Let us face it. We are losing the fight against corruption. In 2023, during the ceremony to honour the late Charles Okello Engola at Kololo Ceremonial grounds, President Yoweri Museveni conceded as much.
In his address, Museveni stated candidly that the Inspectorate of Government led by Betty Kamya cannot defeat corruption. Just over a year, in his state-of-the-nation address delivered at the same grounds, Museveni confessed to having evidence of syndicates for stealing government's money involving members of parliament and officers at the ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development. Not many were surprised.
Museveni only corroborated ongoing allegations (on social media) of abuse of stupefying amounts of money via doubtable social responsibility and travel programs by the speaker and other members of parliament. The figures involved ever more colossal and the thieving schemes ever more audacious, there need not be denying that the president's observation is incontrovertible: the Inspectorate of Government is failing.
Not without understandable reason. As underfunded and understaffed as it is, the Inspectorate of Government is no match for the speed, sophistication, impunity and shamelessness with which the corrupt of Uganda operate. (In fact, the inspectorate should be commended for its successes even if these seem dismal).
But it is not only the Inspectorate of Government that is failing. President Museveni's threats too. Now, the president's threats (as well as arrests, inquiries, prosecution, dismissals, etc.) have not stopped corruption from getting worse. Other efforts too.
It is ironic, for instance, that as more and more Ugandans have been exposed for corruption and sanctioned (particularly by the USA and the EU), corruption in the country is just increasing. Moreover, the corruption is not limited to the theft of government money.
In churches, mosques, community organizations, cultural institutions, cooperatives, homes, etc., corruption is pervasive. Indeed, for many Ugandans, non-involvement in corruption is due to lack of opportunity to steal; not integrity. That is why many anticorruption crusaders of yesteryears reportedly committed the same corruption they used to decry or worse once they got into positions of power.
It is in this context that various exhibitions of corruption in the country are raging on the social media platform, X. President Museveni has now renewed his threats against the corrupt and Uganda Police Force is arresting some suspects.
Unsurprisingly, success rates are discouragingly low. Although some researchers confirm that detection and punishment could deter corruption, this possibility is moderated by demonstration effect.
The researchers add that, conversely, prevalence of people who got away with corruption and perceptions that the government is corrupt -- as is the case in Uganda -- encourage corruption. Hence, the unmistakable failure of the theory of change. Here, corruption is endemic; so, candidates for punishment are too many for our capacity to catch. And some are too powerful for our ability/ willingness to punish, which is why many get away with corruption unscathed.
Although ongoing prosecution of ministers and members of parliament suspected of corruption is generating excitement, precedent encourages pessimism that real progress is being made against corruption.
From the junk helicopters and valley dam scandals of the 1990s through the Justice Julia Sebutinde commissions of inquiry into Uganda Police and Uganda Revenue Authority in the early 2000s to the Gavi and CHOGM inquiries of the late 2000s -- in which high-profile leaders like Her Excellency Dr Specioza W. Kazibwe, His Excellency Professor Gilbert B Bukenya and ministers Jim Muhwezi and Mike Mukula were spiritedly put on the pedestal and some were sent to prison--nothing prevented the abuse we subsequently witnessed in NSSF, OPM, Uganda's Covid-19 response and the Karamoja iron sheets scandal.
Most recently, in Lwengo, the speaker of parliament, Anita Among, defended the embattled area member of parliament, Cissy Namujju, via analogous (but unmistakable) endorsement of corruption: "you are better [off ] having a child who eats and brings home," she said.
With that demonstration effect, particularly looking at the lucrative placement of the protagonists in various corruption scandals in government/ society, many people who should be deterred from corruption are so motivated to be corrupt that they are unencumbered by the threat of penalty.
The motivation is such that rather than avoid corruption, people are responding to the threat of penalty by devising cleverer ways of avoiding getting caught. Efforts to sustainably alleviate corruption should include a strong focus on taking away this motivation and tolerance for corruption.
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And a great way to do this is by systematically teaching learners at all levels to exalt integrity and, correspondingly, abhor corruption. Since decisions to participate in corruption are made in people's minds, attitudes against corruption must be put in the same minds through education. That way, Ugandans will resist corruption because they do not want to be corrupt, even if there are opportunities to steal and get away with it.
That is the theory of change that will work. Yet the theory begs two questions for the Inspectorate of Government and others involved in fighting corruption in the country: what in the Anti-Corruption Act, 2009, focuses on using education to discourage corruption?
What in our curricula at the various levels of education focuses on promoting the objects of the Anti-Corruption Act?
The author is the general secretary of Makerere University Academic Staff Association (MUASA).
