Kampala — Until recently the question of who would succeed President Yoweri Museveni was a fashionable subject in newsrooms.

Some of the top contenders would call journalists with their latest survival strategy in what should perhaps one day occupy the book shelves as "the art of not losing a Cabinet appointment".

It will be the third anniversary this month of one such conversation that introduced the colourful phrase "the mafia are fighting me" into the strategic options of those politicians who want to hang on to their expensive perks.

In the dying days of May 2005, then managing director of Monitor Publications Conrad Nkutu was asked to the home of Vice President Gilbert Bukenya for a candid conversation.

The arrangement was done by Mr Simon Kaheru, the VP media strategist and adviser.

On arrival at the Kakiri country home, Mr Nkutu was ushered into the VP's sitting room where a restless Bukenya, a onetime head of the NRM parliamentary caucus, told him political vultures were circling for him and his job.

"They went to my house in Kakiri, photographing my cows and pigs! I hope they are photographing animals of other leaders.

Otherwise it is not fair," Prof. Bukenya said, adding that he had only 10 cows while others have "thousands" [cows were a particularly effective symbolism since Prof. Bukenya, a Muganda, comes from a cultivating background while most senior government members including President Yoweri Museveni are from a cattle keeping tradition and were therefore perceived to be the objects of his enraged complaint].

The "mafia are after me" strategy proved to be a political lifesaver for the VP. Prof. Bukenya was in effect demanding "fairness" in the general muddle of governance, Uganda style.

The crude logic of this proposition has now wide application.

Even pastors caught fleecing their flock claim the mafia (and not the devil) are after them.

VP Bukenya apparently became a target not for his cows and swine but because as the constitutional successor to President Museveni he was the natural successor to the President in an election year when anything could happen.

The VP kept his job much to the chagrin of the so-called mafia. This separation of the rules of politics and that of governance is a crisis of management that if uncorrected can never guarantee that a government in power optimises its performance.

The separate rules of politics and governance also lead to separate benefits one private and the other public.

The Cabinet, the work horse of the state, is ideally a public servant but which cabinet minister serves Mr Museveni just for the official salary and conviction? Probably none.

Like Prof. Bukenya it is the cows, pigs and pawpaws that attract their service which ultimately uses public office for unmoderated private gain.

When the laws of "eating" are applied the way Prof. Bukenya sought to do, it corrupts the ethic of public service (service above self) gradually tipping the balance in favour of acceptable private practice.

Nowadays corruption is seen as a legitimate response to the breakdown of these common rules.

In August 2003, Ms Natasha Karugire, the President's eldest daughter flew the official Gulf Stream to deliver the President's grandchild in Europe, a decision which Mr Museveni publicly remained unapologetic for and instead justified on grounds of the poor hospitals in Uganda [ and the security risks involved for him and his family]- another mafia?

If the President can send his expensive jet on a private errand, how about the minister who sends his office car to deliver matooke and ghee to his young mistress in Kitovu?

What about the permanent secretary? Should he not ask the office driver to take his sick mother to a hospital?

After all he too loves his mother as much as the President loves his daughter and grandchild and the minister his nubile mistress.

And what about the office driver? Must he not make false claims on mileage so that he can pocket some of the petrol money to pay his cousin's school fees?

In the public domain there may exist laws and institutions of good governance and the political rhetoric that extols their prowess but in the private domain including in the Cabinet- the rules of eating powerfully justify that a man or woman must feed where he worketh.

It takes a responsible government to stamp the rules of better governance on its system so as to moderate private gain and prioritise public goods and it is not this government.

Corruption provides security of tenure from the top of the political food chain to the bottom recipients of its patronage.

Censured ministers are returned to the Cabinet because their loyalty is guaranteed in part by the fact that they are allowed to abuse office. They take as much as they can and in return the President is politically secure and the process is replicated down the structure of government.

Ministers can be idle and claim they do not get enough allowances for lacking what to do but they receive no reprimand because this does not amount to challenging the appointing authority.

Those bold enough to demand that values such as frugality are thrown in the cold. The rest, seeing that challenging the status quo can threaten personal security of tenure, keep quiet and continue to abuse whatever is entrusted to them.

The collective tenure is the continuation of business as usual or "No Change" as captured by one of the campaign slogans of the National Resistance Movement.

In effect Mr Museveni needs more incompetent ministers and not less.

Since his re-election there has been speculation that he would replenish his cabinet with fresh bodies but this has not happened.

His new term also began with the claim that he would fight corruption but apart from a few overhyped attempts, the accusation of corruption has been a poor weapon for imposing political correctness.

The stymied delivery of public goods like roads, hospitals and electricity require not just clear policies but a cabinet committed to serving.

The government of Rwanda, its democratic credentials aside, is achieving precisely that much to grumbling and handwringing in Kampala in part because President Kagame until recently was an assistant of President Yoweri Museveni.

The rules tend to be applied uniformly in Rwanda so the President can take away expensive vehicles from ministers and no one claims the mafia is at work.

The dilemma of Uganda is unfortunately systemic and requires a new foundation, one that the current government cannot provide in part because it thrives on the current corruption code which has now been amplified in the wider society.

And yet not because it is not impossible to move on.

If political necessity is the reason why corruption thrives, it appears now that political necessity will again show the door to graft.

Uganda's national debt is again unsustainable, corruption has undermined public services and constrained private enterprise and the economy has remained stagnant, the Cabinet is a gambling room and the President is too politically weak to make bold changes - but ultimately change will happen.

It is possible that a smaller, leaner cabinet which is well paid can take charge of state affairs and reduce the profligacy that has bloated public administration expenditure - a reduction built on a different set of principles and not the disgraced code of thievery which keeps in office a vice president after he has openly admitted to serving with the mafia in cabinet.