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By Cinderella Atenyo
The Inspectorate of Government (IG) has called upon elders and cultural leaders in Moroto District to identify and report any acts of corruption at all levels and promptly report them to the authority. Mebel Mary Nakajuba, the principal Inspectorate officer at IG, while sensitizing and creating awareness about the status of corruption in the country, revealed that Uganda loses approximately 10 Trillion shillings to corruption every fiscal year, and it continues to affect the quality of service delivery in health, infrastructure, education sector among others.
Nakajuba stressed this during an engagement with a group of elders and cultural leaders at Salo Angel in Moroto Town. She emphasized that integrity, transparency and accountability is key and a corruption free Uganda is everyone’s responsibility while urging elders to as well instil integrity in the young generation through teaching at home and reaching out to schools.
Simon PeterNangiro, the chairperson Karamoja Elders Association commended Inspectorate of Government team from head office and regional office in Moroto for empowering them with the information to combat corruption saying it is an eye-opener to them. However, Mr. Sharif Kiryowa explained that Regional office in Moroto has established community monitoring volunteers in all parishes across Moroto District to work as watchdogs to identity and report issues with the project in their areas.
Charles Loumo, the Executive Director Karamoja Anti corruption coalition was concerned about safety and security of corruption whistleblowers, challenging the IG on how best they can be protected. In response, the IG said that they have many ways to protect whistleblowers, by not disclosing one’s name once they are tipped and will definitely investigate to the dot.
They called upon civil society to work closely with them to fight corruption and change mindset, stating that the fight against corruption should begin with each individual if it is to be totally dealt with. According to a 2023/24 report by the Directorate of Ethics and Integrity on the prevalence of corruption in Uganda, Government established a comprehensive legal and institutional framework to address the challenge of corruption, which hinders effective service delivery and national development.
On 4th December 2019, Uganda launched the Zero-Tolerance to Corruption Policy and its 5-year Action Plan (the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS) 2019/20-2023/24). The Policy was adopted as a bold move by Government to renew its commitment to the fight against corruption, provide policy direction to eliminate corruption and strengthen partnerships with all stakeholders for effective implementation of anti-corruption measures.
The report stated that prevalence of corruption is measured at 3 in 10 Ugandans (33.5%) who indicate that corruption happens/exists in Uganda both at the District and Central Government level. Corruption in the public sector is mostly exhibited through bribery (27%), embezzlement (17%), Favouritism (11%) and Nepotism (10%). The findings show that these forms of corruption are higher within the Central government compared to the districts.
It added that the main causes of corruption included greed (50%), poor supervision of workers (9%), low salaries (8%), lack of stringent punishment for the corrupt (8%), and moral decadence (7%).
A large portion, 80% of Ugandans, is not doing anything to fight corruption and 54% note that they have nothing they can do to fight corruption, while only 2 percent are involved in monitoring and inspecting government projects.
The findings indicate a wide disparity/discrepancy between public perceptions and experiences of corruption in Uganda. In 2021, the people that were victim to corruption were 17 percent. Those that experienced bribery were 21 percent, embezzlement 11 percent, extortion 17 percent, and solicitation 19 percent. Due to low level of corruption experience, most citizens noted that corruption was not a threat to national security, investment potential and government income/taxes.
These experiences show a lower prevalence of corruption compared to the perception that prevalence of bribery is 79%, embezzlement (65%), Favouritism (49%) and nepotism (12%). The poor perceptions of many Ugandans, 40 percent, are mainly based on reporting which is mostly not evidence-based. On the other hand, there are weaknesses in the public sector that promote the corruption risk in Institutions. The report said key among these is maladministration reportedly existing in the public sector by 65 percent of the population, where the worst form is irregular recruitment of government employees reported at 84%.
Therefore, Government is concerned that corruption and maladministration must be stumped out to stop leakage of public resources and improve service delivery towards better livelihoods and reduced poverty levels among the people. In this regard, Government’s proactive and reactive efforts have been variously improved over the period in the fight against corruption. These include strengthening the legal framework, harmonization of anti-corruption activities, automation of processes and a stronger collaboration among the Anti-corruption agencies to increase effectiveness in eradicating corruption in Uganda.
Therefore, Government is concerned that corruption and maladministration must be stumped out to stop leakage of public resources and improve service delivery towards better livelihoods and reduced poverty levels among the people. In this regard, Government’s proactive and reactive efforts have been variously improved over the period in the fight against corruption.
These include strengthening the legal framework, harmonization of anti-corruption activities, automation of processes and a stronger collaboration among the Anti-corruption agencies to increase effectiveness in eradicating corruption in Uganda. The IG’s hope on elders in Karamoja portrays their influence in shaping the morals of the community, since elders in the region wield much respect traditionally.
