How NBS TV exposed milk extortion racket (Video)

Fighting corruption is easily the weakest point of Uganda government on which it scores lowest.

But public officials on their own would not be able to perpetuate corruption if they it weren’t for the willing participation of the private sector players and the public.

The recent exposure of racketeers who undermine the work of government agencies like the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) to defeat the very mandate they are supposed to execute, is the best way to reduce the operational space of the corrupt.

The racketeers even go to the extent of coopting staff in such agencies to perpetrate their crimes against the nation. With state agencies so undermined sometimes to the extent of being compromised, it is to the media that society must turn to help fight the corruption vice by exposing it. The role of professional journalists of high integrity is thus acutely more needed today than ever before.

Investigative reporter Daniel Lutaaya set out on a special mission akin to policing the police - pursuing racketeers who use UNBS insiders to squeeze bribes from the very people the agency should be pursuing to the logical conclusion.

It was a laborious and frustrating mission but by the time he accomplished it, he gave a major boost to the fight against corruption by exposing how it works, hopefully setting the racketeers back by several months before they polish new ways of defeating the justice.

The racketeers, under the command of one Solomon Bolango, could not have struck at a worse time. The country was under the grip of the Covid-19 lockdown meaning that the population, especially the millions of urban dwellers, were relying more on packed foodstuffs.

That, ironically, is the very time they chose to intimidate food processors, in this case Lato milk.

The racketeers seem to have been sending a message that even government can no longer stand in their way to fleece and poison Ugandans..

‘The Milkshake’ as Lutaaya code named his dangerous operation, was not smooth sailing even for the racketeers themselves. In the end, it ended up being executed in four phases.

After the first plan to raid the warehouse and make a quick collection failed when the managers called the racketeers’ bluff by calling UNBS to authenticate the raid and search party, ‘commander’ Balongo devised Plan B.

But Plan B also ran into problems and they had shift gears to Plan C. Now this was more dangerous for Lutaaya the journalist because he was to appear like a genuine part of the racket who could get caught in the cross fire while on side of the racketeers or if he got found out by the racketeers who believed he was embedded with them for the same cause.

Plan D was equally daring as it involved a legal threat levelled against LATO.

The ‘milkshake’ was that protracted, fast moving and dangerous.

In the end, justice pushed by a journalist, prevailed.