ON THE BRINK: Chogm shoplifters lived up to their eagle ways

The probe into how Chogm (2007) funds were grossly mismanaged or stolen for that matter is a cause of discomfort to those being implicated. The total bill for the event has shot up to Shs400 billion more than the total budget for the whole ministry of Agriculture this financial year.

The probe into how Chogm (2007) funds were grossly mismanaged or stolen for that matter is a cause of discomfort to those being implicated.
The total bill for the event has shot up to Shs400 billion more than the total budget for the whole ministry of Agriculture this financial year.
Listening to public officers answer to questions from members of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (Pac), it is easier to believe that a camel would comfortably pass through the eye of a needle than that Chogm money was not stolen by these officials or their superiors.
First, the greyest area – indeed where the biggest grocery was shoplifted - is the procurement of motor vehicles including; the 144 BMWs that were used during the event.
Cabinet Chogm Subcommittee Chairman Prof. Gilbert Bukenya and his Vice Chairman Sam Kutesa have fingers pointed at them for being deeply embedded in the companies that eventually won the tender to supply the cars and provide related services.
Prof. Bukenya has not yet appeared before PAC but Kutesa has been quoted denying any ‘shoplifting’ of the Shs14 billion budgeted for executive vehicles and police motorcycles.
When the Broadcasting Council Boss Godfrey Mutabaazi appeared before the committee, he wore a haggard look of a man resigned in his fate to the hangman even before being pronounced guilty of swallowing Shs9.4 billion ‘alone’ in a deal with South African firm Globecast to organise a media centre for the four-day event.
The most ridiculous spending was on the beautification of Kampala. The ministry of Local Government does not even have any physical evidence to show how it spent Shs6.3 billion. Much of another Shs20 billion was shoplifted as advance payments to hotels to complete construction before the meeting started. But the eye popper deal was Shs2.3 billion given to J&M Hotel just three days before the meeting started. To-date, the hotel still looks the same incomplete stone structure – at least by the roadside.
I have heard some people exclaim that Chogm money was like rain that drizzled; you only had to be in the right place and time to get ‘wet’.
But given the names that keep creeping up on the list of Chogm shoplifters it is likely the rain pattern was a carefully crafted art, you had to ‘know’ somebody to be in the right place and time to get wet.
In the African Peer Review Mechanism report released in January, the authors claim Uganda losses Shs330 billion annually to corruption twice the total budget allocated to water and environment this financial year.
The efforts of PAC should be commended however; the more important part of the probe is what happens after PAC.
The recovery of such money and the prosecution of the culprits should send a more sincere message about the commitment to fight corruption. Arguments that portray President Museveni as the ‘innocent’ leader whose only ‘sin’ is that he is surrounded by officials steeped in corruption are baseless.
In medieval Christian church history, a story is told of a saintly monk who, to measure his ability to live by the rules of his celibate calling, slept between two blonde prostitutes every night and by morning if he hadn’t ‘touched’ any of his bed mates he would give praise to God for keeping him through his trials. And one night when the monk ‘fell’ to the urges of his flesh, he blamed it on the prostitutes who kept creeping close to his body as he slept.