IGG Mulyagonja legacy: She sparked hope but got blindsided

On Friday, Justice Irene Mulyagonja left office, having ended her eight-year tour of duty as the Inspector General of Government (IGG).
Until June 8, 2018, she had not been known to stand up to the high and mighty in the land. She had until then not exhibited the combativeness of her predecessor Justice Faith Mwondha, who had a public spat with Maj Gen Kahinda Otafiire over the planned redevelopment of Nakawa and Naguru housing estates.

Gen Kahinda Otafiire warned that the Ministry of Local Government would evict tenants from the two estates if they had not vacated by July 12, 2008, a directive which Ms Mwondha told the tenants to ignore pending the outcome of an investigation.

Mr Otafiire claimed Ms Mwondha had no power to stop a government project. That set the stage for a showdown that was only ended by the intervention of President Museveni.

Justice Mulyagonja had not been in the Justice Mwondha mould, at least publicly, but then during the June 2018 State-of-the-Nation Address, Mr Museveni questioned the effectiveness of the Inspectorate in the fight against corruption. He also announced the formation of an alternative outfit based at State House to fight corruption.

Was it the public ridiculing of her office or the formation of “a rival” unit that rattled her? Or was it both? That we might never know, but she hit back.

“When we turn on the heat, they run to State House and hide behind the back of the President. Our investigations then either stall for years or are dropped on ‘orders from above’. My hands are tied,” she was quoted in sections of the press.

IGG undermined?
Though she later declared her support for the State House outfit under Lt Col Edith Nakalema, welcoming it as “an ally” in the fight against corruption, she had also questioned the wisdom behind its formation.

“I would rather advise the President to give those funds to us rather than spending it on a new unit. The Inspectorate only needs to be reinforced. We need more staff, an improved budget and a forensic laboratory given the nature of our investigations,” she argued.

Lawyer Dan Wandera Ogalo still believes that the move to appoint a parallel outfit was intended to undermine the IGG’s office.

“Under the Constitution, it is meant to be the IGG to investigate corruption and breaches of the Leadership Code. But you find the President setting up all sorts of units, which are not even known in the law. That undermines the office of the IGG,” Mr Ogalo argues.

Though she had by then been in the office for slightly more than six years, it seemed that it was only in June 2018 that she had chosen to announce herself to the world – that behind the soft spoken, amiable and humble looking character was a woman of steel who would not take nonsense.

A few months before, she had in February 2018 faced off with the Governor Bank of Uganda, Mr Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, after he shuffled staff, firing some and hiring others, triggering a petition to the IGG, who directed Mr Mutebile to halt his moves pending the outcome of an investigation from her office. That ping pong of missives only ended with the intervention of Mr Museveni.

Unlike her
Mr Moses Waira, who claims to have seen her grow, says the outburst was unlike her.

“She is a very firm person. But usually would not publicly lash out like that. She prefers to operate quietly,” Mr Waira says.

The outburst could, however, have been driven by frustration. Whereas Mr Museveni was quick to chide her for not doing a good job, the Inspectorate has for several years now been underfunded.

Last financial year, the Inspectorate was allocated Shs56.3b, which Justice Mulyagonja described as “insufficient”. She said poor funding was likely to hinder the fight against corruption.

“The IGG’s office continues to work with a small budget as it has always been made clear in the reports submitted to Parliament. Despite the funding gaps, our office has quite a number of areas to spend the money allocated,” the spokesperson of the Inspectorate, Ms Munira Ali, says.

Background
Mr Waira believes that the firmness exhibited is a product of her background. Justice Mulyagonja was born 1963 to Francis Gregory and Perida Mulyagonja. The Mulyagonjas were one of the most affluent families in Jinja Town at the time.

Her father was one of the first Ugandans to operate a private construction firm, Kiira Construction, which did work on the Jinja-Iganga, Jinja-Tororo highways and at some point did some rehabilitation work on the Jinja-Kampala highway.

She went to Naranbhai Road Primary School, Mt St Mary’s Namagunga for her secondary school education before joining Makerere University where she studied law. She later pursued a master’s degree at the University of Zimbabwe.

After a shift with Mulira and Company Advocates and forming her own firm, she was appointed a judge of the High Court in 2008. One of her duty stations was her home town of Jinja.

Mr James Mutalya, a resident of the town, believes that Justice Mulyagonja is very uncompromising when it comes to matters of justice. Some unscrupulous businessmen who grew up with her in Jinja thought they could use her to grab a building that used to host the boys’ hostel of Jinja Secondary School. They were wrong.

“She put the file aside and told them in Lusoga that, ‘even when I was growing up, that was the boy’s hostel of Jinja Secondary School. Since when have you owned it? I will not even go into the legalities here.’ With that the two men fled from her office. That put paid to the fight over that building,” Mr Mutalya says.

Criticism
Justice Mulyagonja has, however, come under immense criticism for opting to make judicial officials who are accused of taking bribes to “vomit” them instead of having them prosecuted.

“We shall not prosecute every magistrate who takes a bribe of Shs250,000. Prosecution is very expensive and we also have few prosecutors… Even the period spent prosecuting a single corruption case takes an average of two years, a period which is too long,” she said in 2017.

That position drew a sharp rebuke from now retired Chief Justice Bart Katureebe.

“Theft is theft. Whether someone has taken Shs1b or Shs1m or even Shs50,000, which does not rightfully belong to him, that is theft.” Mr Katureebe said.

She also drew a strong rebuke from the Speaker of Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, in March last year for asking the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) to investigate allegations that some members of the parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) had pocketed bribes during the investigations into Bank of Uganda’s closure of seven commercial banks.

The biggest criticism has, however, been that the Inspectorate has been unable to prosecute any ‘big fish’.

In an interview early in 2018, she defended herself, saying the decision to prosecute cannot be reached on the basis of speculation. Rushed decisions to prefer charges against people would be a travesty of justice and also open up the Inspectorate to unnecessary litigation.

“It is better that 10 guilty men go free than one innocent man be wrongly convicted,” she told Sunday Monitor back then.

Performance
Her appointment eight years ago was greeted with high expectations and commendations, but has she lived to those expectations?

It was not possible to interview her for this article, but during that 2018 interview, she declined to discuss her performance insisting that it could be seen from the annual reports that the office files with Parliament.

The Shadow Attorney General, Mr Wilfred Niwagaba, says she has done a great job under very challenging circumstances.

“She has lived up to our expectations. She has handled her job with a sober and professional mind even when there has been a multiplicity of outfits created in the name of fighting corruption, which were all meant to undermine her office,” Mr Niwagaba says.

Mr Wandera Ogalo’s take is not very different.

“Her performance has been great. She has exhibited a coolness of mind that comes with being a judge. She has not been prone to rushing to conclusions, but government has not been very supportive and it did not start with her. It has been happening over the years,” Mr Ogalo says.

The door at the IGG’s office has been closed, but one will be opening at the Court of Appeal for her to serve as a judge.