Looking through the end of year columns of the last decade a consistent theme was for the wish for the end of corruption.
In November 2010 this column pointed
out that the fight against corruption was a joke as long as civil servants were
being paid a pittance
“As long as the Government continues to pretend to pay, people will
continue to pretend to work while devising other means to meet their basic
needs. It is blindingly obvious.”
The column continued to point out that, “The lowly paid civil servant
lives in Nakasero, Bugolobi and Ntinda, is building in Namugongo and Buwate and
is unstintingly loyal, racking up five, ten, 15 years in the civil service.
This would be an illusion if they were
conjuring this lifestyle out of their payslips.”
In 2011 while reporting about the
passing of two new pieces of legislation – The Whistle Blowers Act and the
Anti-Corruption Act, noted the vice will always be difficult to fight.
“Unlike murder or even outright theft, in corruption cases, bribery for
instance, both parties are guilty of a crime, witnesses are hard to come by and
paper trails can be obscured. The aggrieved party is a faceless government or a
far removed public, neither of whom maybe aware a crime had been committed or
an unable to do anything about it for legal or bureaucratic reasons.”
The column which was published on 12 December 2011 ended on a hopeful
note, “Corruption is everywhere the challenge is to relegate it to the fringes
of our daily lives, current evidence suggests we maybe on our way.”
In December 2012 the column reported an aid pull out following corruption
scandal in the Office of the prime minister but were skeptical the action would
provide a lasting solution or even accelerate the momentum in the fight against
corruption.
The column explained that due to the individual agendas of donor
countries, a lot of it to do with maintaining influence over the Kampala
government, the pull out would be shortlived.
“The recent
aid suspensions amount to a slap on the wrist and one can expect we will be
back to business as usual by this time next year. This is not thumbing our
noses at the donors, it’s just the way the world works.
And of
course in 2013 we wondered whether our honourable representatives were looking out
for our best interests,
"Honourable MPs, with your
sh20m salaries, hundred million shilling four wheel drive guzzlers and billion
shilling car park, you make us – the down trodden of the earth, wonder whether
you are irredeemably stupid or that you have ulterior, self-serving
motives that we are not privy to, that motivate your actions.”
And in 2014 we brought home what
the real cost of corruption was,
"So instead of 1,000
inpatients being treated at Mulago, one man buys himself a Toyota Land Cruiser
VX or sends his four children to a top international school locally for a year
or organises a week long holiday for his five-member family plus nanny to the
Maldives or Seychelles.”
If
recent reports about monies stolen from the treasury or people forging the president’s
signature, are anything to go by, no space is sacred to the white-collar
criminals we are breeding.
Not to belabor the point, but corruption remains a thorn in our side, slowing down growth, hobbling development and hurtling us inevitably to social unrest and political instability.
Looking
back it is hard to say that there has been meaningful progress in slowing down
the corruption juggernaut, if the apartments sprouting out of every wet land in
the suburbs are anything to go by, I am afraid corruption has only picking up
pace.
We
at Shillings & cents would love to be wrong, because this is our country
and we hope to bequeath our descendants a better place than we found. But
the logic is inescapable. And every year that we do not implode in an orgy of
social upheaval, is one more year to be worried.
Merry
Christmas & Happy New Year