Let’s use the Holy Week to reflect on first quarter

The religious leaders and other stakeholders should speak out on some of these social ills and guide every leader on how to conduct themselves as they celebrate Easter.

Christians marked the start of the Holy Week with Palm Sunday celebrations across the globe.

The day, which usually falls on the last Sunday before Easter, commemorates Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem, an event mentioned in each of the four (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) canonical Gospels in the Bible.

The moveable Holy Week this year falls just at the end of the first quarter of the year, and the second last quarter of the financial year 2023/2024, which gives us the opportunity to step back and assess the gains and pitfalls of the past close to 100 days.

The last three months have served Ugandans a cocktail of issues in government, which have further eroded public trust in government institutions altogether.

The recent #ParliamentExhbitions by a group of activists, for example, exposed wanton misuse of taxpayers’ resources by members of the Legislature, which should be overseeing laws and appropriating budgets that serve the very public they have disadvantaged.

While the President at the weekend defended the Speaker of Parliament over the barrage of attacks, which she received following the publication of Parliament expenditures on social media for most of this month, the court of public opinion has run away with a different picture of a government that is not keen on checking graft.

Consequently, the Bukedea pronouncement throws a spanner in the works regarding assurance by the Inspectorate of Government office that they had opened investigations into corruption in Parliament. The IGG now finds herself between a rock and a hard place because the Executive has a different view on a matter which she thinks is worth her time. Aren’t her hands then tied?

The development follows a given trend of public officials getting away with graft, with investigations many times going nowhere. The purging of Cabinet, which saw two of the many ministers and government officials who were caught with hands deep in the mabaati scandal, may be a good sign. But the ramifications should have been far and wider.

It is, therefore, prudent that we use the Easter season to reflect on how we have handled things these past few months and look for ways to remedy the situation.

The religious leaders and other stakeholders should speak out on some of these social ills and guide every leader on how to conduct themselves as they celebrate Easter.

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