Living honestly in highly corrupted pearl of Africa

Behind the curtains. If Ugandans knew what many in the news media know about these greedy people who on the outside appear much happier than us because of their greed, they would quickly abandon the illusion that the more one steals, the more one owns or embezzles, the happier one becomes.

One of the biggest mistakes that many Ugandans make, when they first read or hear of a major financial scandal involving the swindling of hundreds of millions or billions of shillings, is to instinctively feel envy at the corrupt official in question.

Envy, not disgust, is the initial reaction that most of us feel (if we will admit it).

We look at our lives, filled with daily struggle, where money is always insufficient to meet our needs and urgent problems, think of the billions and our gut reaction (even though on the outside sounding angry at this abuse of office and theft of taxpayers’ money) is to feel this is not fair.

Not that this is evil or disgusting or criminal, but this is not fair. We feel we are competing on a field that is uneven. Many Ugandans even feel foolish at putting in a regular nine hours of work daily while “smarter” colleagues and other public officials, at the stroke of a pen, are pulling in Shs250 million in a single act of forgery, kickback or diversion of money from its intended use.

We see the opulent mansions, the latest cars and the “arcades” sprouting all over Kampala and it seems, from the way we see it, that these corrupt people are living much happier lives than us.

Beat them or just join them
It is this reaction that has got many people into the “If you can’t beat them…” state of mind and eventually they joined the ranks of the corrupt.

What most of us don’t grasp is the psychology of the corrupt. Most of us don’t know what it means to have the kind of mind that would steal billions intended for hospitals or for orphans.

So many sociological studies have been conducted over the last 40 years all over the world among all sorts of economic and social groups and income levels to find out how happy various people are and what constitutes happiness.

We hear of and read these studies quite regularly and what they have consistently shown is that happiness is not dependent on money or wealth. Of course adages about a hungry man being an angry man are true and certainly every person with only Shs5,000 on him or her would welcome a sudden windfall of Shs500,000.

The greatest difference that money makes is from zero shillings to about Shs100,000. Here is where money’s most important value is, for it can and often make the difference between life and death, starvation and survival, total destitution and basic decency.

Beyond that, though, once the very basic needs, such as immediate hunger, cold and other physical discomfort have been dealt with, as far as happiness and state of contentment are concerned, there is no significant difference between earning Shs400,000 a month and Shs4 million.

It really does not make much difference whether one wears a shirt that costs Shs15,000 and one that goes for Shs180,000. A woman’s handbag that costs Shs30,000 probably does everything that a “brand” handbag of $750 does.

I have been observing the material that millions of people from all over the world post on the “social media” websites like Facebook and Twitter and the same pattern appears --- at the deepest level of personal expression, feeling and experience, there is barely a difference in the state of mind and happiness between a person living in Moscow, Russia and one living in Jinja, Uganda, Washington DC, United States or Dodoma, Tanzania.

In organised societies in Asia, Europe and North America with modern public transport systems and roads, a train or bus is all that one requires to commute to and from work and shopping daily and it does not matter that some Hollywood film star (or Ugandan president) owns a stretch limousine price-tagged at $1.2 million.

If anything, this insatiable greed for more and more money and more and more property that we see in Uganda today among top public officials betrays a serious psychological imbalance and need for counseling.