Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Corruption will shoot Gen Tumwine and not the other way round

Vincent Nuwagaba

This article was first published by the Razor Newspaper on August 2, 2011

On Saturday July 30, on UBC Ground Zero talk show they were debating as to whether General Elly Tumwine will shoot corruption. General Tumwine started a civil society organization known as Volunteers Anti Corruption Campaign Africa (VACOCA), to fight corruption. I am one of the initial members that signed so that VACOCA could start. However, apart from hearing about it in the newspapers, I don’t know how effective VACOCA is in the fight against corruption. Before the debate began at Ground Zero, I told the Inspector General of Government Mr. Raphael Baku that while he had been invited to debate corruption on a programme moderated by Mr. Tony Owana, the moderator was the most corrupt person and I told him that we need to first sort out Owana’s corruption before we could make a step in the fight against endemic corruption that has eaten all our social fabric. The reason I said Owana is the most corrupt person is because he detests and stifles views that are critical of the current establishment hence ensuring that the regime orchestrated corruption flourishes.
I attended and spoke on the programme on 25th June but when I said our oil will be a curse if its proceeds are handled and controlled by the sharks Owana removed the microphone from me and made derogatory remarks about me. I have asked him to withdraw those remarks on air and apologise but he has adamantly refused. What he tells me is that since the party he supports is in power, none can successfully file a defamation suit against him. Accordingly, the level of impunity is too high.
Before one can effectively solve corruption, they must first put it into context. I have often times written about corruption and my understanding of corruption is that it is any aberration or deviation from the norm. I don’t know whether nepotism which largely favours people from one ethnic group regardless of whether or not they are the best is viewed by Gen Tumwine as corruption? When I graduated from Makerere University in April 2005, Mr. Semivule the convocation chairman then said in his speech that the number of Makerere University Alumni had hit 56,000. This includes Ugandans and non-Ugandans alike; dead and alive. Makerere University is the oldest and biggest university. It’s the biggest in a sense that its enrolment at anyone time outnumbers all other universities combined.

I have had an opportunity of teaching in two universities and I can authoritatively say that the number of graduates from the other universities is miniscule. Uganda Christian University which is one of the biggest private universities is yet to celebrate 15 years of existence; Islamic University in Uganda started in 1988 with only 80 students while Uganda Martyrs University Nkozi started in 1993 with only 84 students. When you count those that have graduated with degrees, you will be shocked at how small the number is. The question is, why don’t these people get jobs? The answer is corruption. We have many politically connected Ugandans who forge academic documents from Nasser Road and use them to get jobs. Otherwise, if the government was serious about fighting corruption, it would prevail on all employers be it in the private sector or public sector to verify their employees’ and job applicants’ documents with the universities they claim they went through. This is the nth time I am writing about this and nothing has been done. Why? Because people who use forged documents are politically connected.

This renders many university graduates unemployed and what the graduates do in order to make end meet is to open coursework bureaus thereby awarding papers to those who ordinarily wouldn’t qualify for them. They also open printing bureaus and start printing certificates, diplomas and degree transcripts for those that don’t have them. And those who get jobs irregularly steal as much as possible before they are discovered and kicked out. Ultimately corruption begets corruption and the NRM to me is synonymous with corruption.
I am sure Gen Tumwine’s VACOCA can only bark against corruption but will not bite. If Gen Tumwine wants to shoot corruption, he should first shoot the NRM. Otherwise, in an attempt to shoot corruption, Gen Tumwine will himself be shot by corruption. He will never raise a finger when the first family or any member of the historical high command is involved in graft scandal.
The author is a human rights defender
mpvessynuwagaba@gmail.com

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