Acting Against Corruption

The presenters in the session on anti-corruption and decentralisation pointed out ways to follow and problems to focus on

By Dan Silver Basaija, HODFA, and Kimbowa B. James, UPA

Corruption in most cases is promoted by local councillors and their appointment of tender boards. This was one of the main points of Jens Peter Dyrbak an advisor with the Danish development agency, Danida.

He believes that the entry point of corruption in decentralisation is with the procurement process at the local governments. To an extent that also municipalities and town councils constitute their own tender boards to provide an avenue of "eating" funds when they could use district tender boards.

From his work with decentralisation in Uganda, he has experienced that in most cases politicians do not have the capacity and know how of supervising their technical staff.

In effect when the local authorities get rid of a corrupt official, two years down the road the same official is suing the local government for wrongful dismissal. In many cases the local governments end up paying damages, which can even amount to their annual budget. Whereas it is necessary to build capacity at village level, local authorities also require capacity building so as to avoid the situation where the "cat is monitoring the lion" as Patrick Lumumba, Diocese of Northern Uganda said in a comment to the presenter’s points.

In an effort to curb corruption Anti Corruption Coalition Apac (ACCA) has taken a proactive approach.

James Ongy of Apac Sustainable Development Initiative (ASDI), an ACCA member organisation, told the meeting that ACCA has empowered people in eight sub counties to elect anti-corruption monitors. As a result the chief finance officer and the district engineer have been interdicted, while the chief administrative officer retired in connection to shoddy construction work and improper contract payments. ACCA is also facilitating a case in which a sub county chief is being investigated on misappropriation of funds. As a consequence leaders are now more accountable to the public.