Responsibility, sacrifice for future can end corruption

By Charles Okecha

I feel obliged to respond to a resent local TV show about the effects of corruption on our economy and livelihood of women.

Congratulations to the presenters for broadly defining corruption beyond bribery and embezzlement of funds and citing bad decision-making, examination and employment malpractices among others. Given the ever-deteriorating status index in the international media, such discussion forums and quick action are long overdue.

Edwin Cole a famous Christian author wrote: “Change must begin at the stop or else a revolution starts from the bottom”.

However, no one seems to take full responsibility to get rid of corruption. The citizens of a nation must have an administrative structure called government, which comprises of the executive, parliament and the judiciary. All the members of these respective entities are elected/appointed from among the people.

One should not, therefore, expect the government to perform beyond the status of its composition (the people), just as a good cake/omelet is a product of good eggs. Yet to the discussants and many Ugandans, the government is solely to blame! Can you reap what/where you have not sown?

Corruption like a virus has been existent in the country for long except that it keeps mutating and alternating its symptoms.

Dismissal and grabbing properties of foreign investors; vandalising properties of opposition politicians; persecuting suspected rebel collaborators and possessing their cars/property; looting during coups; soldiers staging roadblocks for cash; pick-pocketing; robbing households, shops and banks; abductions and kidnappings, cattle rustling, tribalism are all various manifestations of getting quick wealth without hard work.

Now that the era of armed robberies and lawlessness is waning, the vice has adopted a diplomatic/subtle avenue now called corruption.

Last year, one media house published a catalogue of evils prevalent in the judiciary that make crime hard to beat. The huge-size parliament likewise consumes our national resources, yet neither the parliamentarians nor the people that elected them are willing to forfeit seats to scale down the burden.

The electorate would rather ‘tax’ their representatives over the empty promises made or gifts they pledged/continue to offer. This leaves only one arm the cabinet/executive to blame for our predicament.

Issues that could be tamed by single decisions are tabled, discussed and swept under the carpet for fear of losing votes or foreign support!

Our entire society shares blame for grooming self-seekers inconsiderate of national matters or the welfare of others. Last year, a lady dropped dead at Workers House in Kampala.

Media reports indicated that having worked in a foreign country; she sent proceeds back home with hope of a decent life afterward, only to be squandered by a greedy relative! When President Museveni visited Abu Dhabi, the Ugandans workers highlighted similar problems in sending investments back home.

Corruption not only kills in hospitals due of lack of drugs neither through accidents because designated funds were embezzled but also through monster relatives.

It creates exiles of own countrymen fearing theft, family wrangles, poor pay and non-promotions. Like myopic communists who grabbed wealth under the guise of promoting everyone’s welfare, we lose talents/profits to foreign lands.

Every mineral has a source so are invisible attributes like faith, honesty, hope, patience, love and unity. These we ought to seek from their source even God to counter corruption. Wholesome development demands practices that sacrifice for the future and reward/recognise such-like heroes.

Although we build infrastructures our fate still lies amongst wealthy countries grappling with crime and drug cartels.

The writer works with St. Paul’s College, Mbale