----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Opoka-Okumu
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 2:30 AM
Subject: Its Animal Farm...Museveni has no political will- Miria Matembe
It's Animal Farm in Uganda...
By Miria Matembe
Oct 16, 2003 - Monitor
Museveni has no political will
Since I was relieved of my responsibility as minister of ethics and integrity, I have kept silent because if I made comments that are not pleasing to the powers that be, I would be accused of sour grapes.
Mrs Miria Matembe is the (Woman) MP for Mbarara district. She was, until May 2003, the minister for ethics and integrity.
I have no sour grapes but I asked God to shut me up so that I would not be misunderstood.
I have been provoked to break the silence to comment on an issue that has shocked me. I also didn't want to cheat my conscience and betray the people I lead.
I would beg all Ugandans to take my comment in good faith and for the good of this nation.
I am making this comment as a person who for the last four and half years was at the forefront of fighting corruption in this country.
Corruption Vs poverty
One of the biggest challenges to the National Resistance Movement (NRM) government and the country generally is fighting corruption and building ethics and integrity in public offices.
This is not to say that I am oblivious to the issue of fighting poverty and improvement of investment for development.
But I am concerned that unless we decisively deal with corruption in government, it is difficult to realise these other goals.
How can you eradicate poverty when in fact funds meant to do that are lost through corruption? And how can one achieve high levels of investments when investors are frustrated and failed by corrupt officials.
Therefore fighting corruption in my view should be at the forefront of all initiatives taken by government to develop this country.
In the government Strategy and Plan of Action to fight corruption, we identified eight priority areas.
The first is strengthening the capacity of law enforcement agencies for better investigation, prosecution and judgement particularly of corruption cases.
The IGG has been a major actor in the implementation of the plan because his office was established to eliminate corruption, abuse of authority and of public office.
The IGG has unearthed and revealed corruption within government ministries and other government departments.
The office has also carried out courageous prosecutions - unfortunately, a factor that seems to have angered the powers that be.
I am glad to be making this comment when Transparency International has just revealed that Uganda has improved on its position as far as corruption is concerned.
This has been due to the effective co-ordination role played by the Directorate of Ethics and Integrity with support of the IGG, Auditor General, Judiciary, Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) and other institutions that formed the Inter Agency Forum.
Powers for IGG
Through this Inter Agency Forum in 2002, we were able to enact the IGG Act, which brought, strengthened and empowered the office of the IGG within the armpit of the Constitution.
The Inspectorate of Government was established and given special constitutional powers to inspect government and ensure that it acts justly (ombudsman role) towards its employees and that it is not corrupt.
This role is reflected in the title of the office "The Inspectorate of Government".
That is why I am shocked and perturbed by the Cabinet's proposed amendments [to the Constitution], which in essence scraps this role.
The enactment of the IGG statute and giving the office special powers as enlisted in Article 231 of the Constitution was one way of implementing the priority area number one of the government's Action Plan.
Originally the Inspectorate was merely established by an Act of Parliament to investigate corruption and abuse of human rights and simply report to the President.
Not much was realised and the former IGG was very influential in the Constituent Assembly (CA) in making the delegates understand the need for strengthening this institution.
The IGG has been improving and doing better year after year, in fighting corruption.
I am therefore shocked that the Cabinet in its wisdom has found it necessary and important to strip the IGG of its role to fight corruption in public office.
Reversing the gains
What is so saddening is that just a year ago, it took us money, energy and time to work on the IGG statute: empowering the office and making it to bite.
Within one year government finds it important to strip the IGG of this role by recommending to the CRC (Constitutional Review Commission) the creation of a new Article, 231A, which stops the IGG from;
- Prosecuting offenders and directs him to recommend such action to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) especially in cases of corruption, abuse of authority or of public office.
- Interrupting or interfering with the decision making process of ministries, departments and other institutions.
- Revoking, altering, reversing or otherwise stop the implementation of any decision made by the ministry or any other government institution.
- Giving interdiction orders, suspension, dismissal or other methods of removal from office of public officers.
- Entertaining any complaints relating to irregularities in the tendering processes, including award of any tender under any enactment regulating public procurement.
The IGG's findings would only be submitted to the Parliament and a copy sent to the President according to this proposal.
This proposal negates Article 230 of the Constitution which gives the IGG powers to investigate, cause investigation, arrest, cause arrest, prosecute or cause prosecution in respect of cases involving corruption, abuse of authority or of public office.
The proposal is rendering the office cosmetic and powerless in as far as fighting corruption is concerned.
It revokes as it were the IGG statute passed last year.
The proposal is also taking back to the DPP powers of prosecution which the Constitution had given to the IGG.
In my view the IGG has been independent of government and could not be twisted. Now the Cabinet is shifting prosecutions of high profile cases to where they know they can influence the direction of the results.
Outrageous proposals
The proposed amendments are completely outrageous. In our work of fighting corruption, the IGG found out that more than 65 percent of corruption related cases are about procurement of government services and works.
So corruption there relates to ministries, departments and organisations of government.
If the IGG as proposed is stopped from investigating ministries and other government departments, which procure for government services and works, if he is stopped from intervening in the irregularly awarded contracts, who is supposed to do it - and what is left of that office?
If the IGG is stopped from intervening in the decision of any ministry which is alleged to have been influenced by corruption and nepotism; if he is stopped from intervening in the tender awards - what is left for him as far as fighting corruption is concerned?
In short the Cabinet is telling the IGG to get hands off government and only investigate individual employees of government. But how is this possible when all government employees carry out their responsibilities on behalf of government?
Imagine a proposal preventing the IGG from investigating corruption in government procurement. Who then would do that?
I simply can not understand what the Cabinet was up to when it sat, very seriously so, for many days only to come out with such proposals at a time when they should be making proposals to improve the performance of the Constitution.
In any case how can such an obnoxious detailed Article be in the Constitution, the fundamental law of the land?
And can you imagine it is the very office that has been demoralised and de-toothed which is in the Cabinet's proposed amendments being substituted for the Human Rights Commission.
People tell me - if this is not craziness of the highest order what is it?
No junk choppers?
This reminds me of the recent pronouncements of "there was fundamentally nothing wrong with the so called junk helicopters." And "we have never bought junk helicopters".
Can these good people who make such pronouncements be humble enough to tell us, why then did these alright machines [take] well over five years without functioning?
Secondly how comes that the country lost well over US $12 million in this deal.
Thirdly has anybody ever been punished for this loss or since there was nothing fundamentally wrong, there is no need to punish anybody?
Hey, wait a minute, when I look at the proposed amendment, the Kakooza incident comes to my mind. Remember Maj. Kakooza Mutale was dismissed on the recommendations of the IGG.
This recommendation must have angered the powers that be, resulting into a very awkward situation where the defendant (the government) in Kakooza's current case in court, has turned out to be among the plaintiff's witnesses!
Is it any wonder therefore that the IGG powers to recommend any disciplinary action of any employee of government is being taken away by this proposed amendments?
The proposal 231F stops the IGG from reporting to the relevant authority and says that he should report to Parliament which has no powers of implementation.
Why is there then any need to investigate at all?
What does giving a copy to the President means? Copies that will lie in office and end up in the archives like most of the cases have been.
Resentment of IGG
For me I can not believe my eyes. I did not know that the usual resentment of the IGG by some Cabinet ministers would be demonstrated through proposals to the CRC that strips the office of its role to fight corruption and abuse of office.
But, anyway, I was not surprised that this happened because all along as we worked together with the Inter Agency Forum, we faced a lot of pressure, resentment and hardships from some of the ministries.
The IGG's capacity and ability to investigate these ministries without fear or favour has been a pain in the neck to some of the ministries, notably the ministry of justice.
The IGG has been able to unearth a lot of mess in the ministry of justice and of course a number of reports and recommendations made therein have gone unimplemented.
Incidentally it is the ministry of justice, which is responsible for the CRC.
The public should recall the loss of more than two billion shillings through an irregular contract of supplying the ballot paper during the local government elections.
The IGG and I put up a spirited fight to stop the process but we were overruled. I think this did not go down well with the ministry.
No political will
Then there is another case of an alleged irregular payment of US $1,369,407 to some firm. The Yugoslav case, the Florence Lubega case, some other cases involving Bitangaro and Company Advocates and many more. (Bitangaro was the acting attorney general at the time Cabinet was discussing these proposals!).
I know also of the cases involving the ministry of education where the IGG unearthed irregularities in the tendering process and this did not go down well with the powers that be.
There are so many cases in local government, not forgetting the Rakai district infamous one where despite the IGG's findings the current chairman remains a hero and his swearing in ceremony was coloured with the presence of big government officials.
So is it any wonder now that Cabinet is seeking to strip the office of the IGG of its powers by forwarding such proposals to the CRC.
If I can ask therefore, where is the political will, where is the political commitment to fight corruption?
I am not sure whether the minister for ethics and integrity personally attended the meeting that reached these decisions because I am wondering how he would be able to fight corruption in offices in case these proposals are accepted.
The government is on one hand giving the IGG powers to fight corruption and on the other hand stripping the office of the same powers.
This whole situation reminds me of the Animal Farm by George Orwell.
Once in a while the animals looked up to the rules to find some
adjustments - the totality of which negated the revolution and at the end of it all the animals were back to zero with "Mr Man" back and the "Animal Farm" renamed Manor Farm once again.
Friends, I can write more and more without an end. Perhaps time is ripe for me to record my experience in the fight against corruption in a book as I did in the fight for gender equality.
For now I say; "Cry for my beloved country"!
© 2003 The Monitor Publications
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
