds.
Underlying these changes in rules, rhetoric, and awareness is the growing recognition that bribery and extortion have demonstrably deleterious consequences.
The true impact of corruption is now widely acknowledged: corruption distorts markets and competition, breeds cynicism among citizens, undermines the rule of law and corrodes the integrity of the private sector. It is also a major barrier to international development.
Corruption erodes the quality of public goods to the extent that we largely rely on private providers and the poor households lose out. This non-access to vital public goods not only affects the current generation of the poor, it also perpetuates poverty across future generations.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Obed Katureebe
Quelle/Source: The New Vision, 03.11.2009
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