Prime
Corruption fight: Open letter to President Museveni
President Museveni chats with Parliament Speaker Anita Among ahead of the State of the Nation Address at Kololo ceremonial grounds in Kampala on June 6, 2024. PHOTO/ FRANK BAGUMA
What you need to know:
- Fight corruption, squarely, and see how even those who are against you, join you, in a blink.
Your Excellency, allow me build my write-up around the words of the Right Honourable Annet Anita Among, the Speaker of Parliament, while addressing residents of Lwengo, over the weekend. Here is a brief look at what the Speaker said: “And the President has had your cries, where you said that when your child misbehaves, you beat and say, go back and do something good. And you are better off having a child, even if she eats something, so long as she brings something home.”
For Christ’s sake, Your Excellency, how are we/you going to fight corruption, and the same time continually sanitise the perpetrators? For how long are people going to misuse public funds and/or resources, in the name of bringing something home? So, does this imply that once those implicated in corruption bring something home, they should be left to use funds and/or resources, meant to benefit us all, with impunity? Is this what you exactly mean in your description of zero tolerance to corruption?
Your Excellency, if you really sent the Speaker of Parliament to tell the people of Lwengo that their embattled member of Parliament (MP), Cissy Namujju, is their MP, for life, then it is very unfortunate. For Christ’s sake, Your Excellency, with all due respect, wouldn’t it be prudent for you, moreover, as the person who broke the ice, to let the law take its full course? In fact, even after having one of the perpetrators rearrested, after being granted temporary freedom, by court, how then could you send the Speaker to Lwengo with such a message?
Your Excellency, should I say that you have become a magistrate, lately? So, does this, therefore imply that Namujju has already been proven guilty in the President’s court, but ‘court’ found it imperative to pardon her, while at the same time enthroning her as an MP, for life, but remains a suspect in Alphonse Owiny Dollo’s, courts of law? Why can’t we let systems work, this time round, Your Excellency, with all due respect? Precisely, why not let hon Namujju, and all her co-accused, be left to the law ? So, in this very matter, where does your message to the people of Lwengo, and, of course, Ugandans, at large, leave court? So, Your Excellency, why shouldn’t these members of Parliament (MPs) serve their sentences, once found guilty of the charges brought against them.
Why have we, as a country, chosen to fight corruption, discriminatively, Your Excellency? Precisely, why are we, so hard on some corrupt officials, and very soft on others, surely? Almost every corruption scandal that we have witnessed, as a people/country has been discriminatively handled; surely why? Time and space available cannot allow me room to point out all these scandals, one by one, but most certainly, the Karamoja-iron sheets scandal, which came to be described as the Mabaati saga by the common man, cannot go unmentioned, for this is still fresh in the minds of many. To date, there are still people, including two former ministers (Mary Gorret Kitutu and Agness Nandutu), still battling these charges, and, of course, even dropped from the Cabinet, in the latest reshuffle, by the appointing authority, while many of those that the wananchi (common man) thought would be implicated, as well have been left to continue enjoying VVVVIP-Very Very Very Very Important Persons status.
Surely, Your Excellency, are we as a country, committed to the fight against corruption, or we are doing it just to appease a cross-section of individuals, while at the same time continue squeezing others?
Perhaps the one million dollar question, of course, addressed to you, sir, and your government, is: Why is the fight against corruption segregative? Precisely, why (and why), have we decided to divide those implicated, call them our children into Abels (children) and Cains (gachildren), which literary means, agaana, in my Luganda)?
Your Excellency, if you want to go bare knuckles with all those implicated in corruption, take a closer look at education, and see how corruption has crippled our education, almost in all aspects, and, obviously, country, at large.
My prayer is, Your Excellency, let’s have all those implicated in the mismanagement of public funds and/or resources, brought to book, without grouping them into Abels and Cains. And once this is done, let’s leave the law take its course, to the dot, such that all those who are found guilty are punished in accordance with the law, while those are found innocent, are acquitted, of their charges, of course.
In this particular case of Parliament, I am pretty certain, the entire country will be so delighted to see you in court (that is if the law permits), relaying the evidence you said you have, during your latest State-of-the-Nation Address, against all those implicated, regardless. Assuredly, the entire country is with you in this. Fight corruption, squarely, and see how even those who are against you, join you, in a blink. I beg to submit!
Jonathan Kivumbi, Educationist, communication and language skills analyst [email protected]
