HOW CORRUPTION IS FUELING THE SURVIVAL OF THE NRM GOVERNMENT IN POWER

A few weeks back, the Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni said that he was now planning to fight corruption and completely eliminate it out of the Ugandan government and also out of the society as a whole. 

This stand that was made by the President just looks like a joke in the eyes of many Ugandans and actually it could just be a joke and nothing else. 

When the NRM government came into power back in 1986, they were looked at as the saviour of the pearl of Africa. 

This was just after they had disposed off the earlier regimes that had become a headache to our people and these earlier regimes had committed a lot of atrocities and very many Ugandans lost their lives during those earlier regimes in the country. 

For the case of the former Ugandan President Idi Amin, the Indians were told to depart from Uganda and they lost a lot of their wealth and property and the Ugandan economy was left on its knees.  

When NRM government came into power, they started rebuilding the Ugandan economy and the Ugandan economy has been growing steadily since the year 1986. 

But there is one thing that might lead to the collapse and complete demise of this economy if it is not looked at very well and that is corruption that is eating up the core of the Ugandan economy. 

The corruption in Uganda has been deep-rooted into the public sector and even several government offices and parastatals have embraced the strange behaviours of corruption into their daily activities. 

This virus called corruption has not only eaten up government facilities but it also has gone further inside the most wanted office in Uganda and that is the Statehouse.  

In the past few months, we have seen the President of the republic of Uganda move around and distribute raw cash to the youths in Uganda.  We do not know if that is corruption or not. 

If it is not corruption, then someone should invent the real meaning of the world that we always talk about called corruption.  

When the people power movement was threatening the support of President Yoweri Museveni, he had to do something about it and he decided to use the available resources that he does have access to convince the youths to abandon the Bobiwine movement. 

At the height of the Popularity of Bobiwine whose real names are Kyagulanyi Sentamu, the Ugandan President sent a delegation of some of his  people from State house to the famous Kamwokya slums commonly known as the Ghetto.

 These people stationed at a public place and began distributing raw cash to the youths claiming that they were trying to fight poverty. 

These people thought the act of giving these youths cash could easily sway the youths to their side but the truth of the matter is that all that is just a waste of time. 

In order for these people to calm down and all the tensions about the uprising caused by youths to disappear, the NRM government will have to do more than just pay bribes.  Paying bribes to rioting youths will not solve the problems of Uganda and it is not even sustainable. 

The best thing that the NRM government can do is to create an enabling environment that can favour the creation of jobs and encourage the entrepreneurial culture among the youths. 

That is the only way they can get rid of the rioting youths.  After being given some large sums of cash, sooner or later some of these youths will be back on the streets demanding for more of what they were actually given. To fight corruption, we will need to have the political will. 

The problem facing the NRM government is that some of the people have become untouchables and these people are causing lots of problems in the fight against corruption in Uganda. 

Recently, there were some headlines about the Minister of foreign affairs called Sam Kuteesa who is being accused of embezzling around $500,000 when he was the head of the UN Security council. 

This is the same man who was earlier on supposed to have been censored by the Ugandan Parliament. 

This man was left to go free and now he is doing the same things that he was to be censored for. 

The corruption in Uganda has grown up into a monster and developed legs and wings. It has flown all the way to the United States of America and entered into the UN Security Council.  What has now become of the Ugandan image? 

Well, the truth of the matter is that I actually do not know. In the past few weeks now the members of parliament have been very busy putting up another motion that is aimed at censoring the veteran politician who has tainted the image of our country in front of world leaders. 

Personally, I do think all this is just a waste of time and this man will still find a way out of there as long as the head of this country does not mind about the citizens of this country but only minds about his own selfish needs of remaining in power for as long as he can. 

Ugandans were able to critically see with their  naked eyes how far this president could go to keep himself  in control of this country.  He went as far as beating up the members of the Ugandan parliament so that they could pass the age limit bill in his favour. 

Can you imagine how this country has turned out to be?  Members of Parliament who are supposed to be addressed as honourables being beaten up inside the Ugandan parliament like common chicken thieves.  

These are people who have been voted into the parliament by the people of Uganda. They have used guns to change the age limit and that is no surprise to many of us simply because they came into power also using the same guns.

 If we can remember what happened to other African rulers like col. Muamar Gadhaffi of Libya and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, then some of us would not like this country to go that way. 

We would like to have a very peaceful transition from one President to another. Let’s just hope the president of Uganda thinks about that anyway. They say power corrupts those who overstay in it and that might just be true. 

The creation of another committee that is being led by col. Nakalema could try to fight corruption but I think it will not succeed in the long run. 

The best advice I can give my president is to resign and give up power and another thing that he might do is to sack all the people who are in government offices and start vetting them afresh. For God and my Country.