By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
KAMPALA:
A new report by the Inspectorate of Government (IG) indicates that government loses over UShs 20 trillions to corruption mainly among government officials among others.
This was disclosed on Monday by the Inspector General of Government (IGG) Beti Olive Kamya Tirwomwe during his courtesy visit to the speaker of parliament Rt. Hon. Jacob Oulanya at parliament.
She revealed that Uganda scores miserably in the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and the country also losses trillions of Shillings annually to corruption in different sectors like taxation, natural resources, health care, procurement and budgeting, security and others.
Kamya who was flanked by her deputies; Anne Twinomugisha Muhairwe and Patricia Achan Okiria, said that it is also whispered that corruption has also infiltrated the parliament appealing to the speaker to clean his house.
Kamya said that the reporting role of the Inspectorate of Government (IG) is currently limited to the mandatory reports, which are hardly discussed by parliament.
“A glaring example is the budget of the IG. The IG is well staffed with directors, managers, supervisors, investigators, prosecutors, vehicles, drivers, equipment plus other administrative and support machinery to effectively fight the war on corruption. The staff are paid salaries, but they are not given operating funds so the output is very low,” Kamya said.
Kamya said that the Ministry of Finance did not allocate, and parliament did not appropriate funds for the core business of the Inspectorate that entails investigation, prosecution, recovery of assets and education, leaving the responsibility to donors. She added that due to the standoff between the Executive and Democratic Governance Facility (DGF), all foreign funders have since suspended funding for Inspectorate of Government.
The inspectorate received an allocation of 53.4 billion Shillings for the current financial year 2021/2022. Of this, 33.68 billion Shillings is for staff costs, 2.33 billion Shillings for office operational costs, 4.1 billion Shillings for fixed costs, and 13.29 billion Shillings for the new office building.
“This state of affairs has been reported to parliament every six months in the past four years. But the reports have not been discussed, issues not addressed and so corruption and maladministration grow by the year,” Kamya added.
Studies by most anti-corruption agencies like the World Governance Index, Africa Governance Index, United States Think Tank for Peace, Transparency International, Corruption Perception Index, Afro-barometer, Global Anti-corruption Efforts and others have consistently listed Uganda among countries with the highest levels of corruption in the world.
The IGG says that in their new strategy, they intend to focus more on the prevention-than-cure strategy and co-opt all Ugandans into the war against corruption.
She has appealed to the Speaker of Parliament to create a select committee that can urgently consider a backlog of the reports that have not been scrutinized by the House.
She also asked Speaker Oulanya to set aside Tuesday, November 30, for a debate to commemorate the Anti Corruption Day scheduled for December 9, by debating the cost of corruption in parliament and call upon all Ugandans to recognize and fight it.
“During the debate, kindly urge the MPs to step up their oversight role as members of their respective District Infrastructure Committees where a lot of money is said to be lost in overpriced, poor roads through flawed procurement processes,” she appealed.
In response, Speaker Oulanyah said that he would give a clear timeline to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee for consideration of the IG reports.
Oulanya however, disagreed with a proposal to create a Select Committee since it is the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee that has the mandate under the Parliamentary Rules of Procedure to handle matters concerning the Inspectorate.
He also tasked the IG to put faces and names in the fight against corruption and not dwell on statistics.
