Musumba’s directive to permanent secretaries props up corruption

By Vincent Nuwagaba

First published by 256news.com under The Mouthpiece Column on 24 November 2009

I was caught by shock and consternation after reading the press reports that Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) witnesses were ordered to shut up. See Daily Monitor Tuesday 24 November 2009. “In an October 16 letter, Mr Isaac Musumba, the Minister of State for Regional Cooperation, asked all Permanent Secretaries not to answer some questions from MPs on the Public Accounts Committee, who are investigating the alleged misuse the funds meant for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting held in Kampala in November 2007”.

The order from Mr. Musumba is tantamount to propping up corruption and waters down the government’s resolve to fight corruption. It also tells us that maybe Mr. Musumba got the directives from the president. If that is not the case, I expect the president to sack Hon Musumba for he is sabotaging the president’s efforts to fight corruption.

I am one of the very few people who protested the hosting of Chogm here in Uganda arguing that given the economic quagmire and quandary we are in, we were not in position to spend Shs 30 billion to host Chogm delegates for only one week. I asked what would my mother benefit from the hosting of Chogm and many people said I was antidevelopment because Chogm was going to open so many opportunities for the country. From what we were told before hosting the event, we have learnt from the state owned newspaper The New Vision that Shs 370 billion was spent on hosting the event. It is possible that the country could have spent 400 or 500 billion on the event.

Our country is seething with high levels of graduate unemployment. Yet our leaders always tell us to create our own jobs. I am sure that money could have built a number of factories to absorb our unemployed graduates. That money could also be enough to subsidise university education which is becoming inaccessible to the majority poor. Only four months ago, my mother was suffering from fibroids and when I took her for a surgical operation at Mulago I was asked Shs 3million. How many Ugandans can afford 3 or 2 million for medication? When you go to Mulago now there are two wings; the private wing and the general ward. In the general ward, doctors will tell you, a patient can spend three weeks without being attended to. Within that period, a patient can meet the creator before being attended to.

When I took my mother, a gynecologist told me, “I used to treat such cases from Naguru Health Centre IV but now Naguru is no more” When I asked him why, he told me, “Don’t ask me many questions, let us leave the Naguru issue” before adding that, “it is our system that has betrayed us”.

From the foregoing, we can infer that Chogm was not a priority in the first place but we need not cry over spilt milk. What we must do is to ensure that those who made a fortune out of the taxpayers’ money don’t only give accountability papers but refund that money in addition to being sent to the University of understanding. I know the president often develops cold feet while fighting corruption when his loyalists are implicated but this time he must show seriously that he is ready to fight corruption. I know that he fears that dealing with the corrupt will cost him electoral fortunes but he ought to pick a leaf from President Paul Kagame.

All of us must realise that corruption is a cancer that must be fought collectively. We need to learn that corruption causes unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, poor roads, and poor health services, widens the gap between the rich and the poor and breeds conflict and criminality. Corruption compromises criminality and whoever shields the corrupt is a societal danger. In fact the web of criminality that we are entrapped in is a direct or indirect consequence of corruption. Like I have always argued corruption begets corruption.

The civil society stands between the state and the citizens and accordingly, civil society is the voice of the citizens. Civil society activists ought to come out openly and decry Musumba’s order. I reiterate my call upon the president to relieve Musumba of his duties because Ugandans cannot stand corrupt ministers anymore at a time when the president has vowed to fight the corruption monster.

Ugandan politicians who have become synonymous with corruption ought to realise that pushing the people against the wall is unacceptable. My campus friend Paul Musamali used to tell me that the corrupt politicians need to be ostracised and I used to think that we can reform them. Now I strongly agree with him that leaders who have pursued self-aggrandisement at the expense of the majority who have been turned into the wretched of the earth must be shunned. We need to shun their functions; we shun their political gatherings and even their social functions such as weddings. We must make the cost of corruption very high; even if they slaughter cows and buy lots of drinks for us, we need to reach a time when we should say, we cannot come. I remember Mzee Boniface Byanyima refused money for condolence from one of the topmost personalities in this country saying it may be part of global fund.
For God and my country!

Vincent Nuwagaba is a human rights defender and can be reached via vnuwagaba@gmail.com or +256702 843 552