War on corruption rages as minister divides MPs

What you need to know:

  • Budget underway. Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah, cognisant of the timeline prescribed by the Public Finance Management Act 2015, last week suspended plenary to enable the sectoral committees to work on the budget, Ibrahim A Manzil writes.

President Yoweri Museveni’s determination to disprove critics of his controversial Kisanja Hakuna Mchezo this week had junior Labour minister Herbert Kabafunzaki tilt the scale in his favour.
The minister’s arrest at a Kampala hotel for allegedly taking a bribe from Sudanese businessman Muhammad Hamid expectedly divided the August House.
Mr Hamid admitted Mr Museveni’s involvement in the arrest, which comes a week after Parliament’s National Economy Committee released its report on the state of the national economy.
The report painted a bleak picture of the economy, noting “a slowdown in growth of the manufacturing sector and dismal growth in the agricultural sector. Over the years, productions of goods and services have been on a decline in terms of nominal term from 26.4 per cent in financial year 2011/2012 to 8.5 per cent in financial year 2015/2016.”
“Growth continues to be largely driven by final consumption, which was 86 per cent of GDP. This implies that investments and net exports contribute only 14 per cent,” reads the report in part, which underscores the need to strengthen production capabilities of the economy.
The implications are clear; that investments need to be taken seriously and corruption weeded out. To up our regional competitive advantage as a destination for investments, no further call is needed to emphasise the need to fight extortionist tendencies on prospective investors by corrupt officials.
Whereas President Museveni apparently offered Mr Kabafunzaki and the ministry of Finance officials as dinner for critics who were longing for the ‘big fish’, the thirst for more synchronised, systematic efforts against corruption cannot be substituted by such actions.
Before President Museveni asked the minister to step aside on Friday to allow investigations into the case, there had been calls for Kabafunzaki to resign or face censure, with Ethics minister Simon Lokodo saying Kabafunzaki’s resignation “is the honourable and the right thing to do”.
Voices calling for the minister’s resignation believed such efforts would incrementally add ounces of energy on the fight against corruption whereas critics believe it was merely a public relations charade meant to hoodwink and disrupt the forces fighting corruption.
One such critic, Kira Municipality Member of Parliament Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda, said: “I don’t want to be blinded by what government is doing to cover up for Aya dealings. All what is available is that he went to the hotel but you don’t see him taking the money. The whole story could be a PR stunt.”
National Resistance Movement caucus vice chairperson Solomon Silwany supports the directive for the minister “step aside because once allegations are made against you, it is the right thing to do”.
He adds that the caucus is bidding their time and is waiting for the allegations to be confirmed, upon which they (caucus) “will censure him with immediate effect”.
Masaka Municipality’s Mathias Mpuuga said Kabafunzaki’s continued holding of the ministerial position was an embarrassment to the nation.
In this controversy lies the enormous task in the fight against corruption, and one clear issue is that the efforts against the vice must be institutional.
President Museveni’s good intentions notwithstanding, the multitude of institutions created by law and funded by taxpayers to fight the vice should do their work.
Whereas the appetite to reap political dividends on the anti-graft fight is high, caution must be employed not to have these meaningful efforts crowded by voices of partisanship and political expediency.

Budget underway
Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah, cognisant of the timeline prescribed by the Public Finance Management Act 2015, last week suspended plenary “to enable the sectoral Committees to work on the budget; work of standing committees are also suspended.”
MPs are now in marathon meetings considering budgets of ministries and self-accounting institutions of central government.
With the National Economy Committee reporting a decline in economic growth and renewed efforts against corruption, MPs will now approach the Shs29 trillion budget appropriation processes having plenty of useful side notes.
The legislators’ first acid test again is on the fact that the Shs29 trillion budget, which is 75.4 per cent domestic financed, seeks to allocate Shs17.4 trillion to recurrent expenditure and Shs11.5 trillion in development expenditure.
Should recurrent expenditure continue to stubbornly overlap development expenditure? The MPs have slightly over a month on their hand to answer that question.
In an apparent response to the low levels of agriculture productivity, Finance minister Matia Kasaija has already brought for consideration of Parliament a raft of amendments that, if blessed by Parliament, will see Value Added Tax lifted on a cocktail of agricultural inputs.
Most will be on irrigation tools, an apparent response to the drought that drove several parts of the country into famine.
Traders who have perennially complained of rent hikes are now counting on Parliament for relief as minister Kasaija has brought forth proposals to have rent prescribed by the minister.
The minister proposes an amendment to Section 5 of the Income Tax Act by creating sub section 4) to read “For the purposes of assessing rental tax under this section, the minister shall, by statutory instrument, prescribe estimates of rent based on the rating of the rental property in a specified location.”
Should Parliament approve the amendments, then the new law will empower the Finance minister to “issue estimates of rent for the purposes of assessing rental tax”.
May 31 is the deadline prescribed by the Public Finance Management Act 2015, and taxpayers have their eyes fixed on the 10th Parliament’s maiden budget approval.