IGG to Museveni: Your Anti- corruption unit will be swallowed by corruption

The Inspector General of Government Irene Mulyagonja has poked holes into the new state house unit formed to fight corruption.

Giving his state of the nation address on Wednesday,President Museveni revealed that he had formed a three man unit in State House to be led by James Tweheyo, Martha Asiimwe and Sister Akiror to help fight corruption.

Museveni said the members of the unit have been directed to provide their phone numbers to the public who are in turn encouraged to report any corruption cases that come to their attention to the unit.

Speaking to Nile Post after the function,Mulyagonja said the unit will not manage the fight against corruption which she said is a big task for them.

"I dont think the unit would have capacity to investigate corruption.They don't have the technical know how and experience or else will be swallowed by the corrupt," Mulyagonja said.

The IGG said her office is overwhelmed by the big number of corruption cases that need to be investigated but they cannot do it because of lack of enough funds.

"Our budget has over Shs 1.5 or 2 billion missing to make it effective,"she noted.

In his state of the nation address,Museveni accused the IGG's office of being incompetent and failure to wipe out corruption.

Speaking off cuff, he wondered, “What happened to the IGG? Why don’t the victims of corruption report those incidents to the office of the IGG? That was the purpose of that office; to protect the public from corrupt officials; to protect the investors against corrupt officials. The IGG should reflect on this. Are her staff credible? Why does the public not trust that institution? We need answers.”

However, according to Mulyagonja,forming a state house unit would not help solve the problem because they would not have enough man power to carry out investigations.

"We have 16 regional offices but we are understaffed.If the unit in his office is to recieve only complaints,its welcome but if he is to put in place another investigative unit,that money should be given to us."

She said that they formed the Special Investigations Directorate which handles big fish and boasts of having handled a number of cases like the Kyetume -Katosi road scam but noted they are not well staffed because they have only 32 investigators.

"The budget is not enough to allow us have remarkable levels the public wants."

NRM Secretary General,Kasule Lumumba supported Mulyagonja on the issue of fighting corruption stressing that the president ought to strengthen IGG's office.

"He should strengthen the office of the IGG that has powers to prosecute that the state house unit doesn't,"Kasule Lumumba said.

"What he said was only weakening the IGG. A unit will not help solve the problem."

Buyaga West County Member of Parliament Barnabas Tinkasimire laughed at Museveni's announcement as a joke.

"Failure by the IGG is failure by Museveni himself.At least the IGG had a big budget but how much will the unit of three have to fight corruption,"Tinkasimire wondered.