IGG rejects Saleh’s request to give corrupt officials amnesty

KAMPALA

The Inspector General of Government, Ms Irene Mulyagonja, has turned down a proposal by Gen. Salim Saleh to extend amnesty to public servants who have illicitly accumulated wealth over the years. Ms Mulyagonja said the Inspectorate of Government (IG) could not adopt Gen. Saleh’s proposals because they “do not fit in the legal, socio-economic, cultural and political environment of Uganda today.”

In an email to Ms Mulyagonja on January 1, Gen. Saleh, who is President Museveni’s brother and senior presidential advisor on military matters, asked the IG to declare an amnesty for all public servants who have accumulated wealth illegally and are willing to “publicly declare their loot”.

Gen. Saleh proposes that the government should commit not to prosecute those who heed to the amnesty call but the amnesty beneficiaries’ wealth be valued and the owners be asked to pay the relevant taxes over a period of five to 10 years.

Gen. Saleh proposes that the IG should name and publicise days for public servants to fill wealth declaration forms. Whoever does not heed the amnesty call within the stipulated time should be deemed to have ignored the amnesty call and “should expect the harshest and most punitive measures”. This is Gen. Saleh’s answer to the “glaring disparity between public service earnings and the levels of material wealth accumulated by public servants.”

On Monday, Gen. Saleh got another opportunity to advance his idea before students and staff of Makerere University Business School (Mubs) during the 8th Mubs Economic Forum. He argued that the “hard-line, long winding and unproductive legalistic approach will not, in isolation, bring the crisis at hand to urgent halt,” calling on the government to borrow a leaf from how armed insurgency was fought.

Dr John Mutenyo, a senior economics lecturer at Makerere University, who was the presenter at the forum on corruption and Mr Godbar Tumushabe, the executive director of the civil society organisation, Acode, who was the main discussant, identified with Gen. Saleh’s “pragmatic” solution to corruption in Uganda.

Objections
Gen. Saleh had hoped to start implementing his idea this year, with the amnesty period set between January and July as indicated in his manuscript titled Cease Fire; The Future Is Bright.
But he did not get the response he expected from the IGG. On January 14, Ms Mulyagonja wrote to inform Gen. Saleh that whereas the proposals he had made to her were “attractive”, they seemed to be “impracticable and unrealistic”.

Ms Mulyagonja said whereas “blanket amnesty” has historically worked well in situations of “overt” crimes like in South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and in Liberia after the civil war, there is no evidence that it would work in the case of “covert” crimes like corruption.

Even in Uganda’s Amnesty Act, Ms Mulyagonja said, there are criteria for identifying cases which deserve amnesty and “corruption would not fit in that domain because of its covert nature”. Ms Mulyagonja added that a blanket amnesty on illicitly acquired property would go against the current laws of Uganda, particularly the Constitution and the Anti-Corruption Act.

But Gen. Saleh, we understand, is not giving up on the idea just yet. One of the avenues he is pursuing was suggested by Ms Mulyagonja, to beseech Members of Parliament to pass a specific law to enable the implementation of the proposal. “I have no doubt that this strategy may sound silly and unconscionable,” Gen. Saleh said at Mubs, “However, history has taught us that from silly ideas have come some ingenious results.”

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