Garland the Auditor General!
Apr 09, 2011
SHOULD you be a true nationalist, and should you want to be amazed (or infuriated, driven mad, driven to despair, angry as hell, or a brew of all these) you need look no further than the Auditor General’s (AG) report on the state of Uganda’s finances.
By JOHN NAGENDA
SHOULD you be a true nationalist, and should you want to be amazed (or infuriated, driven mad, driven to despair, angry as hell, or a brew of all these) you need look no further than the Auditor General’s (AG) report on the state of Uganda’s finances.
Me? The tragic title of Elizabeth Smart’s novel: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, arose in my mind and stayed there. Not the subject (her in-the-end doomed love for the poet George Barker) but the feeling of utter desolation at paradise lost. The AG’s name is John Muwanga, and his head is prematurely white; not, to be fair, because of the cases he has had to handle, it was white before he got the job! But you surmise the shock of what he has found might still have achieved the same result.
And where do you suppose this sorry tale appeared? Why, in the Government’s paper, the New Vision, which rightly in my view dubs itself “Uganda’s Leading Daily†(though that leaves a gap for another to call itself “Leading Weeklyâ€!) Vision has a proud record of biting its owner when merited, originating from the “saintly†William Pike, Editor for 20 years. So let Government be praised for liberalness.
For details of how Uganda lies naked to adventurous suitors, read the AG’s account of the twists and turns of how this is done, with very little danger to those who press the suit. Start with Wednesday’s Vision, April 6. Brace yourself for a shock!
Here, space being at a premium, we will mainly head-line. The AG, resourceful warrior for the nation (garland him) states facts, pointing them to Parliament, copy to Government, and rests his case. Government had paid Hassan Basajjabalaba’s Haba Group of Companies a whopping sh24b for “termination of its markets contractsâ€; never mind how first obtained. But he is still claiming a balance of sh118b (118,000,000,000)!
He has a well-earned reputation of being given what he wants. How were these figures computed? Are they anywhere near what he paid Kampala City Council for the market sites? It is very much to be doubted. He is not the only one, but is easily the emperor of this particular “marketâ€.
How is it that, like the poor (as the saying goes) these matters are always with us? What, and who, are the cogs in the Government wheel, which encourage them? For some, maybe it is from apathy, others through indifference, a few, because of lack of know-how, of training, and thus through ignorance. What is clear is that time and again, secure in their central bug-in-a-rug cover, the Big Beasts feast without pause or fear.
Take the clear-cut, keynote case of the NSSF building. Some years ago Alcon, a company of Kenyan Indians, contracted to construct it, but totally failed to deliver. In the end it was laid off. The owners complained of finding it hard going, alleging this was because of the bribes they were paying, and even published a cheque they allegedly paid out to one of the NSSF bosses.
Bless my soul! They should have been hauled straight to court and charged, out of their own mouths, of bribery. And if found guilty, they should have been punished by law, including being disqualified from the contract. Instead of which they sued for huge millions.
There is a coda to this distressing tale. It is rumoured that their company has been bought by Ugandans, greedily anticipating profits should the suing succeed! How is this different from passing waste where you eat?
It is a carbon copy of many other cases, where people sue Government in utterly derisory cases, officials concerned cunningly concede without a struggle; huge settlements are given against Government, and shared by all concerned.
It is white-collared crime at its simplest and most foul. Why not make the rope the just reward for these? After all, as water trickles downward, they leave the poorest in the land poorer still.
The President has already directed the current Prime Minister, Leader of Government Business, to hunt and punish wrongdoers. It is a tall order, “but to whom much is given…†Your tremulous Columnist applauds and holds his breath!
***************
We leave (with what relief!) this sewer stench, and replace it by shenanigans farther afield: Libya and Ivory Coast. The connection is in that currently felicitous, certainly convenient, phrase, with which we shall soon frown: “the aim of protecting civiliansâ€.
In its wake, in Ivory Coast, the UN and France took part in trying to bring Laurent Gbagbo down by force of arms. With Libya, it is NATO, France, Britain, flying the same phrase, who rain bombs from “no-flying†skies onto Gadaffi’s materiel, reckoning a third of it is already kaput. Little do they seem to recognise the long road ahead.
Boy, what a lot of civilians need protecting, the world over! Can we now expect these modern Biggles (a child’s cartoon pilot character from 60 years ago) to keep unleashing bombs in the Cause? Where does it start and where does it end?
Of course protecting civilians is right and proper. But never forget: getting used to opening that “protection†door might not easily see it closed again.
Purveyor, and customer, beware!
SHOULD you be a true nationalist, and should you want to be amazed (or infuriated, driven mad, driven to despair, angry as hell, or a brew of all these) you need look no further than the Auditor General’s (AG) report on the state of Uganda’s finances.
Me? The tragic title of Elizabeth Smart’s novel: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, arose in my mind and stayed there. Not the subject (her in-the-end doomed love for the poet George Barker) but the feeling of utter desolation at paradise lost. The AG’s name is John Muwanga, and his head is prematurely white; not, to be fair, because of the cases he has had to handle, it was white before he got the job! But you surmise the shock of what he has found might still have achieved the same result.
And where do you suppose this sorry tale appeared? Why, in the Government’s paper, the New Vision, which rightly in my view dubs itself “Uganda’s Leading Daily†(though that leaves a gap for another to call itself “Leading Weeklyâ€!) Vision has a proud record of biting its owner when merited, originating from the “saintly†William Pike, Editor for 20 years. So let Government be praised for liberalness.
For details of how Uganda lies naked to adventurous suitors, read the AG’s account of the twists and turns of how this is done, with very little danger to those who press the suit. Start with Wednesday’s Vision, April 6. Brace yourself for a shock!
Here, space being at a premium, we will mainly head-line. The AG, resourceful warrior for the nation (garland him) states facts, pointing them to Parliament, copy to Government, and rests his case. Government had paid Hassan Basajjabalaba’s Haba Group of Companies a whopping sh24b for “termination of its markets contractsâ€; never mind how first obtained. But he is still claiming a balance of sh118b (118,000,000,000)!
He has a well-earned reputation of being given what he wants. How were these figures computed? Are they anywhere near what he paid Kampala City Council for the market sites? It is very much to be doubted. He is not the only one, but is easily the emperor of this particular “marketâ€.
How is it that, like the poor (as the saying goes) these matters are always with us? What, and who, are the cogs in the Government wheel, which encourage them? For some, maybe it is from apathy, others through indifference, a few, because of lack of know-how, of training, and thus through ignorance. What is clear is that time and again, secure in their central bug-in-a-rug cover, the Big Beasts feast without pause or fear.
Take the clear-cut, keynote case of the NSSF building. Some years ago Alcon, a company of Kenyan Indians, contracted to construct it, but totally failed to deliver. In the end it was laid off. The owners complained of finding it hard going, alleging this was because of the bribes they were paying, and even published a cheque they allegedly paid out to one of the NSSF bosses.
Bless my soul! They should have been hauled straight to court and charged, out of their own mouths, of bribery. And if found guilty, they should have been punished by law, including being disqualified from the contract. Instead of which they sued for huge millions.
There is a coda to this distressing tale. It is rumoured that their company has been bought by Ugandans, greedily anticipating profits should the suing succeed! How is this different from passing waste where you eat?
It is a carbon copy of many other cases, where people sue Government in utterly derisory cases, officials concerned cunningly concede without a struggle; huge settlements are given against Government, and shared by all concerned.
It is white-collared crime at its simplest and most foul. Why not make the rope the just reward for these? After all, as water trickles downward, they leave the poorest in the land poorer still.
The President has already directed the current Prime Minister, Leader of Government Business, to hunt and punish wrongdoers. It is a tall order, “but to whom much is given…†Your tremulous Columnist applauds and holds his breath!
***************
We leave (with what relief!) this sewer stench, and replace it by shenanigans farther afield: Libya and Ivory Coast. The connection is in that currently felicitous, certainly convenient, phrase, with which we shall soon frown: “the aim of protecting civiliansâ€.
In its wake, in Ivory Coast, the UN and France took part in trying to bring Laurent Gbagbo down by force of arms. With Libya, it is NATO, France, Britain, flying the same phrase, who rain bombs from “no-flying†skies onto Gadaffi’s materiel, reckoning a third of it is already kaput. Little do they seem to recognise the long road ahead.
Boy, what a lot of civilians need protecting, the world over! Can we now expect these modern Biggles (a child’s cartoon pilot character from 60 years ago) to keep unleashing bombs in the Cause? Where does it start and where does it end?
Of course protecting civilians is right and proper. But never forget: getting used to opening that “protection†door might not easily see it closed again.
Purveyor, and customer, beware!