Nakalema wants tough measures to make graft more risky

The head of the State House Anti-corruption Unit, Lt Col Edith Nakalema, has asked authorities and stakeholders to develop punitive sanctions to make corruption risky if the fight against the vice is to succeed.

She said there is need to fast track and operationalise recovery of ill-gotten wealth from the corrupt in the move to enhance and scare people from indulging in corrupt tendencies.

“There should be a nationwide digitalisation of processes for greater visibility and reduced human interaction to limit solicitation of bribes,” Lt Col Nakalema, also the Senior Presidential Advisor on Anti-corruption, said yesterday.
She made the remarks at the ninth Anti-Corruption Convention in Kampala organised by Civil Society Organisations engaged in the fight against corruption with a view to promote social accountability through active citizenry.

“This convention provides an opportunity for government and civil society to work together towards combating the vice because the fight against corruption should be everyone’s duty,” she added.
Government is in the process of bringing a law that would require authorities to seize proceeds accumulated from developments acquired from stolen public resources. The proposed law dubbed: ‘Proceeds of crime law’  would require the government to recover such proceeds even before conviction of the perpetrators.

Lt Col Nakalema, whose unit will make two years on December 10, revealed that they have since registered and coordinated investigations into more than 60,000 complaints at the cost of Shs256 billion where 248 people have since been arraigned before courts of law up to 24 of them were convicted and sentenced to severe punishments including fines.
The executive director of the Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda, Ms Cissy Kagaba, asked electorates to shun politicians who bribe them for votes.