| Opinion |
Not even the Archbishop nor Cardinal can manage the URA
Muniini K. Mulera
Dear Tingasiga:I fear that my great friend Charles Onyango-Obbo has been smoking something rather powerful of late.
How else does one explain his column last week in which he claimed that the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) would have been a solid institution had it been led by an educated Acholi, Langi or Muganda?
(See Perhaps only a Langi, Acholi or Muganda will manage URA honestly, The Monitor Nov. 6).
In Obbo’s view, Uganda has been eaten bone-dry through corruption because its public enterprises and departments have been under the care of a cabal of Banyankore, Jopadhola, Bagisu, Karimojong, Bakiga and other vultures.
To support his thesis, Obbo cited examples of three gentlemen, an Acholi and two Baganda, who ran clean and efficient parastatals in the 1960s.
To be fair, he pointed out that those men grew up and operated in a different era, long before the pandemic of moral decadence that has afflicted Uganda since the early 1970s.
However, he forgot to mention that those gentlemen had very many contemporaries from other nationalities who also ran their departments and parastatals with exemplary efficiency and integrity. Some of these are still alive.
He also forgot to mention, for example, that Major General David Oyite Ojok, a Langi, allegedly helped himself to vast quantities of Uganda’s coffee when he doubled as Chairman of the Coffee Marketing Board and Army Chief of Staff during Obote II.
In Uganda, as elsewhere, vice and virtue are completely non-sectarian and the problems of the URA go deeper than the nationalities and personalities of the men and women who have run that organization.
After all many Baganda have held top jobs in the URA, including Fred Lule, son of President Yusufu Lule, and Dr. Simon Kagugube, both of whom are no longer with the organisation.
The list of current senior managers at the URA includes long-serving Deputy Commissioner General (Revenue) Justin Zake, Christopher Kaweesa, Jennifer Semakula-Musisi, Jennif er Kaggwa, Enoka Muganga, Charles Lwanga, Margaret Magumba and Sam Nakabaale, most of whom are presumably Baganda.
Though the old allegations that the URA is dominated by Banyankore and Bakiga would be worth confirming or dispelling once and for all, it is clear that the higher ranks are not filled with folks from these two nationalities.
But even if they were, their ethnicity would not explain the depth of corruption that exists in the URA.
We must look elsewhere for an explanation.
First, a large number of Uganda’s top businessmen, the big importers and manufacturers, are political partners of the ruling classes.
They immunise themselves against the tax laws of Uganda by financing the political campaigns of Movement leaders and good Movement cadres, including that of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni himself.
They reportedly bribe some ministers, especially those in the economic portfolios who, in return, are pleased to help their business friends to secure tax exemption for their imported goods.
Under instructions from the Ministry of Finance, the URA officers simply enforce those exemptions, even when they know that the whole thing is a sham.
The URA officers know that some of these businessmen are untouchables, some with direct access to the royal court at Nakasero and Rwakitura.
They also know that some of the businessmen are capable of arranging nasty things to befall any uncooperative URA officer.
So the officer who is assigned to verify the imports, to scrutinise the papers and to prepare entry (customs documents) of a major manufacturer, does the needful for the importer, and happily receives the crumbs that are tossed his way.
The whole thing reminds us of the Rukiga saying that “aharufu rw’ente embwa tizirarugaho busha.” [When a cow is slaughtered, the dogs always claim their share of the remains. At a minimum, they take the bones and some blood.]
Second, the URA operates in a society where the national motto, For God and My Country, seems to have given way to a new motto, Get Rich As Quickly Possible, Anyhow!
The nation’s psyche, especially in the urban areas, is such that few people want to earn their living the old fashioned way, namely, through hard work and patient investment. Corruption is accepted as a normal way of doing business.
Little wonder that only a few Ugandans seem to get really angered by the obscene discoveries that our indefatigable Justice Julia Ssebutinde has unearthed in the Police Department, the Ministry of Defence and now the URA.
What one hears instead are cries of “no change!” and the beginnings of a movement to change the constitution in order to ensure “no change!” in 2006.
This attitude, together with a complete lack of a strong and credible opposition, makes it almost impossible to hold the rulers accountable for the rot in the land.
Third, you have a parliament that is neutered by the knowledge that those who have fought against corruption in the past have either lost their seats or have come close to losing them, thanks to the valiant efforts of the Ssabagabe’s court that would prefer to have an impotent legislature.
Other MPs are busy day-dreaming about “the phone call”, the big one from the president, offering them an appointment as minister of state for something or other. Why worry themselves about corruption?
The few who are still devoted to the fight against corruption sound like voices in the wilderness, growing fainter and fainter.
No doubt Ssebutinde’s latest inquiry has unearthed a lot of dirt in the URA.
Her dogged efforts have once again placated the desire of the few Ugandans who are eager to expose the rascals.
The government can now tell the people who really matter to them, the donors and lenders in Washington and London, that the Ssabagabe’s court is resolute in the fight against corruption.
The problem is that Ssebutinde is investigating the wrong people. If I were Ssebutinde, I would ask a few more questions before submitting the report. I would want to know everyth ing about a company called DANZE which allegedly reaped billions of shillings that should have gone to the URA.
What about the big fuel smugglers? What about the NGOs which serve as conduits for tax evasion? What about those who use government’s tax exempt status to import private goods, including luxury automobiles and building materials?
I would not spare anyone, not even those who unfailingly exhort the nation to turn to God, donning a piety that reminds one of Moliere’s Tartuffe, the main character of the 17th century play of the same name.
Tartuffe, you will recall, hypocritically pretended to be deeply pious when the truth was different.
I bet you that Ssebutinde would discover that she has been harassing the dogs at URA which have been merely fighting over the bones and blood, while those who have caused the cow to be slaughtered are much higher up in the regime.
She may then tell Onyango-Obbo that even if he hired Archbishop Mpalanyi Nkoyooyo and Emmanuel Cardinal Wamala to run the URA, the rot would continue unabated unless there was a fundamental change of national governance and culture.
November 11, 2002 01:06:14
Gook
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
