IGG powers can’t be decentralised
REFER to the letter “IGG Should Devolve Power to Regions,†<i>The New Vision</i>, May 21, in which the writer called for decentralisation of the IGG’s powers to the regional offices.
Faith Mwondha
REFER to the letter “IGG Should Devolve Power to Regions,†The New Vision, May 21, in which the writer called for decentralisation of the IGG’s powers to the regional offices.
The letter showed total lack of understanding of the ombudsman concept on which the Inspectorate of Government is founded and its operations.
In The Ombudsman Around the World: Essential Elements, Evolution and Contemporary Challenges, Dr Victor Aycni (director of Governance and Institutional Development at the Commonwealth Secretariat) writes that accessibility and the prestige and influence of the person holding the ombudsman, are among the key criteria that should be built into the design and operational features of any well-functioning ombudsman institution.
The ombudsman concept requires that the ombudsman should not wield coercive powers. The rationale behind this is to prevent abuse of those powers since it is the abuse of executive powers in government agencies that the ombudsman investigates and seeks to correct or redress.
For this reason, the ombudsman can only make recommendations and the ability to invoke a response to the recommendations is not coercive power, but rather the prestige and influence of the person of the ombudsman in society. The ombudsman must, therefore, effect a “personal touch†on all the activities of the institution to achieve respect and regard for those activities.
In establishing the Inspectorate of Government, the framers of Uganda’s Constitution created a “hybrid†institution seeking to merge the ombudsman with an anti-corruption agency for reasons of expediency. In so doing they gave the IGG some coercive powers, especially with regard to prosecution of corruption and enforcing the Leadership Code of Conduct.
Because of the nature of these powers and the apparent conflict with the ombudsman concept, the framers of the Constitution provided for sufficiently qualified individuals (level of high court judge) to occupy the positions of Inspector General of Government and Deputy Inspectors General of Government.
The Inspectorate of Government established regional offices to achieve accessibility of the institution by Uganda’s population at significantly less cost. This is different from what the devolution of power that the national decentralisation policy seeks to achieve — the engendering of public participation in local and national governance.
The author of the article also shows lack of appreciation of the internal workings of the Inspectorate of Government by attributing case backlog to the lack of powers by regional offices to issue reports, sign arrest warrants and witness summons, etc.
The Inspectorate of Government does not use arrest warrants and witness summons for each and every investigation. The article gives a wrong impression that witness summons and warrants of arrest are piled high on the desks of the IGG and Deputy IGG awaiting signature. In fact officers usually visit the offices against which complaints are made and interview the concerned people.
Sometimes the people to be interviewed are invited to the Inspectorate of Government offices and they come willingly without being coerced with witness summons and arrest warrants.
Reports must be issued by the Inspector General of Government or her/his deputy because they are accountable and without coercive powers, implementation of report recommendations lies in their prestige and influence.
In many countries the world over, where the ombudsman institution exists, it is not the institution of first resort the way it is here in Uganda.
Elsewhere, government departments and other public sector agencies have mechanisms to handle complaints and grievances. Hence, rather than investigate the problem, the work of the ombudsman is usually to establish why such mechanisms did not work to resolve the complainant’s problem.
The ombudsman is, therefore, a place of last resort to redress administrative failures possibly before a person goes to the courts of law. Sometimes officers of the inspectorate spend precious time handling complaints that could have been resolved at the point of origin, had such mechanisms been in place. Given the number of cases and the fact that the inspectorate is understaffed, the backlog problem is mostly externally generated.
The IGG is a transparent organisation and if the writer of the article is an outsider, he is free to come to the inspectorate and be advised on how the office works. If he is working within the inspectorate, then he has misconceived the way we operate and needs further training and understanding on how to go about investigation work at the inspectorate.
The writer is the Inspector General of Government
REFER to the letter “IGG Should Devolve Power to Regions,†The New Vision, May 21, in which the writer called for decentralisation of the IGG’s powers to the regional offices.
The letter showed total lack of understanding of the ombudsman concept on which the Inspectorate of Government is founded and its operations.
In The Ombudsman Around the World: Essential Elements, Evolution and Contemporary Challenges, Dr Victor Aycni (director of Governance and Institutional Development at the Commonwealth Secretariat) writes that accessibility and the prestige and influence of the person holding the ombudsman, are among the key criteria that should be built into the design and operational features of any well-functioning ombudsman institution.
The ombudsman concept requires that the ombudsman should not wield coercive powers. The rationale behind this is to prevent abuse of those powers since it is the abuse of executive powers in government agencies that the ombudsman investigates and seeks to correct or redress.
For this reason, the ombudsman can only make recommendations and the ability to invoke a response to the recommendations is not coercive power, but rather the prestige and influence of the person of the ombudsman in society. The ombudsman must, therefore, effect a “personal touch†on all the activities of the institution to achieve respect and regard for those activities.
In establishing the Inspectorate of Government, the framers of Uganda’s Constitution created a “hybrid†institution seeking to merge the ombudsman with an anti-corruption agency for reasons of expediency. In so doing they gave the IGG some coercive powers, especially with regard to prosecution of corruption and enforcing the Leadership Code of Conduct.
Because of the nature of these powers and the apparent conflict with the ombudsman concept, the framers of the Constitution provided for sufficiently qualified individuals (level of high court judge) to occupy the positions of Inspector General of Government and Deputy Inspectors General of Government.
The Inspectorate of Government established regional offices to achieve accessibility of the institution by Uganda’s population at significantly less cost. This is different from what the devolution of power that the national decentralisation policy seeks to achieve — the engendering of public participation in local and national governance.
The author of the article also shows lack of appreciation of the internal workings of the Inspectorate of Government by attributing case backlog to the lack of powers by regional offices to issue reports, sign arrest warrants and witness summons, etc.
The Inspectorate of Government does not use arrest warrants and witness summons for each and every investigation. The article gives a wrong impression that witness summons and warrants of arrest are piled high on the desks of the IGG and Deputy IGG awaiting signature. In fact officers usually visit the offices against which complaints are made and interview the concerned people.
Sometimes the people to be interviewed are invited to the Inspectorate of Government offices and they come willingly without being coerced with witness summons and arrest warrants.
Reports must be issued by the Inspector General of Government or her/his deputy because they are accountable and without coercive powers, implementation of report recommendations lies in their prestige and influence.
In many countries the world over, where the ombudsman institution exists, it is not the institution of first resort the way it is here in Uganda.
Elsewhere, government departments and other public sector agencies have mechanisms to handle complaints and grievances. Hence, rather than investigate the problem, the work of the ombudsman is usually to establish why such mechanisms did not work to resolve the complainant’s problem.
The ombudsman is, therefore, a place of last resort to redress administrative failures possibly before a person goes to the courts of law. Sometimes officers of the inspectorate spend precious time handling complaints that could have been resolved at the point of origin, had such mechanisms been in place. Given the number of cases and the fact that the inspectorate is understaffed, the backlog problem is mostly externally generated.
The IGG is a transparent organisation and if the writer of the article is an outsider, he is free to come to the inspectorate and be advised on how the office works. If he is working within the inspectorate, then he has misconceived the way we operate and needs further training and understanding on how to go about investigation work at the inspectorate.
The writer is the Inspector General of Government