By George Murumba

29^th Aug 2011:

Corruption: Is he doing enough?

The complete lack of ‘political will’ from the top echelons of President Museveni’s government in Uganda is one of the biggest factors “…undermining anti-corruption progress in Uganda”, the latest US diplomatic cables released by the whistleblower website Wikileaks have revealed.

In an email dated April 8^th 2009, an official of the US embassy in Kampala told the US State Department in Washington that whereas a joint review of Uganda’s Millenium Challenge Corporation Anti-Corruption Threshold Program (MCC ACT Program) found the program to be largely on track, “…there has not been substantial progress towards improving broader anti-corruption measures and indicators”.

The US diplomat also said Uganda government officials acknowledged that improved inter-agency coordination, increased prosecutions, and adequate funding for the Anti-Corruption Division of the High Court are essential to achieve an overall improvement in anti-corruption performance.

Crucially, the damaging diplomatic cable further states that some Uganda government officials who were participating in the MCC ACT Program claimed that while there is no concerted effort to undermine anti-corruption efforts, they also “…admitted that there is a lack of leadership at the top to bolster the anti-corruption fight”, effectively saying there is no political will at the very top of government to fight corruption.

Uganda’s ACT Program was signed in March 2007.  It outlined a 30-month program to strengthen the government’s capacity to fight corruption in public procurement and enhance Uganda’s eligibility for an MCC Compact.  In November 2008, the MCC issued its scorecard.  Uganda had failed to score above the median on 3 out of 5 “Investing in People” indicators.  In addition, Uganda’s corruption indicator had not shown a steady upward trend.

As result, the Government of Uganda’s (GOU) Ministry of Ethics and Integrity convened a joint mid-term review of the ACT Program to consider these findings and discuss the way forward.  The review noted that the ACT Program had achieved significant results improving the capacity of the anti-corruption institutions to fight corruption but that Uganda has not made significant progress in the fight against corruption.

A number of recommendations were made as a result.  In its view however, the US government said “…the GOU will need to devote sufficient resources to implement these recommendations and demonstrate the will to go after all who are implicated in corruption scandals”.

It added that Uganda’s commitment to fight corruption remains weak and the incidence and perception of corruption are increasing, despite the progress being on capacity building the capacity of the various anti-corruption agencies.  “…Lack of political will remains at the heart of Uganda’s corruption problem despite President Museveni’s continued “zero tolerance” for corruption”, the US government concluded.

The areas of improvement identified were: the need for mechanisms to follow up audit reports (both administratively and legally); the importance of adequate funding for the new Anti-Corruption Division (ACD) by the GOU; the need to enact laws agreed to in the ACT Program such as the Anti-Corruption Law and a Whistleblowers Protection Law; improved coordination of anti-corruption agency activities; and full budgeting of GOU counterpart funding and support to the GOU anti-corruption agencies that was agreed to under the ACT Program.

The then Minister of Ethics and Integrity Buturo vowed to develop a plan of action in the coming two weeks to address the issues.  On the charge of lack of political will, Buturo agreed with the US government and said, “…a higher level intervention would be very helpful”.

That in plain language could be fairly construed to mean that Buturo was asking for the President’s political will in the fight against corruption in the country.  END.  Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.