Government is currently investigating a total of 7, 518 cases of corruption at different and separate agencies which are charged with investigation are trying to get to the bottom of these incidents in an attempt to recover tax payers’ money.
Out of these cases, more than three quarters of the cases being investigated are from the Auditor General’s office which is charged with following up on matters in the systems but many of them are yet to come to a conclusion.
Available figures indicate that the office of the Auditor General is investigating 6, 763 cases out of which 101 are special engineering queries, 85 are forensic audits, 23 are value for money while nine are IT related audits. They are not classified, according to the documents seen by this publication.
The Criminal Investigations Department of the police are following up on 318 cases while the Accountant General’s office is investigating 261 cases. According to the office, 168 have been concluded while 110 culprits have been convicted.
The list of cases of investigation are currently being handled by the Health Monitoring Unit which is investigating 33 cases of ghost health centers in Ntungamo District.
Ms Betti Kamya, the Inspector General of Government (IGG) says they are working around the clock to solve the problem of corruption which she says, “It needs concerted effort to surmount the trouble.”
The figures of corruption cases represented in percentage form include; Auditor General (AG) – 91.4 per cent, Criminal Investigations Department (CID) – 4.2 per cent, Accounting General’s Office – 3.6 per cent and Inspectorate of Government – 0.8 per cent.
These figures were presented by the Ethics and Integrity Minister of Lilly Akello at the Uganda Media center yesterday ahead of the Anti-corruption Day celebrations next week which will be themed, “Citizens must own the War to Eliminate Corruption- It is Their war.”
“The objective is to make the war against corruption a people’s war rather than a government war. In this campaign the citizens are being empowered through mass mobilization, education empowerment to take honor-ship of this war and fight it by demanding for better service delivery from duty bearers. The Anti-corruption campaign runs from the whole of this financial year and a number of activities have been and are still being undertaken,” Minister Akello said in her speech,
She added, “They coordinate implantation of zero tolerance of corruption policy and as established integrity focal persons in all MDAS whose role is to sensitize his staff on the values of integrity and corruption prevention measures. They coordinate the partnership with religious and faith organizations, civil society organizations, development partners, the private sector, media institutions, which is the new strategy to fight corruption.”
The 2020 survey conducted by the German Society for International Co-operation and the IGG’s offices indicated that the government loses up to Shs20 trillion every year through corruption.
They reported that at least Shs451 billion Shillings in health care and education services, 15 billion Shillings lost in environmental degradation, Shs131 billion lost through taxation, Shs459 billion lost in user fees utilities while Shs820 billion in natural resources.
The survey also stated that Shs2 billion Shillings is lost by officials who are always absent from work, Shs86 billion Shillings in security provision, 590 billion Shillings in procurement and budgeting, and 233 billion Shillings in regulation.
Thus far, a year later, other findings from the ministry of integrity show that there have been some monies that have been recovered from different officials.
With concerted efforts, figures are only about Shs864 billion which is distributed across five government agencies that are charged with investigations.
For instance, the figures show that IGG has only managed to recover Shs30 billion from the hands of the corrupt. The Auditor General’s office has recovered Shs179 billion, the Accounting General’s office has recovered Shs38 billion while the CID over the three years has recovered Shs615 billion – one of the best performing agencies in government.
Two State House agencies; the Anti-corruption Unit and the Health Monitoring Unit have recovered Shs35.5 billion and Shs1.5 billion, respectively.
“We have started the lifestyle audit and this will help us to get the big fish because when we get them and take them to court, the judge will ask for evidence beyond reasonable doubt, which we sometimes don’t have,” IGG Kamya says in one of the interviews.
Last year, Ms Kamya introduced the life style audit but this was met with resentment from President Museveni indicating that IGG should go slow on the method, lest she risks chasing Ugandans who have been stealing and investing in the country.
