Both paying and receiving a bribe are offences
In a country where mega-scale corruption stories dominate the daily news headlines, one can be forgiven for missing stories about the likes of a ten million shilling bribe in some rarely heard about Kikuube district somewhere near my hometown, Hoima.
This week an obscure story ran something like this. A young woman by the name Katusabe applied for a job with Kikuube District Service Commission (DSC).
Perhaps not sure that she was the best candidate, or because in her mind “this is Uganda” where nearly everyone bribes their way to a job including top political jobs, she said she parted with a ten million-shilling bribe to a director in the DSC and a counselor who promised to grease her passage to the job. The job was not given to her, so she demanded a refund of her bribe since it had bought her nothing.
When the full refund was not forthcoming, she went to the police and made a statement accusing the two would-be job influencers of taking her money and not delivering the promised job. As the police often tell us, they “swung into action”, summoned the two officials and asked them about having allegedly solicited a bribe. The two denied demanding money from their accuser and were released on police bond. That sounds familiar enough except for the scale of alleged bribery and the lowly stature of the accused.
What the stories on such issues do not tell us (perhaps the journalists and some police officers are not aware) is that in the above story there are more than one possible illegal acts.
1. The police asked the two public officials’ to answer to the claim they solicited a bribe.
2. The police were (at least in the story) not too bothered about the two having received the bribe which is a different offence altogether whether prompted by a prior demand or not.
3. The accuser Katusabe was not charged with anything despite her confession to having paid a bribe demanded or not demanded. Yes, offering a bribe is an offence too and paying it is another.
Methinks, the police should charge all three principal characters in this story for the different offences. What Katusabe should have done (a bribe was demanded) is what the Chairperson of the Uganda Human Rights Commission did. Refuse to be bribed and report to the Police. Chairperson Wangadya, belated congratulations on your exemplary and brave actions. How I wish more Ugandans acted the same way.
HGK Nyakoojo, Buziga, Kampala.
