Sanctions can only do enough if the public is ready to shun the corrupt
What you need to know:
- As sarcastic as it may sound, the majority of our public officials can barely walk into a Ugandan-based health facility for a minor surgery.
In the last two months, several Ugandan public officials, prominently the Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among have been slapped with sanctions by the UK and US.
While these sanctions constitute, among others, travel bans and seizure of property, they seem trivial to the affected officials. The Speaker of Parliament has boldly demonised and likened them to a witch-hunt due to her legislative role in the enactment of the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA).
However, this has been refuted by sections of the public, wondering why Asuman Basalirwa, the Bugiri Municipality MP, the midwife of the controversial AHA, has at least not been sanctioned yet.
From the Speaker’s stance, these sanctions are a threat to Uganda’s sovereignty, although this is a highly contested belief, especially under the interconnected global economy theory. The Speaker in addition to her displeasure on the initial sanctions daringly stated that she would only be concerned with the visa to Bukedea as opposed to the UK.
This presupposes that even the rest of the sanctioned officials are still unbothered by the sanctions until they become terminally ill and need to be flown out to UK and US for treatment.
As sarcastic as it may sound, the majority of our public officials can barely walk into a Ugandan-based health facility for a minor surgery.
Anyway, let’s stick to the corruption allegations as one of the triggers of the recent UK and US sanctions against our own public officials. In this case, does the public know that they have a role to play whether the international watchdog is present or not? More still, the excitement about the sanctions won’t solve the problem if the public continues glorifying the corrupt. The psyche of our public officials is anchored on the legitimacy of their constituents.
That’s why a Ugandan minister or MP would for that matter be more bothered being chased away from a public gathering in their constituency than being slapped with UK or US sanctions.
Quite obvious, sanctions are rosy but are not the panacea to the domestic fight against corruption. Precisely, the low-hanging fruits that the public should maximise in fighting corruption include shunning the corrupt at all levels. Article 17 (1) (i) of the Ugandan Constitution vests the duty of combating corruption and misuse of public property in every citizen.
Therefore, this duty can be discharged in various ways such as whistleblowing to the relevant anti-corruption agencies, voting the corrupt out of leadership, rebuking the corrupt at public events and places of worship where they would die to occupy the front seats and above all boycotting businesses run by the corrupt. By the way, if appropriately applied these are the most painful sanctions that our public officials understand the most.
Finally, as we continue cleansing the corrupt actions of our public officials just because they are our tribesmen and women like we have done always, let’s not forget the cost of corruption on public health, education, governance, and the environment, among others. If we are the category of people who still cannot shun the corrupt and all we can do is to believe that external sanctions are a witch-hunt against the corrupt then we are better off perishing and joining those whose lives were cut short because there was no medicine in the health facilities due to corruption.
Mr Badru Walusansa, Policy analyst
