FIGHTING CORRUPTION
The article by Hon Rose Namayanja
Nsereko, the Minister of Information and National Guidance titled “Government
has registered victory in fighting corruption” must be applauded and at the
same time examined critically (see: DM, Jan 10, 2014). So far, this article is
the most comprehensive insight of the progress being made by the office of the
Inspector General of Government, the statutory body assigned to fight the
endemic vice of corruption in government.
To add a more moderate voice to
this rather glamorous account as depicted by the Minister, Uganda is known for
having some of best laws in the region. Whether laws against graft or those
prohibitive laws against moral corruption, human liberties and so forth. When
it comes to writing laws, Uganda has gone off its way to extract laws from Britain
and from the United States without fear. Of recent, this country has been able
to invoke a colonial law – that ensures preventive arrests on assumptions or
prediction of potential breach.
This law has been used specifically against
dissenters like Besigye and others but not on potentially corrupt politicians.
The existence of many robust
anti-corruption laws in Uganda is not issue of contestation here. The major
ingredient that Uganda lacks in the fight against corruption is the political
will to reinforce those laws to their rational ends. In all aspects, the problems
that afflict the fight against corruption are also the transformative as well
as functional nature of corruption, it being used as a political tool.
Ugandans will not be dubbed by romanticized
statistics which glorifies half a success story. While I am tempted to believe
that all is rosy at the Ombudsman’s office as the Minister portrays, reality
checks may reveal another narrative - far from what government is numbing our
nerves with.
First, cases that have been easily
disposed are those that affect the less important personalities who commit
petty acts of corruption due to poor supervision. The government has
deliberately failed to persecute those bigger political fishes whose fingers
never leave public purse. And yet, the political class is the most corrupted
class. This means the IGG’s office and the police have never had sufficient and
real powers to reign in on the politicians.
Second, corruption is the mediating
mechanism of the regime upon which patronage and allegiances are negotiated.
As
a consequence, the cost of politics on public purse has become overwhelming at
the expense of public service. The cost of public administration and the
corruption which sustains it ensures that no public institution can claim to
work independently and free of corruption. The IGG’s office and its officers
are no exception. This is why those political honchos, who can bribe their way
out or those who are connected to the establishment, tend to also evade the
wrath of anti-corruption laws as we saw with the Gavi/Global funds scandal.
Thirdly, government’s failures to
prioritize funding for anti-corruption institutions and its inherent inability
to accept good governance as a principled aspect of the fight against graft, do
illustrate their contempt for genuine anti-graft fight. Here and there,
favoritism, cronyism, tribalism and the desire for life presidency, comes in
handy to compromise any genuine head strong efforts at fighting corruption. The
police appear too incompetent to conduct thorough and timely forensic investigation
targeting politicians, and even where they have the capacity; their efforts are
often thwarted by political interference from above.
These are not far-fetched claims
because the recent Office of the Prime Minister’s scandal involving Ministry of
Finance where money for reconstruction of Northern Uganda was fleeced, can
attest to utter political sabotage in the works of police criminal
investigation.
It is therefore justifiable to
assert that any successes in the fight against corruption cannot be celebrated
when the small fish down there are the target, leaving the politicians and key
decision makers to be protected by the status quo.
It is only logical that any victory
in the fight against corruption should not be celebrated too soon; else we
shall be throwing the baby out with the bath water. Corruption prevails
precisely because of thriving inequities in resource distribution. The political
class and the corrupted middle class have conspired to operate in the unofficial
institutions which have deprived the public institution of resources and sanity.
Public servants have resorted to abuse public service because it is not
rewarding anymore, so they sit on their hands or abandon it all together for
politics.
The injustice is even distressful
because the political elite appropriate larger shares of national resources to
themselves while they mockingly implore the public servants and peasant farmers
to adhere onto patriotism rather than distributive justice and equitable
society. Today we hear common slogans like “tusaba
gavumenti etuyambe” (we beg our government to help us), which signifies the
increasing gap between the government and the common people.
People are increasingly distrustful
of their government because of its corrupted way. All they see as the face of
this regime are wealthy politicians accumulating personal wealth, while the
common man’s space is dwindling and his fate consigned to providence. Like Karl
Marx would say, issues of economic production have become too stressful that religion
and Premier League have provided the fantasies of solace for the majority of disengaged
Ugandans. The anti-corruption fight is one which is perceived as bully for the
weak and toothless on the most corrupt.
END
No comments:
Post a Comment