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Uganda: Kazini And the Danger of Eating Small Frogs
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The Monitor (Kampala)
13 May 2008
Posted to the web 14 May 2008
Kampala
When former Army Commander Maj. Gen. James Kazini, and two other officers, was recently convicted for their role in creation of ghost soldiers in the military pay roll (which resulted in Shs60 million being stolen), you could hear the cynical giggles as far as Alexandria.
Some people laughed because Shs60 million was a drop in two oceans in an army where probably 10,000 times more than that has been stolen over the last 20 years.
This has caused many to ask "why Kazini", when other bigger thieves - the chaps who buy junk equipment, pint-size uniforms, and expired dry rations for the army - are free?
The wider explanation is that from around 1988, corruption became an instrument for rewarding those who are in favour, or punishing dissenters who oppose or seek to unseat Mzee (i.e. President Yoweri Museveni).
In other words anti-corruption policy is not for good governance, but political control and forging political cohesion.
First, since corruption was rampant in government, and well-connected business people still get all sorts of scandalous generous sweetheart deals (billions of shillings from the Central Bank to bail out their bankrupt businesses), you couldn't keep corruption out of UPDF.
After all it's the men of the gun who fought in the bush, so how can they not be allowed to also eat when the civilians who didn't sacrifice are lining their pockets?
It's alleged that some of the moneys allocated to Defence were turned into political slush funds and used by the ruling NRM to finance political campaigns during elections. The army was the best channel because, in the first instance, details of its expenditure are shielded from public examination because they are "classified".
Secondly, channeling political money through Defence meant that it didn't fall into the hands of the politicians in the NRM who could use it to build an independent political base from which to challenge President Museveni.
There is, for example, a widely held view that the reason Maj. Gen. Jim Muhwezi was censured for alleged abuse of office (with a nod of encouragement from State House) and was hauled over the fire for allegedly pocketing some of the Global Funds money meant to help HIV patients, is not because he was corrupt.
Rather, that he had threatened to use his vast wealth to challenge Museveni. Corruption has also been used to keep many NRM politicians in check. Apart from two or three people, there's a file on nearly all the NRM politicians who pose a threat to Museveni detailing all their dirty activities over the years.
As soon as they make critical noises, they are shown the files. They promptly shut up, or again begin supporting the President openly. Otherwise, they are told, their thieving will be exposed, and prosecution will follow. This is one reason why all this talk about "Museveni facing a challenge from within the NRM, not from an external source" is worthless.
Indeed even Dr Kizza Besigye, who broke ranks with Museveni early, and is considered to have been generally a relatively honest officer, still had to defend himself against accusations that he might have "chewing something small" in the junk helicopter saga. You would have thought that by now, enough people would have learnt, they would stay away from appointments by Mr Museveni.
However, because the rewards of corruption are so generous - and Museveni is a very good student of human weakness - the queue of people waiting for appointments to some fat position where they can amass an illegitimate fortune just keeps growing longer. To sum up, then, it would have run counter to strategy if Kazini were
prosecuted for causing the loss of Shs10b billion.
That would have suggested that someone was serious about dealing with corruption. That is such big money and it would be understandable that someone would be angry if it were stolen. But by hammering Kazini over Shs60 million, the signal being sent is that the action is symbolic.
Basically, the powers that be are saying to other people out there who have eaten more and are making (or planning to make) trouble that "if we can take Kazini, a former army commander to court and he gets three years over Shs60 million, imagine what we will do to you who, we know, stole Shs25 billion."
We argued at the beginning that corruption is used as a kind of political glue. There is a group of people in the NRM who rally, and work tooth and nail to preserve "their" power, because they have accumulated a lot of wealth corruptly.
They are so terrified that a new order cannot, possibly, spare them so they hang together to protect their bread. The result of all this is that Uganda today creates great opportunities for corruption (e.g. Chogm contracts, land grabbing).
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Therefore, most of our courts and institutions (like the IGG) exist for selective punishment of the corrupt who step out of line. There's not a credible state-funded institution for stumping out graft. Name one, if we are wrong.
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