IGG wants anti-graft agencies audited
Officiating. The deputy Inspector General of Government, Mr George Bamugemereire (3rd left), flags off the 2018 Anti-Corruption Caravan in Kampala yesterday. PHOTO BY STEPHEN OTAGE
What you need to know:
- Asked to comment on their bureaucratic procurement procedures which have now been identified as breeding ground for kickbacks in government projects, Mr Uthan Segawa, the acting Executive Director PPDA, said it is the very reason they are reviewing the PPDA Act for efficient management of public resources which account for 68 per cent of the national budget.
Kampala. The Inspectorate of Government has instructed all anti-corruption agencies to clean up themselves and come out boldly to punish their own staff who are promoting corruption.
While launching the 2018 Anti-Corruption Week at the government media centre yesterday, Mr George Bamugemereire, the deputy Inspector General of Government, said it is wrong for an anti-corruption agency to pretend to be fighting graft and yet within its ranks there are loopholes promoting it but nothing is being done to stop the vice.
“Let each agency clean up itself using the existing internal mechanisms to lighten the burden on the Inspectorate of Government. Utilise the resources you have and respect the mandates of various institutions,” he said.
Mr Bamugemereire explained that based on the Auditor General report, that is when Parliament engages the Inspectorate of Government, the Financial Intelligence Authority, institutions under the justice law and order sector to carry out their roles and the directorate of ethics and integrity to act on the culprits.
“Our role is to investigate and present our cases as effectively as we can, press for the highest sentence as possible. We have mechanisms to appeal against lenient acquittals and punishments like the Katosi case,” he said.
Yesterday the IGG together with anti-corruption agencies, which include office of the Auditor General and Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority(PPDA), flagged off the 2018 Anti- Corruption Week where they will be jointly touring eastern Uganda to educate the public about corruption.
While flagging off the caravan, Mr Bamugemereire said last week during an anti-graft regional conference in Nairobi that other member countries wondered why despite having the best anti-corruption laws and policies, Uganda still ranks as the most corrupt country.
He attributed the persistence of the vice to ignorance among Ugandans about the dangers of corruption to the country and their own communities.
Asked to comment on their bureaucratic procurement procedures which have now been identified as breeding ground for kickbacks in government projects, Mr Uthan Segawa, the acting Executive Director PPDA, said it is the very reason they are reviewing the PPDA Act for efficient management of public resources which account for 68 per cent of the national budget.
“Public procurements always have huge sums of money making them lucrative targets for private and public officials. We have introduced the electronic government procurement and we are at the stage of fine tuning and pilot it in a government entity,” he said.
He added that to avoid delays in procurement, they are reducing the procurement cycle from the standard 244 days to 124 days.
