Tribunal will curb illicit wealth enrichment

By Maureen Agaba

I wish to applaud the move last week by the Ethics and Integrity Minister, Fr. Simon Lokodo in tabling the long awaited Leadership Code Amendment Bill 2016 on the floor of Parliament.

The Leadership Code among others, requires specified leaders every two years, to make a declaration of their wealth, assets and liabilities to the Inspector General of Government (IGG) as one of the laws for preventing and combating corruption in Uganda, and as a mechanism to ensure accountability of leaders in Public office

This good news was similarly accompanied by the launch of an online declaration system by the Inspectorate of Government, which will enable leaders to electronically declare their assets and other financial information, without having to queue at the office of the Inspectorate.

This move towards e-government, will also promote easy comparison of leaders' declared information with records gathered by other agencies such as land registration, Uganda Registration Services Bureau and Uganda Revenue Authority.

The Leadership Code will give functionality to Article 235A of the Constitution through establishment of a Leadership Code Tribunal. With no Tribunal in existence, many reports of the IGG have been challenged by leaders found violating the Leadership Code and ended up being thrown out by courts, not on the basis of the findings, but on procedural grounds like fair hearing, and challenging the IGG's jurisdiction.

Sadly many leaders found in breach and whose properties were due for confiscation have escaped the long arm of the law and gone on to enjoy their ill-gotten wealth to the detriment of the citizens, and the IGG rendered toothless in such cases. Corrupt leaders have exploited these loopholes to rush to courts whenever found violating the Code and render the enforcement of the Leadership Code Act 2002 ineffective.

The Tribunal on the other hand, will also provide a mechanism for aggrieved leaders to appeal when they feel that they have been unfairly treated during enforcement of the Code. The amendments to the Leadership code should also provide for the Inspectorate of Government to make public the details of declarations of public officials, so that the public through whistleblowers, can come up to report instances of under declaration or none declaration of leader's assets.

Similarly, ever since the enactment of the Code in 2002 no Regulations have been put in place to clearly provide for procedures, among others, and this has contributed tremendously to the difficulty faced in the enforcement of the Leadership Code Act 2002. The 10th Parliament is thus called upon to urgently debate and enact the new law.

The writer is a civil society activist