A group of civil society organisations (CSOs) has asked President Yoweri Museveni to urgently fill the position of Inspector General of Government (IGG) to sustain the fight against corruption in Uganda.

The IGG is an independent institution charged with the responsibility of eliminating corruption, abuse of authority and of public office.

Development Diaries understands that the IGG, according to the Ugandan constitution, is empowered to investigate, arrest, prosecute, make orders and give directions during investigations.

But it has been observed that Uganda has been running without an IGG after the office became vacant on 5 July, when Justice Irene Mulyagonja completed her tenure.

The CSOs said that the inspectorate of government in its current state cannot initiate new charges neither can it institute new investigations, apart from continuing with those already in the system.

‘Whereas the third National Development Plan (NDP III) identifies corruption as one of the key obstacles to Uganda’s development and the country being ranked as the second most corrupt in the East African region, the situation has not been helped by the absence of a substantive inspector general of government’, Country Director of ActionAid Uganda, Xavier Ejoyi, said.

‘While the inspectorate of government is very central to the fight against corruption by virtue of its special powers to investigate, arrest and prosecute cases involving corruption, the office is poorly resourced and underfunded to carry out its duties.

‘The absence of a substantive Inspector General of Government further compounds the situation, leading to case backlog’.

Contributing, the Executive Director of the Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda, Cissy Kagaba, said that the absence of a sustantive IGG had adversely affected anti-corruption efforts.

‘This alone is an impediment to Uganda’s anti-corruption fight, especially now that we are headed into the 2021 general election’, Kagaba said.

‘Although members of the Leadership Code Tribunal were in July officially sworn in, they cannot effectively do their work without a fully functional inspectorate of government.

‘We have many parallel anti-corruption units put in place by the president and the intentions might be good but we think for the streamlined fight against corruption, the office of the inspector general of government should be reinforced with staff from these units.

‘However, with the absence of a substantive inspector general of government, we think President Museveni is undermining his efforts to fight corruption in Uganda’.

Source: Nile Post

Photo source: Nile Post