President Museveni
During the June 3 Martyrs Day celebrations, President Museveni promised to speak about corruption. We look back at some of his recent and past quotes on corruption.
2024: “The corrupt are parasites that delay and undermine our transformation efforts.” (March 31, 2024, in a statement posted on X during the Sunday Easter celebrations).
2023: “The corrupt are the minority and it is those who have access to power and public money and they use that access to be corrupt at the expense of the majority who are the victims. It is, however, easy to trace these parasites and smoke them out.’’ (December 31, 2023, end-of-year message).
2022: “Uganda is on the right path and has been for the last 36 years. We only need to be mindful of three points: the environment, corruption, and chauvinism in business.” (June 7, 2022, addressing SONA.
2021: “The lifestyle audit [accountability tool used to check corruption] is good but be careful because we are still lucky that our corrupt people are corrupt here. But if they realise that their lifestyle is being audited, they will instead take what they stole abroad and it will be hard to track them.” (December 9, 2021, commemoration of the International Anti-Corruption Day at Kololo Independence Grounds).
2020: “We shall defeat corruption. There is no corrupt individual that we cannot bring down. All we want is evidence.’’ (January 1, 2020, New Year’s message).
2019: “There is no way the NRM can fail to defeat corruption.” (January 1, 2019, New Year’s Message)
2018: “I cannot fail to talk about the mercenaries of the public officials and corruption of some of them. The mercenaries interferes with the patriotic attitude of the freedom fighters.
People expect money for every little task. We could not have liberated this country if we did not have a high degree of altruism. This attitude of altruism must come back. As for the corrupt officials, I would like to inform the public that their only element of security is the acquiescence of the public by not reporting these criminals. Otherwise, there is no criminal, we cannot handle. Report any corruption you come across to this unit. It will comprise of Mr James Tweheyo, Ms Martha Asiimwe, and Sister Akiror. They will give out their telephone numbers.
What happened to the IGG? Why don’t the victims of corruption report those incidents to the office of the IGG? That was the purpose of that office; to protect the public from corrupt officials; to protect the investors against corrupt officials.
The IGG should reflect on this. Are her staff credible? Why does the public not trust that institution? We need answers.” (June 6, 2018, addressing SONA. The Inspector General of Government, at the time, was Justice Irene Mulyagonja)”
Hours after the speech, Mulyagonja, in an interview with Daily Monitor, responded in part to the remarks saying: “There are people who present the front that we are not competent enough to investigate them. Maybe they think my officers are too junior to investigate them. Let the special unit (chosen by the President) do the senior role...I commend the President for the idea of coming up with his own unit...”
2017: “It is not wise to overprice yourself out of business. However, for the FDIs (Foreign Direct Investments) to flow in, we must purge out all the corrupt official [s] in the UIA [Uganda Investment Authority], in the Ministry of Finance, in Nema [National Environment Management Authority], etc. They are the ones that have been delaying and frustrating investments. How shall we know them? We shall know them by their fruits. Their actions will tell us who they are. You delay an investment for two days, we know who you are.” (June 6, 2017, SONA)
2016: “The corrupt are going to see how a Muyekera (Omuhekyera, resistance fighter) looks like. We are going to stamp out corruption as we stamped out indiscipline in the army. It is a shame for a minister or a government official to ask for favours from, especially, foreigners. “I have failed to finish my hotel or house”, “I have failed to pay school fees for my child”, etc. If you need help, talk to your party, to your relatives, to your colleagues but not foreigners or business people. That is nauseating corruption. Struggle to live within your means. Corruption should and will be stamped out (May 31, 2016, SONA)
2015: “The only residual nuisance is ordinary crime such as murder, corruption, tax evasion, money laundering, etc.’’ (June 4, 2015, SONA).
2014: “There is no harm in having a totally dedicated civil service college. I, therefore, challenge civil servants to wake up. Corruption is one of the challenges hampering service delivery.’’ (November 17, 2014, at the commissioning ceremony of the Civil Service College of Uganda).
