By Charles Businge

4^th February 2013: In 1986, the new leadership promised so much – peace and stability, human rights observance, better service delivery and management of the economy.

This optimism has been melting away as the very people who created these building blocks for a stable and prosperous Uganda are the ones who seem to be destroying these very foundations.

The promise of a fundamental change and not a mere change of guards is gradually but steadily melting away unless the regime can turn the corner and put things right.

While the NRM leadership thrived on the positive reforms in its early years, it is no longer tenable to remind people of these achievements when the state of public services is taking a big dip.  Ministries charged with service delivery are in the midst of broad daylight theft.

The government’s chosen means of using tear gas, intimidation and arrests to quell any public expression of displeasure is indefensible. In short, it has become difficult to deal with the mess within our governance systems without burning the fingers of those in the very system.

Yet it is difficult to defend the indefensible indefinitely, given the growing number of corruption scandals by public officials by the day. It is estimated that the current loot of public resources inhibits Uganda’s growth four fold.

It looks like the wound cannot heal because the prescriptions are wrong. It is now difficult to find any ministry that is not implicated in a corruption scandal, and yet the system seems to protect the culprits.

How many officials implicated in these scandals – (CHOGM, GAVI, Global Fund, Bicycles, OPM) have been made to return these public resources as the country continues to bleed?

On the contrary, the government’s response in the OPM scandal was to use public resources to repay stolen donors funds, rather than make the culprits pay. Should Ugandans continue to live on hope for a better country as they have done through past regimes?

Isn’t this a typical case of a revolution eating its own children as right thinking people become targets of the few individuals who want to maintain the status quo and continue to take Uganda deeper into murky waters?

It looks like the thieves expect everyone to stand by the roadside and applaud them whenever they are passing. It is high time our leaders listened to alternative voices.  They shouldn’t take everything with impunity and arrogance.  That approach is not sustainable.  Every day that goes by, the public anger and disgust grows.

With this trend of events, even the discovery of oil will not have any positive effect on the majority of Ugandans. The manipulation, fear and intimidation within the institutional structures now puts the response to these challenges squarely in the hands citizens.

Surprisingly even the Church has not been spared, as some Church leaders have been compromised by brown envelops or hefty contributions by the thieving individuals towards church projects. There are only a handful of individuals within these structures that have maintained a moral high ground to challenge what is not right.

People are wondering whether this is the fundamental change, or is it a case of a regime slowly rotting away with leaders who continue to swim in the illusion that they are the masters of good governance.

Let us be genuine leaders who can be remembered for the good deeds.  That is the true worth of genuine patriotism.  END: Login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories mid-week for our updates

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Mr Charles Businge is a concerned Ugandan