Pardon me, but did Museveni say he was now ready to fight graft?

President Museveni early this week announced that he was ready to fight corruption but more particularly that he is ready to face the corrupt politicians and civil servants.

According to him, his priority mission, that is fixing democracy and security is over and done with.

He is now ready to focus his attention on thieving politicians and civil servants who frustrate development in the country.
Mr Museveni is singing a familiar song. In case you missed it, last weekend, a court sat at the wedding of a son of one of the accused ministers, in which, he delivered in his speech, a judgement, absolving former finance minister Syda Bbumba.

Museveni shocked
Let’s travel to Museveni’s forgotten lane of pronouncements against corruption. In 2009, Mr Museveni expressed shock at the level of corruption within his government. In a one paged letter to MPs, every bolded black word, stood out against the oceanic blue paper it was printed on, sealed with government of Uganda stamp.

As I re-typed (for publication) out every sentence in his letter to his former Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi and copied to MPs, I could not help laughing out loud at Mr Museveni’s epistle expressing shock at learning that contract prices are inflated and the money swindled.

Also, in case you missed this, the President in 2009, promised to deal with corrupt civil servants.

His priority in 2010 was to deal with corrupt civil engineers and medical workers who, he accused of inflating road construction costs and stealing medical supplies from hospitals.

And could someone jog Museveni’s memory that a section of his senior NRM cadres and Cabinet members have been accused and some proven to have siphoned not only money, but even litres of fuel.

It is ironic if he cannot remember that he promoted and reappointed two junior ministers to senior ministerial positions after Parliament had censored them over corruption, and one repeated act-Gavi and Global Fund scandal.

The President played a leading role in the creation of Tri-Star which went down with more than Shs20 billion.
Another still-birth Textile Company -Phenix Logistics got over Shs4 billion-failed to pay back and two years ago, the government guaranteed $5.5 million from Japanese’s International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for Phenix.

Government has habitually given out billions of shillings to individual businessmen without Parliament’s sanction or any transparent policies governing these donations.

The bail outs to Mr Hassan Basajjabalaba, former head of the NRM Entrepreuers team, who got billions in government bailout on the President’s instructions – some of which was money meant to recapitalise Uganda Development Bank

And let’s not forget the controversial compensation amounting to Shs142 billion to Bassajjabalaba that led to the resignation of two senior ministers.

At the directive of the President, the minister of finance can inject public funds into a private entity without Parliament’s knowledge and then declare that those funds translate into government’s shareholding.

Moreover the office of the Auditor General cannot audit such firms since government is minority shareholder, isn’t that corruption Mr President?

Inflated contracts
The list of inflated contracts snakes all the way back to the sanctified corridors of State House. These include Entebbe State House construction, UBC’s relocation costs, UCB’s sale, National Identity Cards costs, and oil reserves, which saw flawed procurement process.

No Ugandan can fail to point out a murky tendering process or an inflated project.

And so, when the President this week made this announcement, a quick count on my fingertips, gave the President a good number of his close associates and ministers to start with.

But again, Mr President, the cancer of corruption and culture of impunity in Uganda needs not only your political will, but vigilant anti-corruption institutions, by strong, sustained and impartial investigation, arrest and trial of all involved -- including those who walk the highest corridors of power!

Barbara Among
Weekend News Editor
[email protected]