Iron sheets scandal, Karamoja minister arrested, crucified and sent to Luzira

The Minister of Karamoja Affairs, Dr Goretti Kitutu, 62, the Manafwa District woman representative, was charged with abuse of office, theft and multiple other charges related to theft of thousands of iron sheets meant to transform Karimojong from their nomadic past and present to a settled future. Karamoja, the size of Belgium, has been an anachronistic part of Uganda. It only became part of Uganda in 1923, just 39 years from independence.
The tension between Karamoja and her neighbours, south and across the borders continues today, 60 years after independence. Cattle rustling, gun running are still big issues today, just like they were during the Amin and Obote years. 
A major road in Karamoja, the 92 km Muyembe-Nakapiririt road to connect the Bugisu-sub-region (Mbale and Kapchorwa) to the main economic artery of the east stands delayed by materials, the customary exchanged briefcases and litigation in the courts. It is interesting when you ascend the hills of Kween County in Kapchorwa, you see the plains of Karamoja below. Karimojong rustlers would move in at night herd up animals with guns slung over their backs and chase them down-hill, an advantage God gifted them in terms of geography. Across the borders, they furiously fought Pokot herdsmen to control watered pastures in the northern rift.
Among their cousins, the Itesot, similar issues, although the Teso insurgency of 1987 on the backs of Alice Lakwena wiped out their cattle stocks at the hands of the NRA. 
Compensation claims are still being filed in the courts. One afternoon in a fiery session of the NRC, the transitional parliament, two MPs, literally on the same side of the aisle, William Naburri Lorrika and Cuthbert Obwangor engaged in a very heated debate. In response to Karamoja appropriations, managed by the Karamoja Valley Development Authority, Obwangor stated, that’s why we didn’t want you to join Uganda at independence. 
Karamoja mostly remained under direct rule, isolated with very little development unlike other communities which were under indirect rule in which the British made modest investments partly due to the fact that Uganda as a colony was a positive statement in the budget, earning enough from exports.
In the iron sheet scandal three things have clashed. 
First, government stripped of resources has found an exit valve, a small $8 million programme to manage public anger about the struggling economy. These branded iron sheets are nothing more than petty theft. Second, the beneficiaries of the iron sheets were so widespread, and mostly out of NRM’s Achilles heel, western Uganda where most of the big names in corruption partly because of history or patronage come from. The big suspect, Goretti Kitutu, a Catholic Mugisu is hardly synonymous with these scandals. If you applied the 180-degree HR review, she probably doesn’t have any relatives far west, a new feature in Uganda’s difficult to understand tribal politics.
 Third, other legions of NRM supporters and the opposition began baying for action. It is amazing that a small tender, an innocuous Shs32 billion would bring Parliament to a halt. One would even argue, Kitutu was denied due process as Parliament had other avenues to bring her to account, like censure.
This week, the IMF, World Bank meetings are ongoing in Washington. How accountable it will look for our minister of Finance to wave copies of the minister’s indictment as demonstration of how tough Uganda is on corruption? Even the gender factor comes, in; the magistrate, DPP, DPP spokesperson, or even Kitutu’s boss the Prime Minister are all women. 
The optics of this are very good for a government struggling to answer succession issues and other bread and butter issues of more significance to the population. 
In the Good Friday processions, another minister Betty Amongi, was shadowing the archbishop of Kampala in the way of the cross mostly off the hook after she seems to have avoided another high-level lynching. Kitutu’s time had only expired two days earlier. She spent Easter in the Luzira coolers.
Mr Ssemogerere is an Attorney-At-Law and an Advocate. [email protected]