50,000 public servants corrupt, says IGG officer

At least 50,000 of Uganda's more than 400, 000 public servants are corrupt, Mr James Penywii, the director of research, education and advocacy at the Inspectorate of Government (IG), has said. 

Mr Penywii said this constitutes 10 percent of the total 500,000 government employees who have been entrusted with various government assets and money in different institutions. 

“Total government workers are about 500,000 Ugandans; these are the people who we entrusted in various offices with various assets and money for the government to deliver services to the public, but we have rotten eggs, which are estimated to be about 10 percent,’’ Mr Penywii said during an interview with this publication at the weekend. 

He added: “Approximately 50,000 Ugandans are the ones making others suffer and we are calling upon the rest, the 45 million Ugandans, to stand up against the corrupt; we should expose them, we should reject them, and we should fight with all our might and defeat them.’’

On what basis they used to estimate the corrupt officials, Mr Penywii said they keep getting records of corruption cases from districts.  He neither mentioned the districts affected nor some of the officials.

Mr Penywii also decried that few citizens are reporting corruption within their localities, noting that it is frustrating their efforts in fighting the vice. 

However, he said they have embarked on mass awareness creation through community barazas to tame corruption. 

Ms Conny Atto, the councillor for Oyam Town Council, said corrupt officials in key government offices must be severely dealt with if the government wants to succeed in fighting poverty. 

“If the [corrupt] can be arrested and brought to book or taken to court and they are jailed, then we will progress,’’ he said.

Mr David Odongo, the community liaison officer at Oyam Police Station, said everyone should rise and resist corruption by reporting to the relevant authorities instead of perpetrating it for self-gains.
Last week, President Museveni restated that he means business in his renewed war on graft.

“The [ruling] National Resistance Movement (NRM) does not victimise anybody without proof. That is why some people think that the NRM is soft on corruption. We insist on proof, and apparently, proofs are abundant, but the responsible people have not been looking for them,” the President said.

Mr Museveni announced that he ready to work with the masses, who are victims of corruption because the accounting officers had “let us down”.

“Corruption is diverting a lot of money ...” he noted, citing findings by the Ombudsman disclosed last October that Uganda lost Shs9 trillion.