Mr Muniini K. Mulera
Dear Tingasiga:
I heard the speech. I lost hope. My optimism, crashed by words, spoken by my president, in his State-of-the-Nation address. An opportunity lost, another surrender to corruption, Uganda’s greatest threat. Having nurtured a state of unprecedented corruption, my president pulled out his old song sheet, to fool the citizens again, about an onslaught against this enemy. That song, premiered in January 1986, went into irreversible discord long ago, is now unrecognizable, and an irritant to the country’s ears.
The president knows, just like most Ugandans do, that he is not in position to wrestle corruption to the ground. What little hope some of us still had, was dispelled by my president’s offering of a new concept to my ears, framed as corruption by mistake-makers, distinct from corruption by dishonest people. I thought I had misheard him, but a video recording of his speech relieved me of self-doubt. The war against corruption, lost long ago, is not about to be revived. His talk about offering amnesty to the thieves, and his worry that punishing them would rob him of people to work with, was the last straw for me.
However, I allowed myself to play with his new categorization of thieves and robbers, with a few examples of each flashing through my mind. Those who steal iron sheets from the Karamojong are mistake-makers, but those who steal medicine from government hospitals are dishonest thieves. Those who steal billions of shillings from parliament are mistake makers, but those who inflate costs in public procurement deals are dishonest swindlers. Those who have stolen trillions of shillings in Uganda’s long list of mega-financial scandals are mistake-makers, but those who steal petty cash, a few million shillings really, from the latest “wealth creation” effort, called the “parish development model,” are dishonest people.
Those who have taken hundreds of millions of dollars that built that invisible world-class hospital in Lubowa, Kampala, are mistake-makers. Those who extort bribes from patients are dishonest thieves who deserve admission to prison. Those who have sucked deep into the national trough during the preparations for international conferences in Kampala are mistake-makers, but those who sell access to the president are dishonest rascals. Those who allocate themselves public land and other major assets are mistake-makers, but those who pocket money via ghost workers are irredeemably dishonest.
I see an opportunity for a team of legal experts, working with psychologists and mind readers, to develop a two-column catalogue, of mistake-makers and dishonest people, into which they slot various thieves of public assets and cash, dating back to the very early years of the National Resistance Movement’s clean leadership. They should start with documented reports of grand corruption in his government, complete with names of people that mistakenly stole billions of dollars from the long-suffering masses. The dishonest people, among them the chicken thieves and mobile phone snatchers who ply their trade in the towns of the land, need not worry the president. They are already taken care of by the Uganda Police and other security agencies. The names of the mistake-makers await retrieval from the Report of Justice Julia Sebutinde’s Commission of Inquiry into Corruption in the Uganda Police Force; the Report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the Mismanagement of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Uganda; and the Report of Justice James Ogoola’s Commission of Inquiry into the theft of funds from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI). Then there are reports about the Danze-URA scandal, the Muhibauer-Uganda National ID card scandal, the Junk Helicopters scandal, the Valley dam scandal, the LCs’ Bicycle scandal, the Basajjabalaba Compensation scandal, the Public Service Pensions scandal, the PMO’s Northern Uganda PRDP scandal, the CHOGM-2007 scandal, the multiple privatization scandals, the sale of Uganda Commercial Bank, and so many others from long ago.
More recent additions to the list of mistake-makers include the thieves who have milked the construction of tarmacked roads, hydroelectric generating stations, bridges, public markets in the towns, infrastructure development in Kampala, and government buildings. Mistake-makers have been at it in various public-private-partnerships, and national budget submissions. The partners of so-called foreign investors have mastered the art of deception by mistake, with offers of fake projects that produce air and unlimited requests for further funding and final rescue, to which the president and his government consent by mistake.
The truth, of course, is that my president knows about these things, and much more. His speech, peppered with humour about hearing rumours of corruption, was the usual script designed to assuage the rising temper in the land, and remind the political actors that they are only free from prosecution at his pleasure. Corruption, the evil that has nourished the NRM’s rule, thirty-eight years and counting, is much needed by the ruler today, more than ever before. It is a potent means of control. The corrupt are completely captive, too terrified of prison to challenge anything the ruler throws at them. Constitutional amendments, that may become necessary ahead of the transfer of power in 2032 or 2036, will need a parliament that has been whipped into line. A subtle threat of prosecution on account of corruption is an effective weapon.
Interestingly, the president singled out the money lenders for special censure. He called them bloodthirsty parasites, a name that is spot on, shared by thousands of his cadres that he has propped up for decades. The money lenders are operating in a milieu of commercialised politics that the president has created. Corrupting parliament to amend the constitution, and buying political support with khaki envelopes, high-end automobiles for Anglican bishops, and cash for funding long-weekend merrymaking by Diaspora Ugandan organizations, has made parasitism a lucrative pursuit. The country is sucked almost dry, by so-called foreign investors and their local partners, along with freelance looters. It is a symbiotic parasitism from which the president benefits politically. The money lenders are mere copycats.
The president does not have a monopoly on the practice of commercial politics. Other top leaders of the other branches of the government have hefty budgets for donations to people and causes of their choice. Members of parliament have so-called constituency development funds. All these are political bribes which are stealable by the donors and their courtiers. All done by mistake, of course, not through calculated dishonesty.
It is a messy dilemma, about which the president asked a pertinent question: “Are you a leader unto darkness and death?”
Muniini K. Mulera is Ugandan-Canadian social and political observer
