Corruption: We can change the next 50 years

Nov 28, 2012

Stark corruption has been and is still one of the profound and pervasive cause of underdevelopment in Uganda in the past 50years. I don’t exactly want to call it 50 because I was born in the Museveni regime, I love and will capitalize majorly on the 26 years I have personally experienced.

By Frank Lukabwe

Stark corruption has been and is still one of the profound and pervasive cause of underdevelopment in Uganda in the past 50years. I don’t exactly want to call it 50 because I was born in the Museveni regime, I love and will capitalize majorly on the 26 years I have personally experienced. 

The government has done a lot of great things; the peace that was ushered in came as relief from the past barbaric and out rightly atrocious governments of the past. 

There has been a huge transition in education; undeniably this government has seen the most educated people. Improved healthcare, road system, power development, rule of law and freedom of speech that the preceding governments tried to muzzle.
 
Those are but a few fine works of this government. It has been a glimmer of hope, a huge leap towards a democratic government. But the same government has acceded corruption to blossom. 
 
Because of corruption many Ugandan are plagued by obscene poverty alongside stinking affluence. There is depravity, criminality, dejected roads, and extortion among other issues to loath. 
 
Crippled by the chains of poverty and inequality many Ugandans are literally financially exiled amidst a vast ocean of material prosperity. 
 
The plight is evident in the misery and pain of those that cannot afford justice, the many that can’t access good health, those that love too but cannot get good education and those afflicted by natural disasters but help may never come. 
 
All these issues bring into sharp focus the evident flaws in most government institutions that have been swept by the whirling wind of corruption.
 
It’s obvious to seemingly think that all have drunk from the same cup, a cup of corruption that neutralizes good reason but instead nurtures a beastly behavior, mostly instinctive to satisfy self even if it puts at stake the lives of many other people.
 
Our fellow countrymen don’t mind about the plight of others but the wealth they draw from their suffering.
Am not offering personal attacks and gauzy platitudes but highlighting the inexorable truth, a grim reality that begs for radical change. 
 
It’s fatal to overlook need for urgent mutation. We cannot change the past 50yrs but we can change the 50yrs tread we just started. 
 
Now is the time to mellow out this fiasco of corruption moving forward full throttle to shout loud to all those that embezzle and misappropriate public funds.  
 
It’s time to reverse the laxity, reinforce the laws and increase transparency. it’s time to remove the blind fold be able to see the light as we move towards  a warm threshold that leads us through a corruption free future. 
 
Let’s all try make real the promise of democracy, be accountable for our deeds as we build the pearl of Africa Uganda. 
Yes we can change the future.
 
The writer is a graduate of Social Development and counseling 
 

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});