Start a charity for all government thieves

Alan Tacca

What you need to know:

  • Double standards. In a way, Ugandans sometimes seem to suspend their ancient wisdom, expressed in many proverbs, which instructs them that it is foolhardy for an ordinary grasshopper to fly with locusts.

Ugandans sometimes become confusing when demanding natural justice, especially when they see clearly that the goose is getting a far more favourable deal than the gander.
In recent times, the fall of former police chief Gen Kale Kayihura and the obscenity of the goings-on at the Bank of Uganda have given Ugandans plenty of room to air their views on justice. If I understand them, many Ugandans seem to be saying that they want a less corrupt and less violent society.

However, the same voices that campaign for an improved country also sometimes campaign for a more rotten country – to balance the distribution of impunity! The way they put it, if NRM bigwigs and Museveni’s people are allowed to get away with evil and suspected wrongdoing, all other evil people and suspected wrongdoers should also go scot-free.

For instance, if indicted former IGP Kayihura is out on bail, why is former suspected boda boda gangster Abdullah Kitatta (whose alledged brutal activities apparently had Kayihura’s approval) making his desperate pleas from behind bars?
Again, if Bank of Uganda governor Tumusiime Mutebile is not destroyed completely after the revelations at Parliament’s Cosase, then his deputy, Louis Kasekende, should also be handled with kid-gloves.

In a way, Ugandans sometimes seem to suspend their ancient wisdom, expressed in many proverbs, which instructs them that it is foolhardy for an ordinary grasshopper to fly with locusts. President Museveni’s government has promoted corruption in two important ways.
First, by grossly underpaying most government employees, policemen, office clerks, nurses, doctors, teachers, et al they are tempted to steal or cheat at work in various ways to make ends meet. But after an immoral act has been repeated a few times, and the illicit (but desirable) reward has been consistently obtained, there is a tendency to lower or remove the moral barrier. The immoral act becomes ‘normal’, or at least ‘understandable’.

Moreover, after they have stolen and amassed more than enough for their basic needs, they continue and even intensify the habit because the moral barrier is no longer there. Need has mutated into pathological greed.
The other way President Museveni’s government has promoted corruption is by mentoring and demonstration. The big vampires show the other citizens that it is all right and even respectable to be a vampire, especially if you occasionally ‘give back’ to society at funerals, weddings, church and school fundraising galas, and of course at political rallies.
When one of the President’s family members participated in the infamous sale of junk helicopters to the military, the two men considered the matter resolved after they reportedly agreed that the ‘sales commission’ involved be spent on soldiers in the north.
I suppose an act of charity, since there was no known established process through which junk military equipment profiteers were to pay for welfare shortcomings in the army.

More recently, when another man in the President’s extended family got soiled by a hefty Chinese business-related bribe, the idea of giving (or having given) the money to charity was floated.
So, powerful people who do not really need the illicit money are taking it out of habit; possibly disease.
Now, President Museveni is a just man, and a man of the people. He knows the goose and gander adage, and without any persuading he should know that this charity thing would be good for every government thief.
Why not establish a mega charity where every indicted corrupt official, big or small, ‘volunteers’ to deposit any bribe or stolen money?