The enforcement of search and seizure orders on properties of Ms Anita Annet Among, which have culminated in, among others, the impounding of her Shs3.4 billion Rolls-Royce, has opened up a can of worms. The prominent role played by Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba in tightening the screws on the Speaker of the 11th Parliament has sparked debate
Gen Muhoozi, the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), who is also the son of President Museveni and his advisor on Special Operations, has been front and centre of an operation that got underway on May 16. This has raised questions about whether the fight against corruption falls within the national army’s remit. ‘You go back to Article 209, which talks about the functions of the army. There is no role for the army in investigating these (corruption) matters whatsoever. Just look at the Constitution,’ Mr Dan Wandera Ogalo, who has served as a lawmaker in both the national and regional legislative branches, says.
Article 209 spells out the functions of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) as, firstly, to preserve and defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Uganda; secondly, to cooperate with the civilian authority in emergency situations and in cases of natural disasters; thirdly, to foster harmony and understanding between the defence forces and civilians; and, fourthly, to engage in productive activities for the development of Uganda.
Mr Godber Tumushabe, an associate director at Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies (GLISS), says: ‘That joint security operation is also part of the corruption because there are institutions of State created under the Constitution. They have their mandates. The UPDF, CDF, you are supposed to be out there in Garamba, in DRC, in Somalia, where we have our forces deployed and fighting. What reason do you have to be there doing law enforcement work?’
Mr Ogalo thinks Gen Muhoozi is being populistic. ‘To me, if you see the army going into investigating Parliament, that is simply a power grab because we have institutions for that. You have the Inspectorate of Government. You have laws like the leadership code. You have the Auditor General who checks on Parliament.’
Evasive
Mr Marlon Agaba of the Anti-Corruption Coalition begs to differ. ‘Of course, for the CDF to intervene, if it does really help the fight against corruption, then I don’t have any issues with that. It is welcome. I think from the Executive, especially the President, there has been frustration with the statutory anti-corruption agencies that have been there.’ Mr Meddie Mulumba, a former MP for Luuka County, who is also the chairperson of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party in Luuka District, is more critical, accusing the anti-corruption agencies of lack of visibility in the fight against corruption.
‘There are so many institutions that were put in place to fight corruption. We have the DPP (Director of Public Prosecution), we have the IGG (Inspector General of Government), we have the Auditor General, we have financial intelligence, we have accounting officers, we have ISO (Internal Security Organisation), we have ESO (External Security Organisation). It is so terrifying to see what these institutions have been doing. We are asking ourselves, where are these institutions? Have they been compromised? Have they been sleeping?’ Mr Mulumba wonders.
In March 2024, Ms Beti Kamya, then the ombudsman, announced that her office had opened up an unprecedented investigation into allegations of widespread corruption and unethical conduct at Parliament. Ms Kamya’s revelation came at a time when Agora Center for Research had just carried out an online campaign that was known as #Ugandaparliamentexhibition on X, formerly Twitter. The campaign illuminated illegal recruitment of staff at the House, withdrawals of large sums of cash from Parliament’s corporate social responsibility kitty, and other cases of abuse of public funds. ‘The issues have obviously generated significant media and public interest. No one can ignore them,’ Ms Kamya said.
However, within less than a month of making those comments, she had backtracked, hiding behind the cover of the need to avoid duplication of work. ‘I am also told that the Auditor General is also investigating Parliament. Normally, in our working methods, we do not crowd. Once somebody (another investigative arm) has been there before you then you wait for their report… if somebody is handling an investigation you don’t crowd it. You do not duplicate work and resources,’ Ms Kamya told our sister television station, NTV Uganda.
Back then, Ms Munira Ali, the spokesperson of the Inspectorate, claimed that the ombudsman had not backtracked. ‘We work together under a forum known as an inter agency forum. We communicate. Where one of the agencies is already investigating, another does not open up an investigation because it is bound to delay the other agency’s work. Besides, there have also been complaints that multiple agencies are investigating one institution at the same time, yet we oftentimes require the same sets of documents and information,’ she said.
Shielding
One of the things that has been coming up is the Inspectorate’s handling of petitions related to requests for the disclosure of public information regarding declarations of assets and liabilities of public leaders. Whereas the Constitution and the Access to Information Act 2005 guarantees the right of citizens to access information in possession of the State and its organs, and whereas Section 7 of the leadership Code Act, 2002, provides that, ‘the content of a declaration under this code shall be treated as public information and accessible to the public…’, the IGG has previously ignored requests that would have enabled the public to access this information.
On July 1, 2024, for example, Agora’s top brass wrote to the ombudsman requesting access to declarations of incomes, assets and liabilities that had been filed by 13 leaders. These included Ms Among; and her Deputy, Mr Thomas Tayebwa; and the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Mr Joel Ssenyonyi.
Others were former Bugweri County MP Abdu Katuntu; Kachumbala County MP Opolot Patrick Isiagi; Lwengo District MP Cissy Donizia Namujju; former Kira Municipality MP Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda; Bukooli Central MP Solomon Silwanyi; Ms Among’s husband, Mr Moses Magogo; Director of Ethics and Integrity Alex B Okello; the ombudsman then, Ms Kamya; Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) president Patrick Amuriat Oboi; and Masaka Resident City Commissioner Hudu Hussein.
‘The IGG did not provide us with the said information. They wrote back claiming that it was for our own safety,’ Mr Godwin Toko, the deputy team lead at Agora, told Weekend Monitor. Ms Munira Ali had, by press time, not responded to questions why Agora’s request for information has gone unanswered.
Performance issues
Those who think the anti-corruption agencies have been sleeping on the job point to the annual outputs. ‘If you’re an institution like the [Inspectorate] and you’re getting maybe Shs90b a year, what do you have to show for that? In the Financial Year 2024-2025, the IGG only had three convictions. How do you explain that?’ Mr Agaba wonders. He thinks most of the money that should have been expended on the fight against corruption is instead used to pay salaries and allowances and buy cars. Previously, there have been questions regarding Mr Museveni’s commitment to fighting corruption.
Critics argue that whereas the ‘elimination of corruption and misuse of power’ was number seven on the 10-point programme, a governance blueprint put together during the guerrilla war in Luweero, the government has spectacularly failed on that front. In fact, the NRM has, they add, lowered the bar from ‘elimination’ to simply ‘fighting’ corruption. While giving his inaugural speech on May 14, soon after he was sworn into office, Mr Museveni declared that his seventh elective term is one of ‘no sleep, no corruption’. His critics, however, say the fight will be met with the same abysmal success as has been met in each of the previous six terms. What is it that has failed the NRM’s fight against corruption?
While Mr Mulumba insists that it is the institutions that have let Mr Museveni down, Mr Ogalo disagrees. The latter thinks it is the President who has, by his own statements and actions, been letting himself down. ‘Ask yourself why those agencies are not doing much. Do you remember what Justice [Irene] Mulyangoja [former ombudsman] told us about where the thieves hide? Do you remember what happened when Beti Kamya tried to bring a lifestyle audit? What did Mr Museveni publicly tell her? ‘Go slow!’ So, you constrain these institutions, which are supposed to carry out investigations. Then we turn around and blame them, yet we praise those who have constrained them,’ Mr Ogalo says.
On December 9, 2021, during the launch of the lifestyle audit campaign at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds in Kampala, Mr Museveni told Ms Kamya, then the ombudsman, to go slow on her plans to conduct lifestyle audits on public servants as part of a plan to fight corruption. The President rationalised that it would force thieving public officials to hide their loot abroad.
‘The lifestyle audit is good, but be careful because we are still lucky that our corrupt people are corrupt here. But if they realise that their lifestyle is being audited, they will instead take what they stole abroad, and it will be hard to track them,’ Mr Museveni, who was the chief guest on that year’s commemoration of the International Anti-Corruption Day, said.
It is because of such comments that the feeling that Mr Museveni is not committed to fighting corruption pervades. Those who have been left frustrated by the apparent evasiveness of the government have been quick to laud Gen Muhoozi’s apparent intervention. That is fuelling the debate around whether he should continue involving himself in what is meant to be a function of the police. Whether he continues doing so and what it means for the anti-corruption agencies and their future should perhaps be of more concern to the citizenry.