Kamya, Museveni and corruption fight

Engaging citizens

To curb the vice of corruption, Uganda has come up with a number of campaign drives and initiatives. The lifestyle audit campaign is the most recent. This entails comparison of official income and lifestyle.

“In the past the government of Uganda has come with a number of anticorruption campaigns. When Kisanja hakuna mchezo came we were hopeful finally corruption would be finished but we don’t know whether it became mchezo hakuna kisanja because corruption is not ending in Uganda. Soon afterwards we saw another campaign: the run against corruption, the President himself took part. But it seems corruption is too fast and leaving the runners. So as we move on with lifestyle audit let’s hope we shall move beyond politics and hopefully we shall be able to see some changes,” said Wandera.

“We are engaging citizens because corruption is not far from them. It is because of corruption that they don’t get proper services,” says Wandera.

Xavier Ejoyi, the Country Director, ActionAid Uganda, an NGO which campaigns for good governance and accountability, says the fight against corruption is a struggle where everyone with or without a label must fight corruption.

“Every Ugandan has a right to fight corruption. You don’t need to be in any agency government or civil society or private sector company to fight corruption. It is a right for every citizen. This is a collective effort against corruption. All stakeholders should come up with a unique commitment to fight corruption,” Ejoyi told The Independent.

He urged citizens to actively demand accountability from leaders. “In a democratic country like Uganda, the citizen is the principal and government an agent. Those who work for government should take humility that they are working for the citizen. They should work seriously on the responsibility of meeting the needs of citizens (principal). And the citizen should ask for accountability i.e. how did the agent use the decision-making power. It is the kind of accountability we need as citizens to find out how taxes we pay are being used,” said Ejoyi.

Beti Kamya insists fighting corruption should be all round. Many times people tend to point at public officials as being corrupt leaving out other members of society.

“There is corruption in both private and public sectors. We must speak and fight against it. Government is doing well by putting in place the legal framework and institutions to fight corruption like the IG, Office of the Auditor General, Directorate of Public Prosecution, the police, the Leadership Code Tribunal, etc. Parliament has done its part to enact laws that aim at fighting corruption like the Whistleblowing Act, Public Finance Management Act, etc. Sadly, in spite of these efforts, corruption is now growing by leaps and bounds to pandemic proportions,” said Kamya.

She said people need to get angry with corruption in order to get better services.

“Is it really our war us the elite discussing corruption in the comfort of five-star hotels? Some of us here inflate the cost of a plate of lunch in this convention. Can we fight corruption when we are in the comfort of air-conditioned offices, with our six-figure salaries, with guaranteed health insurance? Can we fight and win the war on corruption when funding of your projects comes from elsewhere, when the donor stops funding anti-corruption advocacy you change to another activity that suits the funder’s interests? Now there is COVID-19, are you changing to that? Is it really our war? Are you really in this war against corruption for real? Or are you in activism to survive economically? Are you a committed crusader against corruption?” Beti Kamya asked those thought-provoking questions. She was emphasising the need for total commitment to fight corruption.

“So, whose war is this fight against corruption? It is for that person who goes to Mulago and finds no medicine because of corruption. It is that person who has no access to quality education because someone has stolen money for school capitation grant. That’s the person who has to join the war on corruption. That is the ordinary citizen. Hence is it important to promote citizen participation in the fight against corruption,” Kamya said.

She argued that people need to own the fight against corruption. Giving an analogy of the anger of the village people against a chicken thief because he or she is a threat to their own chickens but they are quick to defend and demand the release of the village neighbour’s son who has been arrested for corruption.

“They will mobilise to say `leave our son alone” because they don’t associate with the cost of corruption at a personal level. That will take education of the masses to change this attitude towards theft of public funds. We need religious leaders, civil society and government to sensitize our people that corruption is hurting us all and we need to join the war on corruption because this link is missing,” Kamya said.

As a way forward, Ejoyi says: “The war on corruption is winnable but we need a serious political commitment to fight corruption. We need commitment to end corruption from the President, Cabinet, Parliament, and other leaders. Somebody said fighting corruption is like writing a cheque. If you don’t have enough money on the bank account, the cheque will bounce and you will be in trouble. The president is the appointing authority of the IGG, Auditor General, DPP, chief justice, minister, police IGP so he should not be complaining of corruption because he can hire and fire at will. That’s why we say corruption starts and ends with political leadership commitment.

Secondly, the citizens need to step up and get information to know their role in fighting corruption. If citizens are aware that it is a responsibility of the state to provide services and not a charity, then we will have a marked change in fighting corruption.”

“The fight against corruption is protracted and we should not look at it as an overnight challenge,” says Wandera, adding that: “This is a war we should have the resolve, will and systems in place to fight. It means the corrupt will also fight back, so we should be ready to challenge and defeat them. Indeed, the corrupt are fighting back. You have heard of intimidation. People should stay firm in the fight against corruption. Be in this fight to ensure every Ugandan gets services as planned for. We call on government to respect civic space. We need to create synergies in the fight against corruption.”

Cissy Kagaba of the NGO, Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda, says there is need for proper funding of the state anticorruption agencies in order to maximize the fight against corruption. In the 2020 report to parliament, the Auditor General said his office’s budget was short of Shs6.5 billion which affected its operations.

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