Opinion: Ugandans are resigned to corruption

Corruption has been eating through the fabric of Ugandan society almost since the dawn of independence.

It has become so normal that society jokes about it, that all those who steal rush to build apartments in Najjera and Kira to leave no trace behind. In today’s Uganda’s society, ubuntu no longer exists, each man for himself, we are in a hurry to get into government offices only to “eat”, no longer to serve.

In 2020 when Covid-19 disrupted the way of life, it was no wonder that much of the population did not trust the Ministry of Health and their statistics.

Some of the super spreaders of “fake news” termed this as just another scheme for “them to eat”.

The National Development Plan II was developed with the goal of driving the country towards a lower-middle-income status by 2020, progressing to an upper-middle-status by 2032 but in 2022, we are yet to attain the lower-middle –income status. Corruption has been blamed.

Corruption has been outlawed, but how can the country become corruption free, if the government itself is made up of people with corruption tendencies. President Museveni once revealed he knows them, so how are they still holding government positions?

Farmers have constantly been promised good prices on the market, as if the government would buy farm produce.

Somehow, our leaders forgot that ours is a liberalised economy, where market forces are at play. When demand is high, commodity prices rocket; when supply is high, demands plummet and prices tumble. That is a fact of life.

Now, the reality seems to be sinking in, in our leaders’ minds, with prices of basic commodities rocketing, the price of fertiliser becoming too high for the comfort of the farmer, fuel prices on a constant high and the government playing hide-and-seek on the issue of the approach it will stabilising commodity prices.

In January of 2022, Uganda slipped three positions to the 144th position in global ranking out of the 180 rated countries with a score of 27% on the Corruption Perception Index.

The index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption using a scale of zero to 100%.

At this point, can we celebrate that we are on the road to a corruption free country? And, sadly, all the government can do is promise and promise and promise— to do something about the situation.

Ugandans by now should be boiling with holy anger against corruption.

But we have reached worrying levels of giving up and resignation. How can the citizenry fight a vice that the “public servants” are not committed to fight? So, enough of the Corruption talk.