I read with a sigh of relief the front page of Sunday Vision
(9th March, 2008) story that government of Uganda wants 14 years in
jail for corrupt officials in a new law it is proposing. I am however
skeptical that the present government will actually implement it given
the level of corruption in the very government officials. Today the
corrupt are glorified and hailed as smart and hardworking.
But also, assuming for argument’s sake that the
anti-corruption law is passed, who would be the very first victims? I
hope there would not be selective application of the law since all
Ugandans are supposed to be equal before the law.
Unless we separate form from substance, the
anti-corruption bill will never see the light of the day. Even if it is
passed, it will never be enforced. I have taught political science in a
university and the subject I enjoy most is constitutionalism and
political stability.I have always told my students that a constitution
and constitutionalism are related but the former is useless if it
doesn’t lead to the latter. At best it remains a paper document merely
for window dressing purposes. I strongly feel that law enforcement has
eluded our country Uganda.
My emphasis is on political corruption which by
definition is abuse of office by public officials, not because I condone
corruption in private offices but because space is limited, and it is
public offices that should account to me given that they directly use my
taxes. I also make the direct link between what one would call
deliberate unemployment and corruption. And I say deliberate because
there is no political will to fight unemployment.
Corruption can also mean any form of abuse and any
aberration or moral decadence- sectarianism, cronyism,
influence-peddling, forgery, perjury, vote-buying, bribery,
marginalisation, foul play even in politics including Machiavellianism.
Machiavellianism connotes a principle of the end justifies the means. If
you use depraved means to attain an end whether or not that end is
good, that is simply corruption. I think it should be the purity of
means to justify the end.
But corruption should be broadened to cover the
entire society because corruption is not exclusive to office bearers.
There are many people forging Makerere university transcripts, would
anyone say they are not corrupt? What of the unemployed bright Ugandans
who do course works for students in order to survive? Unless, the root
causes of the cancer are addressed, the minister’s bill won’t go a long
way.
What explanation can the government give for the high
unemployment rates when people with university degrees are less than
0.5% of the country’s population yet government departments alone employ
around 500,000 according to the figures from the Labour Market
Information Bulletin from the Ministry of Gender Labour and Social
Development? I have told my students a degree is intrinsic within the
person, it is the knowledge attained in the course of study.
If you have course works done for you, you forge
documents, or cheat exams you get a certificate which is a mere paper
and not a degree. I have never had a full time job ever since I finished
Makerere University with very good grades in 2004 purely because of
political corruption; because the offices some of us would occupy on
merit are often given on know-who and come-from-where basis. It is
prudent, therefore to argue that the patronage embraced by the
government constitutes high level corruption. And this is the basis of
my skepticism about this government fighting corruption.
I know of a family in this country from Kisoro where
virtually all children upon completion of their studies are recruited
into the police and they become District Police Commanders in a blink of
an eye. The problem of corruption in this country is structural. The
government can hire me as a consultant if it genuinely wants to fight
the monster. The bible says what you sow is what you reap. If fake
people are the ones hired, what stops them from perpetuating the system
that saw them enter office? If one forged papers or cheated exams what
would stop them from stealing public funds?
But also, if one was brilliant but failed to get a
job because of corruption like what happened in the recent police
recruitment what would stop them from pursuing the end using any
possible means? Finally, if one has 100 relatives or friends on the
streets who would be employed purely depending on one person, what would
stop them from stealing public funds to meet their family or social
obligations? The government must do a thorough examination of itself.
Otherwise, it will find it very difficult if not impossible to fight
corruption. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Corruption simply reproduces and reinforces itself.
By Vincent Nuwagaba
Political Scientist and Human Rights Activist
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