It’s official.  Corruption in Uganda has reached primitive and perhaps even satanic proportions.  That much is settled.  It is settled because President Yoweri Museveni himself has insinuated that Uganda needs God’s intervention to help it deal with the graft that has eaten away the soul of our nation.  According to the Daily Monitor newspaper report of 18^th June 2010, [see “Museveni turns to God in fight against corruption”] Museveni, in a press statement read for him by the Minister for the Presidency Dr Beatrice Wabudeya, asked Ugandans to pray for the same cause.  He said:  “…Notwithstanding the stability we have enjoyed for the last 24 years, there are things that have gone against our expectation”.  By that he meant things “…like embezzlement, illicit enrichment and misuse of public funds”.  To solve the problem, he said, “…we shall gather together for a special day of prayer and repentance so that we may thank God and seek his mercy and forgiveness for this great chosen nation”. 

So was Museveni right in calling for and in fact organising a day of national prayer to seek God’s intervention in the fight against corruption?  There is simply no running away from it, as Museveni has indeed admitted by implication.  The majority of Ugandans now see corruption as an acceptable way of life.  It is that bad.  In fact, it is perhaps fair to say that morally upright people of integrity are an endangered species in Uganda today.  They are routinely ridiculed by the corrupt majority as “failures”; all because they have simply chosen not to steal at all! 

The government on the other hand, in the form of Ethics Minister Dr. Nsaba Buturo, of course maintains that “…the government is committed to fighting corruption” and that “…some good progress is being registered in the fight against graft”.  But what do ordinary Ugandan men and women on our streets think?  How about the foreigners who work and live in Museveni’s Uganda today?  What do they make of “our” corruption? 

“Ugandans today will steal anything and everything”; said Justus, a Rwandan national who works for a foreign NGO in Kampala.  To back up his sweeping claims, he gave Uganda Correspondent a short story about his personal encounter with Ugandan corruption.

“A few months back, I imported a 10yr old second hand vehicle from Japan.  In the few days that the vehicle was at the URA Bond in Mbale as I mobilised money to pay taxes, someone there stripped it naked; literally.  Spare tyre, stereo, indicator lights, wheel spanner, and even the two audio CD’s I was listening to during the long drive from Mombasa to Mbale were all gone.  Perhaps not content with the loss they had already caused me, they demanded and in fact forced me to pay bribes to at least three URA officials; simply to get them to do the job they are paid to do”. 

But should we as Ugandans living in Museveni’s Uganda be surprised at all?  After 24yrs in power, it is hardly surprising that some now say the men and women at the top are simply tired.  These same political commentators maintain that the evidence over the last 24yrs has shown us that they were morally debauched; almost from the word go. 

The fact is that after 24yrs of claiming to fighting corruption, most Ugandans now believe Museveni lacks the requisite political will to fight corruption.  After all, Museveni himself is on record saying that corruption can sometimes be a good thing if the thieves invest their ill gotten loot in development projects in the country.  And now we know that they have completely run out of ideas; hence the resort to prayers to God for some sort of divine intervention. 

According to this Rwandese chap who sent his reaction to Uganda Correspondent, the national prayer at Kololo “…is the final admission of defeat by the hitherto invincible General Museveni.  Uganda will never fix its potholes; it will never fix its broken education, health and social services while the prevailing ghost phenomenon remains intact.  The rural poor, the very people Museveni calls “my peasants”, will continue to die needlessly from easily preventable diseases because of corruption within the health sector.  In fact, even your nascent democracy will never rise beyond the current shambolic level if there is no change of government at the next election.  So you Ugandans must wake up and do whatever it takes to arrest the situation for the good of your country”.

Of course, those are the views of a patriotically disinterested foreign national; a man who may well have an axe to grind with Uganda given the frosty love-hate relation that Rwanda has had with Uganda over the last few years.  But are we as Ugandans happy with the prevailing corruption?  Could it be that Ugandans now believe that being corrupt is the only way to make up for the pathetic salaries that they earn in the public sector?  Or are we indeed confident that Museveni’s government has what it takes [beyond prayers to God] to arrest the corruption that this Rwandese man is complaining about?  Over to you!