Kampala — A LOT of time wasted during the term of the former Inspector General of Government (IGG), Faith Mwondha, negatively impacted on national efforts to curb corruption, ethics state minister Dr. James Nsaba Buturo said.

Buturo said Mwonda built and centred the fight against the vice around herself, causing the inspectorate to fail to work as a team.

"It is common sense that when faced with a formidable challenge and your strength is not enough, you need to combine energies. Matters of the state require the involvement of everybody and not a single individual. That is why the President has ministers," he said.

However, he said, the situation had now improved under the new leadership of the acting IGG, Raphael Baku, with the staff at the inspectorate now pulling in one direction as a team.

Buturo made the remarks at the Sheraton Hotel Kampala, as he presided over the closure of a one week human resource management training course for senior officers of the inspectorate drawn from across the country.

Baku, in his speech, urged the officials to brace themselves for serious battles against corruption, now that they had been empowered through the training.

In April this year, President Yoweri Museveni appointed Baku who served as deputy IGG to be the acting IGG pending the appointment of a substantive IGG and a second deputy.

Mwondha caused controversy when she refused to go to Parliament for vetting. She argued that the Parliament cleared her for the job when she was first appointed in 2005 and there was no need to repeat the exercise.

Constitutional Court ruled that she and her deputy needed to be vetted by Parliament for a second four year term.

Prior to the ruling, Mwondha, who investigated the GAVI Fund which led to the prosecution of the three former health ministers, doubted whether she would be fairly assessed because some of the MPs had been investigated by her office for corruption.