Augustine Ruzindana
31 October 2008
opinion
On March 10, 2008 the NSSF signed a memorandum of understanding with the sellers of the Temangalo land.
The same day the sale agreement was drafted and signed, then the documentation seeking authority to pay was completed and authority obtained, then payment to the sellers was effected and all the bank transfer procedures were completed. It is as if the officials of NSSF were held at gunpoint. With this unusual set of circumstances who can doubt that these people were acting under extreme pressure?
The spurious argument that the land purchase was an investment and therefore did not come under the procurement laws and regulations is untenable. An investment consists of many steps some of them involving a number of procurement transactions, such as the Temangalo land procurement and at a later stage there should be competitive bidding for building works and management services for the estate when completed. These activities are well known to those who have studied corruption.
Michael Johnson has classified corruption into four syndromes. Uganda falls among countries in which "Official Mogul" corruption takes place. In this group of countries "institutions are very weak, politics remains undemocratic or is opening up slowly, but the economy is being liberalised at least to a degree." Opportunities for enrichment abound and "power is personal and is often used with impunity." He goes on to observe that "in the worst of these cases one person, a family, or a small junta enjoys unchecked rule.
Military leaders may be partners, and in some cases are dominant, in such regimes, often using past corruption as a pretext for taking power. Even where soldiers have returned to their barracks, the top brass may be businessmen and politicians too, backed by the threat of military intervention." He cites an example of Kenya under Daniel arap Moi where "well-placed political figures simply stole from the National Social Security Fund- twice" and another where political backers stole the land on which a public market had operated for decades.
Where official mogul circumstances prevail what is corruption becomes a matter of considerable dispute and who gets to decide its meaning becomes a central fact of political life. That is why in the Temangalo case the vendors demand that the transaction be defined as an investment that does not involve any procurement.
Corruption involves abuse of entrusted public power for private or group gain. In this particular case we have someone who was an MP and a minister when the public procurement law was passed by parliament and who has turned round and asserted that it is not his duty to observe the law in his role of a businessman.
For him it's the nominal legal meaning which is important not its social significance. In this particular case taking into account ethical/cultural standards or public opinion may offer a more realistic response to these false assertions. Whereas indeed some activities involving abuse of power and wealth could be perfectly legal, in this case the main result was the impairment of the participation of others.
The Temangalo case is a good example of how embedded networks work even when the appointing authority may not still be in power. A businessman may assist someone financially to get elected to Parliament and then he becomes a minister or someone in a position to influence appointment of ministers may help someone to become a minister.
Then the minister appoints some friends to a board of directors and the businessman thereafter gets deals from the board through the minister. It could even be the president appointing some people ministers or parastatal heads and then later demanding certain things to be done for him.
Mr Ruzindana is FDC party secretary for research and policy
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