Probe education and road programmes
Jun 14, 2009
THE Government is to set-up a judicial commission of inquiry into alleged mismanagement of funds for the Universal Primary and Secondary Education programmes.
THE Government is to set-up a judicial commission of inquiry into alleged mismanagement of funds for the Universal Primary and Secondary Education programmes.
President Yoweri Museveni, commenting about the national budget for the new financial year; 2009–2010 on June 11, said he had received information indicating that the Government officials were stealing the funds meant for UPE and USE.
He observed that from the information he has received, the number of children benefiting from the programmes is fraudulently inflated.
As the President has stated, on a number of occasions over the past few months, corruption is one of the biggest challenges facing the country.
According to the just released 2009 Global Corruption Barometer of Transparency International, Uganda is ranked among the countries most affected by bribery. Uganda scored the third highest among 69 countries sampled in Asia, America, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.
In order to deal with corruption, the Government has over the years appointed several judicial commissions of inquiry into alleged corruption in a number of government institutions.
What is clear is that although the judicial commissions have had some positive impact, this has been limited and for the short-term. In some of the institutions that have been probed, there has not been any evident improvement and corruption has continued unabated. In some cases, implementation of the recommendations from these commissions has been half-hearted.
The most effective way to deal with the problem is to strengthen the state agencies mandated to fight corruption — the Inspectorate of Government, the Auditor General, the Police Criminal Investigations Directorate, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Parliamentary Public Accounts and Local Government Committees.
These institutions have persistently complained of inadequate funding and demoralised personnel. The Government should provide more funding to these agencies to launch thorough investigations into all education, health and roads construction programmes.
President Yoweri Museveni, commenting about the national budget for the new financial year; 2009–2010 on June 11, said he had received information indicating that the Government officials were stealing the funds meant for UPE and USE.
He observed that from the information he has received, the number of children benefiting from the programmes is fraudulently inflated.
As the President has stated, on a number of occasions over the past few months, corruption is one of the biggest challenges facing the country.
According to the just released 2009 Global Corruption Barometer of Transparency International, Uganda is ranked among the countries most affected by bribery. Uganda scored the third highest among 69 countries sampled in Asia, America, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.
In order to deal with corruption, the Government has over the years appointed several judicial commissions of inquiry into alleged corruption in a number of government institutions.
What is clear is that although the judicial commissions have had some positive impact, this has been limited and for the short-term. In some of the institutions that have been probed, there has not been any evident improvement and corruption has continued unabated. In some cases, implementation of the recommendations from these commissions has been half-hearted.
The most effective way to deal with the problem is to strengthen the state agencies mandated to fight corruption — the Inspectorate of Government, the Auditor General, the Police Criminal Investigations Directorate, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Parliamentary Public Accounts and Local Government Committees.
These institutions have persistently complained of inadequate funding and demoralised personnel. The Government should provide more funding to these agencies to launch thorough investigations into all education, health and roads construction programmes.