Uganda Peoples Congress
National Secretariat
Plot 8-10 Kampala Road, Uganda House,
P. O. Box 9206, Kampala
phone/Fax:+256-41-236748

Corruption And Waste Of Public Resources To Worsen In The Fifth Term

31 May 2006

1. The Parliamentary Appointments Committee has accomplished the task of vetting all the 69 women and men proposed by President Museveni to be ministers. Characteristically all the nominees got a clean bill of health. Any time now the President will assign specific ministerial responsibilities to them and complete his 5 th term cabinet.
2. The Uganda Peoples Congress has carefully looked at the approved list. We are convinced and worried that it portends further suffering for the people of Uganda. To use the biblical analogy of wine and bottles, the 5th term cabinet will be a fast mixture of old stale wine, poor and dilute new wine packed in the same old bottle.
3. The 5 th term cabinet line up will comprise old ministers, movement officials and functionaries who served as:-
1. Ministers and military officers in charge of defence, security and internal affairs, who during their tenure supervised and sometimes shamelessly participated in: -
1. Theft of public funds through purchase of junk helicopters, junk tanks and other military equipments, junk food, undersize uniform, out right theft of soldiers salaries and allowances and creation of thousands of ghost soldiers.
2. Without parliamentary authority invaded Rwanda, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo where they plundered timber, mineral wealth and raped women on top of killing and maiming thousands.
3. Committed horrendous human rights abuses in Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan and DRC including murder, torture especially in safe houses.
4. Failed to bring security, to much of Teso, Lango Acholi, West Nile and Karamoja where "cattle rustlers" have become a force unto themselves.
5. Looted number of resources in the police force and nearly killed it as an institution.
2. Ministers of finance, investments and trade who supervised over and participated in graft, theft and general economic mismanagement and in particular: -
1. Sale of public enterprises at gross underline and illegally to those connected to the top leaders in government thereby causing immense loss to the public.
2. Granting of loans and guarantees outside of the law and on sectarian basis to the likes of Hassan Basajjabalaba, Tri-Star Apparels and other dubious enterprises.
3. Granting of illegal tax waivers and concessions to businessmen and women connected to state house and movement leaders. The current debut of Meera Investments involving over Shs.36 billions in lost tax revenue and particularly the complicity of Uganda investment authority, state house and the police in the dirty cover up is a case in point.
4. The award of tenders for public contracts outside of the legal regime. These include the tender for printing of national identity cards and computerised driving permits
3. Ministers of Water, Lands and Environment who have in the proceeding 4 terms of movement reign have been involved in: -
4. Dispossession of ranches and mailo land of their real owners in favour of squatters of a particular ethnic origin.
5. Arbitrary allocation of public land outside of formal procedures to state functionaries and their business associates. The recent craze of grabbing public land and giving it to "foreign investors" for hotel construction is just the intent in this plunder of public property.
6. Illegal sale of government houses inspite of a parliamentary resolution stopping the same.
7. Take over of the powers of the Uganda Land Commission and District Land Boards to protect public land in favour of the citizens of Uganda.
8. Plunders of national resources and the environment outside of the law especially the destruction of the hitherto rich forest cover. Most of the forests have been reduced to bare shrubs.
9. The near collapse of the land titles office to the extent that forged land titles now rival the genuine land titles in number.
3. Ministers of Education that have supervised the new collapse of public educations in Uganda and in particular:-
1. failed to stop theft of UPE funds thereby leading to miserable academic standards in UPE schools and collapsing buildings and infrastructure
2. The turning of Makerere University into a Mega theatre of academic decline.
3. The failure to pay descent wages to teachers and perennial failure to pay pensions.
4. The Ministers of Health who inspite of lots of donor funding have surprised Ugandans over the collapse of the health delivery system. We now have buildings called hospitals and health centers throughout the country but which have no adequate health personnel, equipments, food and drugs.
5. Ministers of Public Service and Labour who have destroyed the Public Service in Uganda through retrenchment, sectarian appointments, promotions, training and dismissal and failure to pay a living wage to the workers.
6. Ministers of Works, Transport & Communications who have abused massive donor assistance to this sector and failed to complete several projects for decades and done shoddy works in most of the projects. The Transport and Communication infrastructure especially in rural areas is a nightmare.
7. Ministers of Agriculture who have supervised over the years, the dismantling of all public institutions in the sector and left farmers without support in form of extension services, markets and inputs
8. Ministers of Justice who have caused a near institutional collapse of the justice law and order sector. Overwhelmed by lack of human and material resources and political interferences, the courts are saddles with a backlog of hundreds of thousands of unresolved cases. At the same time, the ministers who have served in this ministry have participated in the enactment of constitutional provisions and laws that infringed on fundamental human rights and freedom of Ugandans.
9. Ministers of Energy who have presided over the near collapse of the energy sector due to poor planning and corruption. The list is endless.
4. All the former ministers who have served in the 4 terms share President Museveni's government collective responsibility for all the failures, examples of which have been given above. They are all guilty of failing to speak out the truth when things went terribly wrong and therefore, have no moral authority to lead. Their involvement in a corrupt government for that long clearly undermines their capacity to deliver a corruption free and quality service.
5. Similarly the Movement Parliamentarians who sat in the NRC, Parliament and Movement officials who have served a corrupt system for 20 years are too used to corrupt ways of survival to change now. They supported the Kisanja Crusade for purposes of selfish reward. The time for them to corruptly reward themselves, at the expense of the citizens of Uganda, is now. This is most unfortunate and blasphemous.
6. The UPC will not relent to fight the corruption and injustices that have been perpetuated by NRM for the last 20 years and that is set to blossom further in the 5th term. We call upon all peace loving Ugandans to join us in this national cause by rejecting the corrupt governance of the Movement and campaign for its lawful removal or collapse.

For God and my Country