The Inspector General of Government Beti Olive Namisango Kamya has decried the high levels of corruption in Uganda saying all the sectors of the society are rotten.
Likening it to cancer, the Ombudsman said corruption has eaten into the entire body fabric of Uganda including the government, the civil society, Religious institutions, Cultural institutions, and the private sector.
Using her personal Twitter account, Kamya today said all the current problems the country is facing can be traced to corruption and said the country is gradually losing body parts evidenced by broken homes, moral degradation, etc.
“There is corruption in Gov’t, in civil society, in religious institutions, in cultural institutions, in the private sector, name it – corruption has eaten into the entire body fabric of Uganda like aggressive cancer.” She posted in a message.
Kamya was appointed IGG in July 2021 following an agreement to work with the NRM government she had opposed and openely criticized for more than 20 years.
Upon assumption of office, Beti Kamya proposed the Lifestyle Audits as an instrument to supplement the existing policies in the fight against corruption, as a measure to catch and punish the thieves especially in government.
Kamya says the Lifestyle Audit campaign will depend very much on Ugandans giving her office information about who owns what, how they got it and generally giving us evidence – through the Whistleblower Program.
Statistics indicate that Uganda loses close to 10TN annually in corruption a trend which has been highlighted as the factor behind poor service deliverly in government and slow development.
At the close of 2022, the IGG’s office announced that it had recovered UGX30BN stolen taxpayers money, caused the interdiction of about 50 public servants, and that it was investigating cases worth IGX 500B.
The IGG’s office said it prosecuted 86 cases in 2022, secured 34 convictions, halted procurement, recruitment, and other activities in government institutions that would have led to loss of public funds.
Kamya also launched the Whistleblowers’ Program, where her office recognized a whistleblower who led to the recovery of UGX 8.7B from employees in MAAIF.
According to the program, the whistleblower is given protection under the law and if the whistleblowers’ information leads to recovery of stolen funds, s/he is entitled to 5% of recovered money.