Gov’t urged to boost fight against corruption as Uganda performs poorly in 2019 CPI

By George Mangula

Transparency International Uganda (TIU) has urged government to promote open and meaningful access to decision making to end corruption tendencies in the country.

This is after Uganda maintained its position as the second most corrupt country in the East African region and ranked 137th out of 180 countries globally in the 2019 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2019 released by Transparency International (TI)yesterday.

Peter Wandera, the Executive director of Transparency International Uganda implored the government to make lobbying activities public and easily accessible.

Wandera also asks the government to tackle preferential treatment to ensure budgets and public goods and services are not driven by personal connections.

Countries with lower CPI scores experience an uneven balance of power, where a few wealthy individuals control government purse strings and decision-making.

Nicolaj Heiberg Petersen, Ambassador, Denmark launched the CPI2019 report at Hotel Africana. In Uganda the report was a result of work undertaken by Democratic Governance Facility (DGF) in partnership with TIU.

The former Coordinator of Citizens’ Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU) Crispin Kaheru urged that people who bring big money in the country’s politics are currently among the key drivers of corruption. He said, “There’s immense corruption motivated from the outside of government especially the private sector.”

Some issues raised during the plenary as the 2019 CPI was launched are; – leaders need to be committed, citizens need to take their place in the fight against corruption, effective implementation of the leadership code and Access to Information Act, among others.

Currently, the confidentiality around the access to information and assets declarations is hindering the anti-corruption initiatives, said Cissy Kagaba of Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda (ACCU). The anti-corruption activists also called for improvement in the service delivery at different service centre.

From a deeper scan, activists, said, “Corruption is becoming a demographic problem mainly involving people below 41 years, institutions must be strengthened and national values must be upheld.”

The CPI2019 looks at corruption and political financing. Countries that perform well on the CPI also have stronger enforcement of campaign finance regulations and broader range of political consultation. The reverse is true.

Worldwide, Denmark ranked highest in the CPI 2019 with a score of 87 %.

Speakers at the launch of the 2019 CPI noted that the challenge to fight corruption in Uganda still remains huge, even though  government has put a lot of effort in fighting graft.

There is increasing frustration both within the leadership and the public that little is being done to fight graft and little to celebrate in doing so.

“In Uganda, a lot of effort has gone into institutionalising the fight against corruption. Besides the Auditor General, several institutions have been created to fight graft. The Inspectorate of Government headed by Inspector General of Government, a High Court judge; Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP), headed by another judge; an Anti-Corruption Court, Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA); the police and its Directorate of Criminal Investigations; Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA); and more recently, the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) at State House.

Billions of shillings are spent in budgetary terms to ensure these institutions run and do their work of curbing corruption. Some of the institutions, like the Inspectorate of Government, claim that their funding is limited to enable them do more according to expectation,” says MP Nathan Nandala Mafabi in his opinion on the vice.