How corruption is accelerating Uganda’s decadence

As they say one swallow does not make summer. Similarly dismissing a couple of ministers won’t end corruption in Uganda. The problem needs a surgical operation and it can’t wait. This is the kind of situation, an emergency, where there is no room for patience. When the house is on fire, as Uganda is, you need to move fast but use the right tools. Fighting fire with fire as some Ugandans are fond of reasoning could make matters worse. To uproot corruption, we need to define it more broadly and understand the link between it and the decadence in Uganda. Proper understanding of the impact of corruption has been undermined by focusing on factors of secondary importance such as lack of resources, skilled personnel, contraception facilities, long distance from the Indian Ocean, etc.

Corruption goes beyond merely taking public money for private use. It includes using public money to corrupt officials to take or ignore certain actions that are harmful to the economy and society. It means relying on relatives or ‘yes’ men and women who will not point a finger at a problem when they see it. So dealing with corruption needs a comprehensive framework. Many Uganda elites have tolerated corruption because they see it as the quickest way to accumulate wealth. Instead of fighting it they scramble to be part of it. But they forget that they are creating serious problems down the road that will affect them directly or indirectly. For example when they fall sick, they do not get good healthcare because the money to buy medicine disappeared into private pockets. Or when their wives go to the clinic to deliver, there is no midwife or doctor because they were not paid and left the profession or the country or they charge a fee that may be too high. Some are even defending corruption as an integral part of rapid economic development. Yet others are arguing that corruption is universal but two wrongs do not make a right. We need to have a long term view of how corruption is destroying Uganda and take appropriate corrective measures.

In Uganda corruption has become endemic and institutionalized making it the number one deterrent to economic and social development. Public money and much of it donations for development has not only disappeared into private pockets or used to bribe officials and opinion leaders but also most of it has found its way in foreign banks – back to where it came from. With a few illustrations, let us trace how corruption is accelerating decadence in the once “Pearl of Africa”.

The disappearance of funds for recurrent expenses including salaries and capital development has led to two immediate outcomes: massive brain drain and shortage of funds for investment in or maintenance of infrastructure such as roads and energy and institutions such as research and extension. Thus, Uganda’s acute shortage of funds and qualified and experienced personnel is mostly a function of corruption. In turn the shortage of funds and trained manpower has led to reduction in design and investment in capital and social infrastructure. Reduced investments in infrastructure such as roads and energy; schools and clinics or maintenance of existing infrastructure and institutions have discouraged private investment which NRM government had counted on as the engine of growth and job creation. Lack of adequate employment opportunities in the public and private sectors has resulted in massive unemployment and disguised unemployment (under-employment) especially among the youth to the tune of over 80 percent. The unemployed and underemployed have no purchasing power to induce production of goods and services. The reduction in the production of goods and services is reflected in reduced GDP growth rate from 10 percent in the mid-1990s to around five percent currently. Lack of jobs and income has aggravated absolute poverty which stands at over 50 percent. To make ends meet, the unemployed and poverty-stricken have resorted to criminal activities and a breakdown of morality. Insecurity is up, witness high walls in urban residential areas and unprotected sex workers are getting and spreading disease. The youth are dropping out of school and getting married in their teens and having many children they cannot afford and have no money for contraception. Population growth is getting out of control because poor people produce more children than rich ones. Because the poor cannot afford electricity they are resorting to charcoal and deforestation has followed with adverse impact on temperature and rain patterns as well as soil erosion. Exposed soils are losing fertility through wind and water erosion, temperatures are rising, rivers are drying up, lakes are shrinking, water tables are dropping and Uganda is turning into a desert (the Sahara was once covered in thick forests with abundant water bodies). A UN agency has already warned that Uganda could turn into a desert within 100 years if corrective measures are not instituted without delay. Finally corruption may have reduced funds needed to hire adequate border patrols, resulting in uncontrolled illegal immigrants that are already causing trouble.

Through these illustrations you can see how corruption is strangling Uganda. You therefore cannot end it by merely forcing a few ministers out of office. Fingers are pointing in all directions, implying that the entire NRM system is corrupt. Those who continue to praise and defend NRM government have no basis for doing so unless they are using hidden criteria. NRM is corrupt to its neck. The obvious solution is to uproot the NRM system that has caused too much suffering. Since much of Uganda’s revenue comes from foreign donations, we appeal to the donors to recast their policies significantly reducing money going directly to the government in the first instance. The argument that reducing donations will hurt the poor is not convincing because the money through government never gets to them anyway – directly or indirectly. And that is why despite massive donations absolute poverty has remained unacceptably high: over 50 percent. Through corruption, much donor money has gone to a few rich families skewing income distribution, the rest has been squandered through mismanagement due to hiring relatives who are not qualified much less experienced. In circumstances like these anything is possible including a breeding ground for all sorts of evils. And guns, torture chambers, air force, military, police, intelligence and prisons won’t solve the problem. NRM is largely responsible but has no will or capacity to reverse course. Someone else with clean hands will have to do it. Ongoing peaceful and legitimate demonstrations are part of that solution. This is a democratic process which the government should not frustrate through intimidation, arrest and shooting peaceful demonstrators. To succeed, development partners will need to extend a helping hand to those seeking a peaceful resolution of Uganda’s current political, economic, social and ecological challenges.

ERIC KASHAMBUZI
NEWYORK

To understand Museveni and Uganda’s decadence, read him dialectically

Let me begin with this statement to clear the air. In analyzing Uganda I have decided to use Museveni because my research has led me to conclude that Museveni is the governing party, the cabinet, parliament and the appointing authority (some people are refusing to leave their jobs on account of incompetence or corruption unless the appointing authority says so). But I refer to Museveni in his public, not private capacity.

President Museveni gave Ugandans hope during the bush war and a few years after he assumed power. He formed a government of national unity. He said all the right things. He announced that the people of Uganda were sovereign and government the servant of the people. The army would protect the territory and defend the people against external aggression. He wanted religion out of politics. He repeated that his administration would eradicate, not reduce, poverty. At one time he expressed genuine concern that economic growth was not trickling down to the masses. He launched barter trade to overcome classical international trade problems. He was firm about ending corruption, sectarianism and mismanagement. He criticized leaders who stayed in power too long and wasted public funds on imported furniture, hosting huge parties and travelling expensively while Ugandans had no shoes. He did not even want to wear western suits. He wanted to be one of the ordinary people who sheltered and fed him during the bush war. He said his administration would be a short one because he wanted to operate on the Pan-African stage. He told the nation that his training in political economy prepared him adequately to address Uganda challenges. He stressed that Uganda would be metamorphosed, become industrialized with a middle class society. Education, healthcare, nutrition, science and technology and infrastructure and environmental management would lead the way. He added that Ugandans would choose their leaders in periodic free and fair elections. He confirmed that his administration would be based on individual merit and the sky would be the limit. Perfect!

Museveni who came to power with little domestic and external support began to attract attention. After adopting structural adjustment ideology in 1987, Uganda received massive external support in money and advisers and experts in key ministries particularly finance and central bank. External media and diplomacy covered him very well. He was christened the darling of the west, a star pupil, dean of the new breed of African leaders and stabilizer of the great lakes region. Sadly, after 26 years of Museveni’s leadership, Uganda has reaped misery, marginalization and despair. To confirm this unhappy outcome just talk to Ugandans even those in the cabinet and parliament on the NRM side, read newspapers and listen to the radio when people call in and increasingly to international observers. How do we explain this paradox of noble promises and poor end results? To find the answer you need to be dialectical: look at the incomplete actions disguised as achievements, not the speeches.

Museveni came to power with a hidden agenda: to stay in power for life and create a dynasty and use it to create a Tutsi Empire in the Great Lakes Region via East African political federation hence his push to have it fast tracked. He knows that when people are educated, healthy and economically sound, they begin to understand and demand political and civil rights, including presidential term limits, independent electoral commission, separation of powers and the right to assemble, associate, march and express opinion and demonstrate etc. So how did Museveni implement his plan to keep Ugandans disempowered? He has done it within the framework of the 50 year (Bahororo who are Batutsi from Rwanda) Master Plan.

First, he made sure experienced and well educated Ugandans were marginalized. Those in the diaspora were advised to stay there. Those at home were retrenched or marginalized. He brought in NRM cadres (some foreigners in high positions) most of them poorly educated or with little or no experience. Those with good education and some experience were incapacitated by being assigned to ministries where they became strangers. For example, imagine a medical doctor suddenly becoming a minister of finance, foreign affairs, agriculture (no disrespect). So his ministers could not challenge Museveni because they were placed in strange territories especially at that time when the challenges needed quick action, allowing no room to learn on the job. Then Museveni filled key ministries and departments as noted above with young foreign experts who came more to learn than to advise the government.

Second, Museveni knows that providing public schools with poor teachers, no teaching materials, charging school fees and refusing provision of school lunch, kids will stay out of school or will attend but learn little that won’t get them a job to transform them into a middle class with a capacity to understand and demand their civil and political rights. Kids from rich families are taken care of in private schools that have all it takes to perform well.

Third, Museveni knows that denying Ugandans food and nutrition security by encouraging farmers to produce for cash and not for the stomach, pregnant women will produce underweight children with permanent physical and mental disabilities and child brain development will be impaired. Museveni knows that protein is an essential element in diet. He encouraged export of protein-rich foodstuffs including fish, beans and beef, leaving Ugandans saddled with cassava and maize that contribute to severe under-nutrition and neurological impairment and insanity.

Fourth, Museveni knows that constructing health clinics without qualified and experienced staff, medicines and supplies, mortality and morbidity will not be controlled, hence rising maternal mortality, doubling deaths from malaria, reemergence of diseases that had disappeared. Encouraging qualified Ugandans including the medical professionals to seek work outside is intended to weaken the government in delivering services to the people. These actions impact disadvantageously on Uganda population and weaken their resistance to Museveni rule. For rich families, there are expensive private clinics and hospitals or they get treatment abroad.

Fifth, Museveni knows that keeping Ugandans unemployed and underemployed and desperate, he will bribe them during the campaign and they will vote for him and discard them until the next elections. So he has no desire to help create jobs through, inter alia, stimulus policies including public works programs as other governments do during economic hard times as Uganda is in today. Museveni has insisted the market will solve the current economic crisis. So, Ugandans need to be patient, stay calm, wait.

Sixth, Museveni knows how to hide economic and social deficits by omitting them from his addresses to the nation. He is good at talking about constructing schools and clinics but omits to say that graduates haven’t found jobs and maternal mortality is rising. He is good at reporting economic growth and per capita income but omits to mention that income distribution is highly skewed in favor of those already rich. Museveni is good at reporting international conferences hosted by Uganda but he omits to mentions how much these conferences cost Uganda tax payers. He is good at boasting that Uganda has been elected to important organs in the United Nations such as the Security Council and African Union but omits to tell the nation how much it costs the tax payers to campaign for stiff elections. Museveni is good at elaborating future plans which are always the same: modernization of agriculture through NAADS, improving infrastructure, using modern technology and more recently East African economic integration and political federation. This kind of reporting confuses the distinction between processes such as constructing buildings and training nurses and end results of processes such as ending maternal mortality and eradicating poverty. The NRM performance report posted on Ugandans at heart forum on February 28, 2012 has a column of achievements but these are processes, not end results that improve the quality of life of all Ugandans including ending poverty.
Seventh and finally, Museveni will not allow voluntarily restoration of presidential term limits, independent electoral commission, separation of powers and optimal functioning of multiparty politics because they will undermine his life presidency project.

Thus, Ugandans and development partners who want a better future for Uganda and all her people will have to ease Museveni out of power. I am convinced almost beyond a shadow of doubt that Museveni will never be unseated through the power of the ballot box. The pen cannot challenge the gun. He has already begun campaigning for 2016 if you cared to understand part of his statement in Kisumu last month (February 2012). Those who are planning to defeat him in 2016 are just wasting time and resources. Next time it will be a huge landslide for Museveni and NRM because opposition parties will be there in name only unless they decide to fight under one umbrella with one presidential candidate! So those not prepared for a return to power of Museveni and NRM in 2016 should invest in other modalities. Civil resistance is a good modality in the first instance. It works when there is solidarity, determination and bold leadership. The first step in solving a problem is to understand its root cause. Uganda is in bad shape no matter how you choose to dress it not because of difficult external conditions but because Museveni wants to keep Ugandans disempowered to fulfill his personal goal of president for life.

Under NRM regime Uganda has received over $31 billion in donations. Where did it go? Add on loans, tax and customs revenue, 30 percent service charge to change old to new currency and revenue from sale of public enterprises, remittances and debt relief and you realize that government revenue is not the problem for a country that does not import food or import expensive new products (Uganda is an importer of used items and saves foreign exchange that should go into development). Uganda has more than enough educated and experienced human power but it is underutilized or not utilized at all. For example where in the policy making bodies are experienced economists in Keynesian economics that has returned to the stage? Museveni knows some of them because he has seen their publications.

ERIC KASHAMBUZI
UAH FORUMIST IN NEWYORK

Federalism will not end corruption in Uganda

For the first five of her years, Uganda was run as a federal state.  By the time the Federal constitution became thoroughly unmanageable, a cultural head of one of the federal units (and ironically President of the country) was telling the government to remove itself from that unit's soil.  You remember?  So, when you say, "...why not do something and fail so that we learn our lessons...", you leave me wondering unless I misunderstood you.  

In fact Unitarism came into the picture when federalism was about to precipitate the demise of the country as we know it.

On the assertion that corruption comes from the centre etc, some of you seem to be saying that when you translocate a hyena from a game park to a cage in a zoo it becomes an angel.  I say no to that!  It still remains the same old hyena, and even a more desperate, voracious and dangerous one!  When who is she, er, Kabakumba is made chief whip of Bunyoro, she will still pilfer hardware.  She will be so desperate that she will even personalise kingdom silver!

The elite of a society which is still scrounging for initial capital will carry out primitive accumulation where ever you place them within the country.  That makes the debate over federal/unitarism a sterile whistle in the wind.  Corruption results from another kind of logic that has nothing to do with the system of government. 

The fact is that our elite back home do not have other nations to enslave or to colonise to get initial capital, unlike the elite of the earlier modernisers.  Ours have to do all their primitive accumulation from within the borders of Uganda.....that is my guess...a corporal's guess...on the political economy of corruption in Uganda.  Chances are that I am wrong. 

I specifically refer to the political elite and these are not 34 million (which would make it every Ugandan).  The elite are 2.7361 million.  

Still using the hyena analogy, may be some of you are misreading the Nyoro saying that "Empisi y'owanyu ekulya nekukumakuma"...that the local hyena in your village devours you gently.  May be that is the the argument those conflating corruption with unitarism can advance.  But alas, gentle or otherwise, the hyena will still have eaten you!  Its table manners will ultimately not matter!   

Some of you talk of the list of the corrupt.  Of those 2.7 million elite not (yet) making it to the list of the corrupt, I use the hyena metaphor again.  A shortage of prey or lack of access to goats does not turn a hyena into a herbivore.  It will still be the same old hyena except this time it will be desperately hungry, waiting for the chance to also make it on the list.  Get any of those not making it to the list because they have no access (yet), put them in the right place and they will show you their true colours! 

On the problems between Mr Mutesa and Mr Obote, do I read that Mr Obote was merely being paranoid? He may as well have been that and other worse things, but let us face the facts.  Assume he was paranoid, is it not foolish to play in the hands of a paranoid creature?  Was it probably not a case of paranoia vs paranoia?

Those who have always claimed that Mr Obote was paranoid have in fact already been let down by none other than Mr Mutesa himself.  The other day I grabbed a copy of his "Desecration of My kingdom" from a binyebwa seller on Luwum Street for 1,000/= (she was using the book's pages to wrap njugu for customers).  On page 186, on Mr Obote's claim that Mr Mutesa was plotting a coup with foreign embassies, Mutesa admits that he 'sounded out' (Wa la la la!...nduulu) a certain European embassy and a selection of African ones for military assistance. 

To show what he really thought about Obote, Mutesa later contradicts the motive of the above action by stating that, 'though I would have liked to see him destroyed, I took no part...perhaps I was foolish not to do so.'  So, either man was baying for the other's blood and it was a question of who pounced first.

Recall that by that time, Mutesa, the President had attempt to flagarantly subvert the referendum of 1964, refused to sign the subsequent referendum bill as was required by the constitution, he refused to open parliament after the referendum, once again as required by constitution.  I hear people saying that Obote abrogated the constitution!  He merely put the last nail in the coffin.  President Mutesa, by way his unconstitutional acts killed the constitution and Obote cremated it.

Remember also the uncoordinated troop movement (3 battalions) ordered by President Mutesa at 13:52 Hrs on 19 Feb 1966 when Obote was in Nairobi for some meeting.  That was a few hours after the contacts with those embassies......and Brig Opolot's visit to Mutesa around that time etc etc...with plans for "kujjula" on 22 Feb...

With all that, if Affande Jesus had been in Obote's shoes, I do not know what he would have avoided doing to save Mutesa!

Mr. Otto Patrick
UAH forumist in London

Fighting Corruption in the Health Sector: Methods, Tools and Good Practices

This publication is part of a series of UNDP-sponsored studies that present methods, tools and good practices to map corruption risks, develop strategies and sustain partnerships to address challenges and tackle corruption in the education, health and water sectors. They complement UNDP’s MDG Acceleration Framework (MAF), which has been endorsed by the UN Development Group and enables governments and development partners, within established national processes, to identify and systematically prioritize the bottlenecks to progress toward achieving the MDGs, and then devise strategies to overcome them. The studies bring together UNDP’s efforts to support countries to develop frameworks to accelerate their efforts to meet the MDGs as well as successfully meet the commitments of the UN Convention against Corruption. http://www.beta.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/Democratic%20Governance/IP/Anticorruption%20Methods%20and%20Tools%20in%20Health%20Lo%20Res%20final.pdf 

Jeniffer Musisi’s salary of $178,509 (shs.432m) annually is very disturbing

Jeniffer Musisi’s salary of $178,509 (shs.432m) annually is very disturbing

13 Dec 2011 10 Comments

by semuwemba in Corruption, Economics, Politics [Edit]

Kampala Executive Director, Jennifer Musisi

Folks,
I have been saddened by the salary that has been accorded the executive Director of Kampala City, Jeniffer Musisi. Apparently, she is to earn shs.432 million (US. $178509.08) annually as a salary excluding other financial privileges. I find this kind of extravagancy so hurting and unbearable especially for one person to earn that much in country where the biggest part of 33 million people are barely having any food.


How does someone doing cleaning or teaching as a job in Uganda feel about this. I don’t know how much exactly people make in these jobs but I equate them to someone flying burgers in Europe or USA. Let’s take a look at a McDonald’s burger flipper. Here they make between £6.50 to £7.50 an hour. That may be what a burger flipper makes next year and the year after, as well. That does not matter if the cost of living does not rise either. In fact, it is to be expected in a non-inflationary economy. The value of any given labor is going to remain the same relative to the overall economy, unless for some reason that particular labor becomes more important.

But why would Jeniifer Musisi get that kind of salary in a country that is clearly facing a financial crisis? Is this selfishness of the highest order or our leaders are just heartless? The simple fact is that the NRM party does not care about poor Ugandans and low-level working people in general. They either seem to be stronger believers of the theory of trickledown economics, by which if we let rich people make more money, jobs would be created, and it would then trickle down to the rest of the society, or they are purposely making people poor to keep them at the bottom of Maslow’s theory of needs. They want them to keep thinking about basic needs instead of changing governments.

Under Gordon Brown leadership here in the UK, when we were in recession, the government was borrowing money and increasing spending where it is necessary.
‘Where is necessary’ here involved pumping more money into the banking system or nationalising some banks but not buying expensive jets for the executives or presidents or increasing the salaries/bonuses of company executives ( as is the case with Jeniffer Musisi’s shs.36m per months[US.$ 14875.76]or other public workers. This is where Uganda has got it wrong. They should not allocate biger salaries to public officials in such a poor country. Even bigger salaries are questionable in developed nations.

All countries or local governments around the world are reducing on their budgets because of global recession. In USA, according to the centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, 44 states have reduced their budgets by more than $350 billion dollars since 2009.

In the UK, bodies such as the Association of British Insurers, the Investment Management Association and Pirc, a consultancy advising shareholders, believe the bonus culture should be reformed during this recession period. Both in Nigeria and Tanzania, there are finding ways of reducing on public spending.

It is also true that different countries deal with recession using different theories of economics which I prefer not to go through today. However, the theory people are familiar with is the Keynesian theory which was welcomed by former UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, with open hands, before David Cameron switched to cutting down on public spending. This is where governments advocate for deficit spending.
With Keynesian theory, when you are heavily in debt, the only way to keep spending is to keep borrowing. I supported Gordon Brown but his Keynesian theory was more of a political survival decision rather than anything else. The whole thing was a gamble from the start. Yes, consumer spending is the main driver of the UK’s economic growth but an increase in people saving to pay off their debts normally results in companies’ profits falling. Companies in turn tend to lay off staff, leading to a vicious cycle of people losing their jobs and being unable to pay their debts and mortgages.

The only reason why Gordon Brown could not easily reduce on public spending was basically because he had been on TV telling people that reduucing public spending means worse public services, so he couldn’t turn around and start slashing it. So the only real option for the UK government then was to spend some of the money that was saved during the good times combined with less borrowing to beat the recession. After all, the UK economy had been booming for years. UK had not had a recession since 1992.

But the reality is that any government under financial crisis should be trying to cut debt by trimming public spending. But that is suicide to some political leaders especially if all they care about is keeping themselves in power.

The main downside to Keynesian style of economics is that government borrowing is exactly the same as consumer borrowing. At some point, you have to pay it back. And the way government pays off borrowing is through higher taxes.

One Ugandan wrote on the Ugandans At Heart(UAH) forum in 2009 when recession had hit big nations such as UK: ‘To say that Uganda has recession is like talking of a chicken with a toothache’. Basically, the statement would have been:’ to say that Uganda has got no recession, it is like a man sleeping with a woman with HIV for a long time without a condom, and then turn around and say that he has got no HIV before he even goes for a check up’.

Uganda has been sleeping with the donor countries who have got HIV (recession) for a long time. Uganda is basically married to the donors ( USA , UK , Canada , France, Japan , Dubai ,…) and there have got a lot of children (Ugandans abroad) together. Donors support over 30% of our budget at the moment.

Ugandans abroad gave Uganda about $1.4 billion in 07/08 alone and there are the major source of foreign exchange in the country. Each of these guys looks after a lot of families in the 75% non-monetary sector. So because the ‘’Nkuba Kyeyo’’(unpaid Ugandan ambassadors abroad) or donors are affected financially, less money is being sent back home at the moment, and as a result the following services have been affected one way or the other: Construction boom in Uganda has declined; Quality of life of families is affected especially those depending on Ugandans abroad; Businesses in Uganda cities like the hospitality industry are feeling it because of reduced spending; Uganda’s general export industry has been affected because of less spending in USA or UK . We don’t have enough market within Uganda to consume the goods we produce. Let’s hope that the donor countries don’t shut down their markets from us as was the case in 1930s.

NGOs are already reducing their activities in Kampala because donors have squeezed funds. Tourism industry is already in decline in Uganda and this is directly affecting the so called CHOGM hotels and travel agencies. Foreign investment is in a decline as few foreign investors wish to bring money into the country. Food prices have become high in Uganda such that I was told a sack of charcoal costs over shs.90,000 and I kg of sugar is at shs.4000.

This country needs to make some changes. It has to start with Campaign Finance Reforms, corruption and the excesses there. To get that passed, we need a new Executive leadership, and it certainly can’t be NRM to get this done.

Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba

It seems Andrew Mwenda Isn’t ready to become Uganda’s ‘Veronica Guerin’

17 Oct 2011 5 Comments

by semuwemba in Corruption, Legal issues, media in Uganda

Andrew Mwenda

Dear folks, What a week! What a month! What a year! Four powerful dictators in Africa have lost their power this year, the ‘Mahogany’(former Vice president) of Uganda selectively tested jail this month, and three powerful cabinet ministers have temporarily resigned their offices to allow the investigation of their hands in National tills over CHOGM and oil scandals. The surprise in all this has been journalist Andrew Mwenda’s public defense of the cabinet ministers involved in the oil corruption scams as he insists that the documents presented in parliament by Gerald Karuhanga, the Youth MP for Western Uganda, were forged. Mwenda and president Museveni hold the same view and have confessed that they have been investigating the matter for a while before the MP broke the camel’s bark.

Given how famous Andrew Mwenda is these days – or infamous, perhaps –it always amazes me how he leaves himself so open to revealing the kind of people he regularly conducts his investigative journalism with. In most of his radio talk shows, the statements such as ‘ when i met Museveni’ or ‘when i met Kagame’…. have become like a paracetamol on a headache. Mwenda expects Ugandans to just believe his words that the documents were forged just because he involved president Museveni and Uganda police in the investigation process. Phew! The documents were revealing information implicating Museveni’s ministers in oil corruption scandals, and the first place Mwenda went to for investigation was Museveni himself. In other words, Mwenda was kind enough to give Museveni a chance to investigate himself before he reports anything to Ugandans. Oh, what a kind man!

It is the job of any good journalist to challenge, question, investigate, and report their findings, but Menda had not reported his findings to us before Honorable Karuhanga blew his whistle in parliament, but he is on record attacking the later for presenting forged documents. Oh, I almost forgot that Mwenda did not want us to know about the ‘forged’ documents.

In this case, the leak has so far caused no harm to the legal or judicial system of Uganda, but imprisonment of any of the three cabinet ministers (Nassasira, Kuteesa, and Mbabazi) could have a chilling effect on journalism’s ability to expose corruption in the country. Honestly, how much information are journalists hiding from us in the name of ‘forgery’ or because they want to protect someone.

The trouble with journalism in Uganda is that it’s too damn polite. It looks like Journalists there fear deadly retributions if they ever dare to report the truth. In all honesty, why would Mwenda sit on such information as a journalist for a long time when he got it, and even dare present it to the head of the ‘executive’ organ of the state that is supposed to be investigated? The whole events symptomise a visualization of the greed and corruption that have taken old of both the executive branch of the government and journalism itself. How we get out of this situation now, i really dont know.

Up to now, we don’t have any journalist in Uganda that has dedicated his life to at least exposing crime and corruption in the country. In Ireland, for instance, they had a lady called Veronica Guerin who was a crime reporter and ended up being murdered by drug lords in 1996. The film ‘Veronica Guerin’ told the story of her brave soul. It broke my heart when I watched it especially in the end when the two bikers working for the ‘mafias’ put 6 bullets in her body when she stopped at a red traffic light. It’s always hurting when you watch a kind and beautiful person die because of what they believe in.

Veronica Guerin, who was shot dead shot dead by the pillion passenger on a motorbike as she stopped at traffic lights in Naas, just outside Dublin, in June 1996 - 

In Mexico, they also had columnist Francisco Arratia Saldierna, a prominent and well-known journalist who wrote a column called Portavoz (or “Spokesman”). The column featured topics such as corruption, organized crime, and drug trafficking. Arratia’s murder was also as brutal as Veronica’s but both murders resulted into change in policy in those areas.

I’m also tempted to mention two lady giants in journalism that were impressive winners of the Courage in Journalism Awards in 2005: there are Shahla Sherkat, who runs a women’s magazine in Iran and Sumi Khan, a Bangladesh journalist who covers crime. When Mwenda started up the ”Independent”, I really thought that his magazine was going to be like Shahla’s. She has been fined for articles she has published, and has been threatened with imprisonment in Iran’s harsh jails, but she never runs to state to investigate itself before she publishes anything as Mwenda has admittedly done.

Sumi is another crime and corruption reporter based in Bangladesh (Chittagong city). In 2004, she was attacked by three men — beaten and stabbed. It was three months before she returned to work, but she never gave in to the system.

To be fair, Mwenda went into that kind of episode initially and he became a hero to many Ugandans, but it now looks like he gave up on people long time ago and decided to do his own ‘’refined’’ investigative form of journalism. He was among the guys that inspired me to start blogging because of the way he analyzed issues yet I don’t have any qualification in journalism. Up to now, i don’t miss any of his radio talk-shows but he has really disappointed me on this one.

Mwenda should never have defended the ministers publicly whatever reservations he had with the documents because the way Ugandans feel about corruption in Museveni’s government is like in the same way Americans felt during Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. After Vietnam and Watergate, almost every student in USA went to Journalism School convinced that the U.S. Government was corrupt and that s/he would earn a Pulitzer Prize by exposing it. That cynicism about America has never really ended.

Yes, Mwenda is partly right that eagerly publishing forged documents is not “investigative journalism” if the memos content is not verified by second and third sources. But I also believe that verification of the documents becomes difficult if you allow the people being investigated to investigate themselves. Mwenda’s methods are like that of Stalin and Mao who believed that “CRIMES MUST BE HIDDEN,” or else labeled as “heroic deeds.”

Let’s also not forget that “journalism’’ itself is opinion. Most of what Mwenda says or writes in his column is mere speculation clothed in the majesty of journalism, but rife with his personal opinions. Yes, Mbabazi and Kutesa may be innocent but how do we explain the fact that nearly every time a case comes to light involving large-scale fraud or vice or corruption, the duo are playing the lead roles. They seem to be attracted irresistibly to our vices so that they can exploit them and at the same time exacerbate them. They are not worth defending publicly by anybody worth his name.

Because mwenda came out to say that he was the first to land on these documents, some people are unfairly dragging Paul Kagame into this. In any case, Mwenda only revealed the location where he got the documents but he never revealed his source. The location was Nairobi not Kigali. The Oil corruption scandal has put the Museveni government in the spot light. Oil companies are capable of bringing down any government in Africa. Therefore, the government should handle this issue very carefully. It looks like both the cabinet ministers and the oil companies are now blackmailing each other with endless revealations, but oil companies will always be the winners in the end if this situation continues.

Byebyo ebyange banange
–
Abbey Kibirige Semuwemba