According to Human rights watch, major corruption scandals in Uganda have surfaced repeatedly in the last few years, but no high-ranking officials have served prison sentences for corruption-related offences.
The American-founded international non-governmental organization says that these scandals are evident through grand-scale theft of public funds and petty corruption involving public officials at all levels of society as well as widespread political patronage systems.
Despite laws and institutional instruments that are in place to prevent and punish corruption, it is still prevalent among state and non-state officials.
A new report launched this week on Tuesday by Uganda Debt Network (UDN) says that unless checked, the gravity of corruption remains heavy for Ugandan society in respect to equitable economic development, accountability and desirable service delivery outcomes
This report has described the fight against corruption as “fighting back and a failure” because of government’s failure to grant the powers to recover and confiscate property of corrupt officials.
According to Uganda Debt Network (UDN), the report seeks to empower ordinary citizens to participate in influencing poverty-focused policies, demand their rights and monitor social service delivery to ensure prudent, accountable and transparent resource generation and utilisation.
Anti-Corruption Court judge Lawrence Gidudu while at the launch emphasized that although it draws analysis of trends in corruption, implications of corruption cases, it fails to provide concrete recommendations to be adopted by relevant policy and decision-makers, the Daily Monitor reports.
“There is need to start by formulating and implementing strategies that strengthen the independence of anti-corruption authorities and employment of policies to trigger behavioural change if we are to successfully fight corruption from society,” Justice Gidudu said.
He said that the anti-corruption bodies should target prosecuting, imprisoning and recovery of property amassed due to corruption and as the culprit is released; “he should find nothing at home to serve as a lesson to others who are corrupt,”
cnakalungi@ugchristiannews.com
