President Museveni during a recent televised national address. The President has of late been labelling his critics agents of foreign interests. PHOTO | PPU
President Museveni’s two hours and 33 minutes televised national address on Saturday, July 20, appeared intently to warn anyone inclined to take part in the anti-corruption march to Parliament whose organisers he labelled foreign-backed agents seeking “to foment chaos in Uganda.”
Since the 2020 election campaigns, the President has variously accused his rivals of being “agents” of the neo-colonialists.
However, the same neo-colonial powers—the US, UK and European Union and by extension through the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)—are huge funders of Uganda’s development, particularly budget support, infrastructure, health, water and sanitation, among others.
Through their respective donor organisations, Western governments tight mark monies they funnel to Uganda’s development agenda, leaving little or no room for embezzlement. This leaves the Uganda government purse open for officials to meddle with through dubious procurements, inflation of tenders, cost overruns, and misappropriation, name it.
The West is now the problem, it appears, according to Mr Museveni who at his inauguration in 1986, said Africa’s problem is leaders who overstay in power. It also appears that it is only right for the West to deal with the government and wrong to deal with another person in Uganda.
While commissioning Speaker of Parliament Anita Among’s teaching hospital on March 23, Mr Museveni labelled activists, who lifted the lid on the plundering in the House weeks, as “traitors working for wrong foreigners”
“People like [Speaker] Anita Among are not the problem. The real problem we have is the traitors working for foreigners. They are not mistake makers but outright traitors working for wrong foreigners like homosexuals and imperialists,” he said.
In a post on X last Thursday, the President re-echoed his charge that the anti-corruption demonstrations “had two bad elements. Element no.1, was funding from foreign sources that are always meddling in the internal affairs of Africa” and secondly, “that some of the authors and participants of the demonstrations, were planning very bad things against the people of Uganda. Those very bad things will come out in court when those arrested are being tried.”
During the last election campaigns that were marred by violence, the government public relations machinery variously justified the kidnap of particularly National Unity Platform (NUP) supporters in broad light, accusing them of, among others, planning to burn the city.
Scores of NUP supporters were picked up by security organs and held incommunicado for months. Four years later, 28 NUP supporters are battling charges before the General Court Martial in defiance of the Constitutional Court ruling that the military court has no powers to try civilians.
See no evil, hear no evil
The July 20 protests came on the heels of an intensive anti-corruption march to Parliament adding to the bad optics that have marred the August House.
The Anita Among-led Parliament, with 529 elected MPs and 577 technical staff, has since March been reeling in bad publicity of abuse of office and claims of unethical conduct. The allegations were first illuminated through the #Ugandparliamentexhibition spearheaded by the activism group, Agora Discourse.
The bad optics took a turn in April with the UK and the US slapping sanctions on Ms Among, and two former Karamoja ministers; Mary Goretti Kitutu and Agnes Nandutu for their involvement in the iron sheets (mabaati) theft scandal.
Speaker Among variously described the sanctions as “politically motivated” over her stance on homosexuality.
In various speeches, President Museveni cautiously skirted commenting on the sanctions altogether but he previously commended Ms Among and MPs for doing their work.
The planned demonstrations two days after the President’s speech, demanding, among others, cutting the size of Parliament and the resignation of Speaker Among over corruption resulted in more than 100 activists being arrested, charged and remanded.
The corruption aggrieved activists, Mr Museveni suggested that they consult with relevant authorities to pencil in a less busy day to march in a less crowded area such as Kololo Independence Grounds.
In his post on X last Thursday, the President said “if it was a patriotic, anti-corruption, peaceful demonstration, coordinated with the Police, I would have been the first to join.”
Inexplicably, five years ago on December 3, Kampala came to a standstill for hours as President Museveni, as the chief walker, led hundreds of people to march against corruption and highlight gains made in combating the vice.
”I know many of you [thieves], I just don’t have enough evidence. If you see me not arresting you, don’t think you’re safe. I’m just waiting for enough evidence…Corrupt money has bad luck. How come all these people who steal somehow things don’t work out?” Mr Museveni said.
The anti-corruption walk was met with widespread cynicism as for long spells graft has come to be known as the jet fuel of the clientele patronage system.
A year later, billions of shillings allocated to the Covid-19 relief were pillaged in procurement wheeler-dealing and for which several audits implicated several officials but none has ever been brought to book.
The following year in December 2021 during commemoration of the anti-corruption week, President Museveni cautioned the then newly Inspector General of Government (IGG) Beti Kamya to go slow on enforcing a lifestyle audit since the corrupt steal and invest the money locally.
Discordant government
During his State-of-the-Nation address and budget speech, last month, Mr Museveni doubled down on grabbing the corruption bull by the horns.
Ten days after the June 13 presidential budget speech, and after three MPs Cissy Namujju, Paul Akamba and Yusuf Mutembuli had been arrested and charged on allegations of budgetary fraud, Ms Among, while appearing at a public event in Lwengo District, appeared to endorse the criminal actions of her colleagues.
“You are better having a child who eats and brings home,” Ms Among said, further adding that the embattled Namujju had diligently served her constituents “and should be voted back in 2026.”
The comments, from the country’s third most important citizen in the National Order of Precedence, drew public ire against the backdrop of glaring revelations of the effects of corruption on service delivery.
Like a pet subject, President Museveni has variously been pledging to tame graft, which according to estimates by the IGG, costs the country Shs9.7 trillion annually.
Endemic corruption and abuse of office and other ills forced the then 39-year-old Museveni and 26 others to pick up arms to fight a costly war in the Luweero triangle.
But to some observers, history has an uncanny way of repeating itself. After nearly 40 decades in power, President Museveni finds himself in a spot of bother of the same ills, especially corruption and abuse of office, which bogged down his predecessors.
Last weekend, the President turned the guns on the march to Parliament campaigners, labelling them as foreign-backed agents “to foment chaos in Uganda.
Study after study by pollsters, including Transparency International and AfroBarometer, have detailed corruption as an endemic problem as a major problem that hinders economic, political, and social development, and one they want the government to urgently address.
Uganda, according to this year’s Transparency International corruption index, ranked in the 141st position out of 180 countries.
As trillions of shillings are plundered through among others procurement wheeler-dealing, theft of public drugs, or medical personnel and public school teachers regularly skipping work, the electorate continues to die as a result of negligible diseases, pupils take classes under trees and mothers give birth by the roadside creating one of the most uneven societies.
During an impromptu visit to National Medical Stores (NMS) in Kajansi, Entebbe, early last year , IGG Kamya made a case for collective fighting against corruption.
“If you know any information of corruption here at NMS and your person dies because of lack of medical supplies, don’t say the government. You are an accomplice to that death,” Ms Kamya said, adding: “For us here, me and Mr Kamabare (the NMS General Manager), none of us is going to die in Mulago hospital because there is no medicine. If there is medicine, they will call the President and the President will put him on the plane and take him to America.”
The last published costs of treatment for VIPs and their relatives abroad between the financial years 2013/2014 and 2015/2016 showed that an estimated Shs10b was spent.
In 2019, Parliament contentiously approved the Ministry of Finance’s $379m (Shs1.4 triliion) security to guarantee a private investor to construct a world class hospital along Entebbe Road to contain treatment of VIPs abroad. Five years later the project is a bottomless pit for funds.
In the two-hour address on July 20, the President dwelt on five issues mainly; the environment, especially the wetlands; wealth creation; jobs creation; regional integration; and parasitism, whether intended or otherwise.
Out of touch with reality?
“I remember very well, that in 1986, I evicted the people that had invaded Mabira Forest following the order by Idi Amin that people should take over the forests because forests have “no value” and “grow crops” because they have more value,” Mr Museveni said.
Strangely, 18 years ago the President had authorised the giveaway of 7, 279 hectares of the Mabira forest for large scale sugar cane growing to Sugar Corporation of Uganda (Scoul). This newspaper first reported in 2011 that the President and Cabinet were advised against the decision, which contravened Article 237 (2) of the Constitution and section 44 (1) of the Land Act, but in vain.
The proposed Mabira give way sparked deadly protests in 2007.
Regarding wetlands, he said there was “no encroachment by 1986 in most parts of Uganda except for the areas of Busoga, Bukedi and Kigezi” before calling for display of satellite imagery depicting the pattern of destruction.
“Blaming Nema as to why they allowed people to settle in the wetland and come later to evict them, is, of course, a good point. However, it does not exonerate the encroachers and their backers. Who does not know what a wetland is? Are you a Ugandan or are you from Europe? It is the duty of everybody, to defend Uganda’s survival,” the President noted.
State of environment
According to the 2015 and 2019 wetland status report at the Ministry of Water and Environment, the country’s wetland coverage has considerably waned from 13 percent in 1994 to 8.9 percent in 2019.
Last month, Nema intensified eviction of encroachers from wetlands but the operations have conspicuously targeted impoverished communities. Across the country, there are numerous examples of the politically connected constructing plush homes, hotels or industries in swamps or engaging in opaque sand mining on the shores of Lake Victoria but often they get away with crime.
The President further delved into his favourite subject of wealth creation, which the government has attempted in numerous schemes, from Bonna Bagaggawale (Prosperity for All), Plan for the Modernisation for Agriculture, Entandikwa, National Agriculture Advisory Services, Operation Wealth Creation, Northern Uganda Social Action Fund (NUSAF), Youth Livelihood ventures, Emyooga, to now Parish Development Model (PDM). Billions of shillings have been thrown at each intervention, but with varying degrees of success.
Between 2021 and 2025, the government committed Shs1 trillion per financial year—giving Shs100m to the 10,594 parishes for Saccos and enterprise groups for onward lending to subsistence households.
However, the Junior Finance minister Henry Musasizi was quoted in this newspaper last week as admitting that they were struggling to find tangible benefits on the ground.
Over the last two decades Uganda has registered rapid growth and development, attributed to among others massive investment in infrastructure and improved human capital index, while at the same time an unacceptably high proportion of Ugandans continued to suffer from severe and multidimensional deprivation.
A 2016 World Bank poverty assessment report for the period of 2006 to 2013 detailed that while the proportion of the Ugandan population living beneath the national poverty line declined from 31.1 percent in 2006 to 19.7 percent in 2013, poverty is much more than the mere lack of money; it is about deprivation in other important areas of wellbeing such as education, health, water, and housing, areas where the government allocates huge sums of money annually but it is embezzled by officials
Matooke
As the President concluded his address, he called for drone footage of lush banana plantations in Isingiro District. During release of crop and animal census data in March, the Ministry of Agriculture indicated that banana was among the priority crops for agro-industrialisation, alongside coffee, cocoa, cassava, beans, millet, sorghum, ground nut, and edible oil seed (sesame, soybean, and sunflower).
However, a tour of several banana growing belts reveals otherwise, with most farmers being ripped off by middlemen which has remained a long-standing concern. This is, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, compounded by farmers’ lack of access to affordable credit and financial services which hamper their ability to invest in quality agro inputs, water for production, machinery and modern technology.
In 2015, the President, concerned that 40 percent of banana grown was being wasted, established the Presidential Initiative on Banana Industrial Development (PIBID), to increase the value of bananas to maximise profits, but over the years, it has come under value for money scrutiny.
The PIBID bears parallels with the Soroti Fruits Limited, also referenced in the presidential address, commissioned in April 2019 to provide a market for locally grown mangoes and oranges but has remained a white elephant while gorging billions of shillings.
This, as thousands of tea farmers across the country have the last twelve months been teetering on the edges of financial implosion as Uganda’s produce continues to fetch as low as $0.79 (Shs2,900) per kg at the Mombasa auction without meaningful government intervention. Uganda’s farmers have been adversely affected compared to neighbours in the region.
