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Every discussion on how to improve the delivery of public goods and services in Uganda ends up focusing on how to fight corruption. In public services like health, education and infrastructure, public officials divert resources from their intended purpose to private pockets. We are thus saddled with ghost schools and hospitals, ghost teachers and medical workers and of course our popular potholes.

We have spent the last twenty years trying to find safeguards against corruption. Our newspapers have returned handsome profits exposing it. Many institutions have been put in place to fight the problem – the IGG, PPDA, a ministry of ethics and integrity, parliamentary oversight committees, civil society pressure groups – everything has been done. But as most Ugandans would attest, corruption has only grown bigger, not smaller.

I think after two decades of failure, we need to reframe the debate on corruption. Rather than continue to obsess about how to eliminate it, we should begin to debate how we can use it (or the lessons it teaches us) to deliver public goods and services. Public servants have demonstrated that they place private gain above the public good. Our government has shown that it is disinterested or incapable of fighting it. How can we exploit the greed of our public servants to deliver the common good?

To answer this question, I go back to the late 1990s. When cars increased in this city, parking space became scarce. Motorists would park on pavements. Kampala City Council (KCC) banned this practice and ordered the Local Administration Police (LAP) to impound any wrongly parked car. This immediately became the most effective activity of the city council. Within ten minutes of wrong parking anywhere in the city’s Central Business District (CBD), your car would be towed away. LAP officers would be seen patrolling city streets with breakdowns hungrily hunting down any wrongly parked car.

Why this enthusiasm? KCC is the most corrupt and inefficient body I know in Uganda; it cannot collect taxes, pick garbage, fill a pothole or approve your building plan without a bribe – and only after six months of waiting. Under the new rules, any wrongly parked car in Kampala would be impounded, taken and dumped into a KCC yard along Sixth Street. To collect it, the offender had to pay a fine of Shs15,000 to KCC and the cost of the breakdown, Shs 20,000. How KCC arrived at the Shs 20,000 provides insight into how to incentivize public servants to deliver public goods and services in a country where corruption has become standard operating procedure.

To eliminate ambiguities and haggling over the price of the breakdown, KCC had established a standard fee based on the longest distance from Sixth Street i.e. Nateete, Bweyogerere and Kawempe. Yet 100% of all vehicles impounded were from Kampala’s CBD – Kampala Road or Luwum Street where it cost a mere Shs5,000 to take a vehicle to Sixth Street. This meant that if a LAP officer impounded your car from Jinja Road, you paid Shs 20,000 for the breakdown even though the owner of the breakdown actually charged Shs5,000. The difference (Shs15,000) would go into the pocket of the LAP officer who had impounded it. This in-built bribe turned an incompetent LAP into the most efficient machine our nation has ever seen.

Let us apply this logic to the road sector. Our roads have been deteriorating for a decade now. You may think it is due to lack of money. In the 2006/07 budget, donors gave Uganda US$256m for our roads; our government put up another US$80m of its own money. By end of the financial year, the Ministry of Works had spent all the government of Uganda money and more but only 27% of donor money.

I asked the Minister of Works, John Nasasira, why this was so. Good John told me that donor money has cumbersome procedures which make it difficult to get it released on time. If this is true, then other recipients must be in the same pot. So I went to Rwanda for a comparative study. I found that the government there actually spends over 100% of donor money. The procedures are always met in time. This puzzled me because in terms of institutional quality, Uganda is far a head of Rwanda. Upon reflection, I realised that the two countries have different institutional characteristics.

I get the sense that most Rwandan public servants, even when corrupt, have a deeply entrenched attitude of working for the good of their country. This is less so in Uganda where personal gain takes precedence over the collective good. The “cumbersome” procedures in getting donor money were put there to block official theft. They ended up undermining incentives for civil servants to process donor funded road reconstruction contracts. Why would a civil servant earning Shs800,000 a month fight hard to deliver a road worth US$ 150m when his children are going hungry?

The solution to the Ugandan dilemma is rooted in the KCC example above. Let us assume donors give us US$100m to build a road. They can say that if the civil servants in charge do the right quality of road within a specified time, they will be given a bonus of 10% of the contract-sum i.e. US$ 10m which they can share. Most people do not want to steal; they want an honest work’s pay. I suspect most civil servants would fight to get their 10% bonus rather than suffer the indignity of stealing and in the process deliver the goods and services. The same incentives can be given to those who inspect work.

Because public debate over corruption in Uganda is largely conducted with moral appeals, it is difficult to bring such practical lessons to the table. In any case, I am suspicious that my argument has many weaknesses. But it forms the point from which we can begin to think differently about how to improve public sector efficiency and effectiveness. It may be in harnessing individual greed, more than in tapping our people’s altruism, that we may be able to build a public sector that is responsive to national goals.

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Comments (36)

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Are you Nsamba Buturo in disguise
written by mbukuuli ya buganda, December 23, 2009

Mwenda you are telling bold faced lies. Your first lie is to mask this article suspiciously like that which condones corruption on the basis that the crooks reinvest their loot in Uganda. Your biggest lie is to suggest that the civil service is the root of corruption. Temangalo, CHOGM everything, Ghosts,Junk weapons, Shimoni etc are impediments to the livelihoods of the civil servants you are falsely accusing. Which career (as opposed to NRM appointed) civil servants benefited from these? It is also highly mendacious to suggest the continuance of corruption albeit in the form of a commission. You and I know where the trough is, who the pigs are, and which snouts are in the thick of it!!! A serious question is whether you are also on the take.

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THE SAD LEGACY OF NRM
written by OJA, December 23, 2009

The story of corruption in Uganda is a sad legacy of the NRM-Museveni goernment. When the head of fish is rotten the whole body has nothing to do except succumb to decay and petrification. This is Uganda. It is sad and unfortunate. I can't argue like Andrew who contends that we should use the same corruption to fight it. My argument is to have an alternative conscience. Firstly, this alternative conscience should begin with the youth who are still in the secondary schools and the universities. They should be sensitised to detest corruption and made to see how gravely it has impacted on service delivery in every sector, so that when it is their turn to take up responsibility they need to be honest. Secondly, NRM must be voted out and we see it with another government.

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Put political partronage out of public service
written by Joe.K, December 23, 2009

Mwenda, no matter what you say, the fact is politics of partronage has eroded the moral fibric of uganda's civil service. As all Ugandans know, recruitment into the public service is based on which political organisation you support than which quality you can bring in, also you need to be from a certain region of the country to be appointed top executive of a ministry or an organisation in Uganda, and this is why those who rob public funds, do so with impunity.

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Empowering the poeple is the way foward
written by MABO, December 23, 2009

Your article may only worsen the situation,if implemnted then the argument may shift to increase the bonus % before any good service is done. Even those who may lose out on the bonus may sabotage the project planned. My opinion is that lets empower the people & civil groups to demand proactively the RIGHT services. Suppose all of us would denounce or reject poorly done projects these civil servants will change, e.g most poeple locally know guys who divert drugs from gov't hosp to pharmacies but keep quiet.

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continued
written by MABO, December 23, 2009

In our parishes,people who steal power are known( am sure Mwenda knows some also in his residential area!) but most of the time we say to whom it may concern forgeting tht this impacts on our social life.Look at the way guys give tips even where its not necessary( some body sends a kid to a shop & gives him/her a tip! Why? Isn't this preparing for a kid to demand a "comission" before a does any work? Lets stem out these corrupt tendencies right from our home( charity begins at home), look at journalism,to get a leak(hot story) you a pay your source(most times) Why? A

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continued
written by MABO, December 23, 2009

true patriot would give you tht info free. A true revolution against corruption should sprout from us the people not the elite since they shadow corruption in technicalities & red tape bureacracy. The (dubious)get rich attitude of some ugandans and peer pressure to amass wealth should also be tamed . For God & my country.

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Questions to Mwenda
written by Rev Amos Kasibante, December 23, 2009

I tease out some statements from Mbukuuli ya Buganda (first comment). He makes an interesting distinction between civil servants and corrupt deals by well-connected, people close to the centre of power. That is the main point that casts aspersions at Mwenda's thesis in this article, and he needs to respond to it. Point 2: Those who stole CHOGM monies either did shoddy work or did no work at all. Surely, they would do a constructive piece of work IF commissions were an incentive to service delivery? That said, any discussion of corruption and bribery must address the question of the salaries of most civil servants: teachers, medical workers, the police etc -in effect the question of "survival". In this connection (see next part)

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Questions to Mwenda
written by Rev Amos Kasibante, December 23, 2009

What about the question of "salary differentials" in Uganda? And those with the biggest salaries also have big perks (privileges and allowances). What impact does this have on other workers? Do they feel justified to pilfer? Finally, the article distinguishes between morality and politics/economics. This distinction is excusable if morality is used in the narrow sense of private morality. Otherwise, the separation cannot be sustained. Unless of course, we champion the morality of "self-interest" as opposed to the morality of "the common good".

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...
written by Major Adam Kifaliso, December 23, 2009

The question of corruption in Uganda lies in lack of Natinalism and patriotism , eg,look at the hikes in transport fares during festive week , we all know buses and taxis are owned by m7 and his relatives, MPs ,ministers and m7's Somali taxi free ''investors , Unfortunatelly these are the same people who have allowances even for smiling , which proves the fact that m7 came to make money and his friends , the ordinally ugandan is not shielded from these good for nothing NRM parasites ,Ugandans must learn to take over and rule uganda is they really need service delivery from the Government , or the m7s will continue setting revenue collection targets and NO developemntal projects , the rwandese like Alex Kagina with continue to milk and drain blood from poor Ugandans

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edited for better
written by Major Adam Kifaliso, December 23, 2009

The question of corruption in Uganda lies in lack of Nationalism and patriotism , eg,look at the hikes in transport fares during the festive week , we all know buses and taxis are owned by m7 and his relatives, MPs ,ministers and m7's Somali taxi free ''investors , Unfortunatelly these are the same people who have allowances even for smiling , which proves the fact that m7 came to make money with his friends , the ordinally ugandan is not shielded from these good for nothing NRM parasites ,Ugandans must learn to take over and rule uganda if they really need service delivery from the Government , or the m7s will continue setting revenue collection targets and NO developemental projects , the rwandese like Alex Kagina will continue to milk and drain blood from poor Ugandans

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Big-man systems, engender systematic and endemic corruption
written by Ocheto, December 23, 2009

The problem is systematic. Corruption is embedded in the political, adminstrative and social systems. The solution is not to have one "good" president or one "good" adminstration. The solution is building political, adminstrative systems and structures that are accountable to the public, the stakeholders. Kagame's apparent success doesn't solve the problem because when Kagame is nolonger president what happens ? Countries like Uganda and the rest of Africa need to develop political systems where the power resides with the people not one benevolent dictator. The day a ugandan president is impeached is the day there will be democracy and the evil of corruption will be uprooted.

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GET RID OF MUSEVENI
written by OJA, December 23, 2009

Ugandans should rid themselves of M7 and they will see the difference. I don't want to be a pessimist to think that even if he left power it would be worse. M7 is corruption and corruption is he. As a rebel bush fighter he already had a corrupted spirit. So every thing he does is a manifestation of the corruption in him. Surely if M7 fought corruption vigorously and seriously like he fought to remove presidential term limits, I guess this evil would have been reduced. We shouldn't forget easily. Wherever M7 has poked in his nose and determined things to go his way he has succeeded. So how come he has failed in corruption if he weren't corruption itself and vice versa. Is there need to still keep him around? He has outlived his uselfulness.

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Mr
written by Afande Kafuni, December 23, 2009

. I have read the article and the comments and this is not the first time to hear the same song so i think all is utter rubbish.
Why is Bahati anti- gay bill bring commotion every where, whereas anti corruption bill is just anther new album of Bebe cool song?? why. The only why to get corruption of our country is to go Chinese

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...
written by Afande Kafuni, December 23, 2009

way on Japanese. if they get you stealing public money firing squad period. if you kill five people in broad daylight u would have saved the entire country after all the road carnage is killing us so kill the bastards. Let me give you live example on 27/12/2009, China government is going to execute British man after catching him carrying 4kg of cocaine. so this a country where you don't bring nonsense of M7, look Kyeyi is out, the other lawyer from Mbarara is out so who ll go re as OJA said if the fish starts rot from head u ll not get any other part.

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...
written by Afande Kafuni, December 23, 2009

Even if you get M7 off that is out you are not gonna get M7 out am afriad! what we should do is convince M7 to do the bush war way any one caught just call me i ll be ready with my Kafuni and i ll kill those f**kin asseholes. You will not hear any donor shouting that Uganda is going to kill thieve No they will be very happy so lets do it.

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Africa Same
written by Kapipo, December 24, 2009

The truth of the matter is that there are no morals left in us Africans.Where else in the world do people rush to accident scenes to rob dead people and those injured?In the western world,they have a sophiscated highly equipped investigative journalism.The processes they use to get information is beyond the reach of African people in terms of technology and cost. Deploy them in Rwanda and let them investigate your so called saints Andrew,you will be surprised to know the level of wealth the leaders there have amassed in a mere 15 years and all invested in Kampala,Nairobi and South Africa.The difference with Uganda and Kenya compared with Rwanda is because in the former they have a free press and the populace are aware. My opinion is that African saviours are not yet born

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...
written by Rob Kay, December 24, 2009

Kapipo, you vindicate Andrew by reporting the Rwandese generals' wealth. At least you see results in Rwanda while they allegedly pilfer the riches. Andrew, am glad you concede that your argument has many weaknesses. It does - if for any one reason, it's the acceptance of corruption as being an intractable problem. So we should just give in to other "problems" like life presidency" etc? I don't think so.

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And....
written by Rob Kay, December 24, 2009

I understand your advancing of an idea on how to tackle, differently, that problem but rewarding bad practice would compound the problem because it will just get bigger. The solution? Remember the LC guy who was made to eat dust, literally? The people had the power to ask for accountability and when it was not forthcoming, they acted in a rather effective way. More effective than the, guess what?, corrupt legal system.....You can't make this stuff up!!

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Pay a living wage
written by Robert Kintu, December 24, 2009

Andrew, it is common knowledge that no working Ugandan can survive on the monthly salary alone, so how do people make ends meet? CORRUPTION, THEFT and BRIBERY !!!!!. I do suggest that government and private employers start paying their employees a living wage then we shall all have a genuine reason to punish those who are mismanaging things. With the current situation it is impossible to stamp out corruption because everyone benefits, it is not only the NRM cadres. Museveni is not keen on fighting corruption because it keeps both his friends and foes at bay as long as they are eating.
Please pay the working people a living wage, if there is enough money to still, then it should be enough to pay a sensible salary to the workers.

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It is not just on salaries
written by Jasper, December 24, 2009

I recently inquired about salaries in Rwanda and I found that Civil servants like teachers are paid less. To be precise like a primary teacher in Rwanda gets about 50,000-80,000 Rwandese francs and the exchange rate is just a factor of 3. And the cost of living is higher! in a way it is a coutry where a sense of patriotism has been built because of the clear will against corruption. I will not accept the 'goodness of corruption, that is a short term aspect of the apparent gains.

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Wrong incentives
written by mukwaya, December 25, 2009

Your 10% incentive is actually a tax, ignoring the tax effect, how do u chose who benefits from this incentive. Everyone will lobby for their relative to get a job with the departments that get the biggest chunk of the incentive. Every govtment department will have an incentive to promote the big budget programs, regardless of the benefits to the tax payer. imagine works had to choose between reparing katonga bridge with a cost of one million dollars or repairing a small feeder road but at cost of 100m dollars. guess which project would get approval.

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...
written by Major Adam Kifaliso, December 26, 2009

Comparing Uganda to Rwanda is also a crime , rewarding corruption is accepting defeat to fight Corruption , Uganda must get its true sons to rule it at whatever cost , m7 ,his Rwandese and Ugandan
Yudaz , have ruined Uganda for 30 yrs , Dont tell me NRM even after 10 years m7 has nothing to show to ugandans exccept traffic Jam , which is an indication of underdevelopment ,
The Dicator's ambitions NOLONGER much aspirations of ordinally ugandans , he must be retired or destroyed to save Uganda from total destruction , Happy NewYear True Ugandans and the People of the world who strive to make a better world we live in

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...
written by Douglas, December 27, 2009

From the comments,the participants are fully convinced no matter what ideas are suggested to combat corruption or any other evil deeds in our country,will never be delt with succesfully with the same mind
that created and are fueling them todate.thus they they are largely convinced that there should an overhaul
of the current system leading us.
However,such a thinking,for people who are really sincere to themselves and have a good knowledge of the strenght and will power of the people in power to stay there course,will agree with me that slothful atturance and mere calling for change to help heal our problems will not do any good to us.
We are all limited to especially talking in Uganda.If Mwenda can come up with such a suggestion,lets try it and see what comes of it.

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Again you're right Mr. Mwenda
written by atenyi, December 27, 2009

The British say, if you can't beat them, join them. The only way forward for Uganda's public service delivery lays in the hand of public servants. If their corrupt and that there's nothing we can do about it. Then its better we bring these corrupt Lazy officials on board. If telling them to work hard with a promise of an unofficial-officiated bonus of between 8 to 10%, to the job done then our grand children will have a chance of have a more efficient user-friendly public service. This will be better than hiding our heads in the sand for 25 years now.

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Pay better
written by Jude, December 27, 2009

Kintu Robert has a point about reducing corruption in Uganda.Its mostly fueled by the low pay rates people get be it Public or Private.Any opportunity they get to steal therefore is taken.
Also Ugandans dont feel ownership of Uganda, its said to be for those who are eating, those in power and those from certain regions of Uganda.So the rest of Ugandans are watching 'those who own the country' look after it.M7 and NRM needs make Ugandans feel Uganda belongs to them but statements like' Twa teera Emundu' when you were sleeping do not help.

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...
written by Douglas, December 27, 2009

I laugh aloud at day dreamers who strongly believe in the fact that they will ever elect any Ugandan and trust him with selfless service,ultruism,devotion love, support and defend the Constitution of the Uganda, true faith and allegiance to the Ugandan people. That kind of dreaming will never do us any good but only cause us pain and heart aches and continued wastage of the precious resouces and time.What do we do then?Like Andrew Mwenda says,harness individual greed, more than try too hard trying to find a redeemer in a Ugandan in the name of a president or something,to take our country ahead.

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FIGHTING CORRUPTION WITH CORRUPTION IS CRAZY
written by OJA, December 27, 2009

Fighting corruption with corruption is a very crazy idea. This is the first time I hear such a thing, and I am, in fact, more scandalised by the protagonists of such a proposal including Mwenda. The best way is to get rid of the leadership and start a new. In 2001, within two weeks there were 5 presidents elected in Argentina. They never helped the situation but the people were not ready to accept nonsense and so were on the streets demonstrating everyday until when they got a leader who promised real change. From that point on till today they are better and the level of corruption and confusion has been reduced. In Uganda if we still think in a defeatist way, I am afraid, then we've accepted to bury our own country.

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vote out corruption 2011
written by Corrupt, December 28, 2009

The worst cases of corruption are often by public officials who are already highly paid and filthy rich in some cases so to suggest that they do it because their children go hungry is a non-starter. The do it for other reasons, extreme greed and selfishness being among them.If most Ugandans where benefiting from corruption then perhaps we could conclude that its worthwhile ignoring it but the reality is that far more people lose out than gain. As a result of corruption national assets such as hospitals have become so run down to the point whereby the corrupt elite will not use them. Instead they will fly abroad when needing minor medical attention at the expense and pleasure of the tax payer.

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vote out corruption 2011
written by Corrupt, December 28, 2009

As a result of corruption national assets such as hospitals have become so run down to the point whereby the corrupt elite will not use them. Instead they will fly abroad when needing minor medical attention at the expense and pleasure of the tax payer. They will send their children to study abroad because they cant be bothered to invest in education in Uganda.

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Foolish to settle: Aim high, dream big, think big
written by Ocheto, December 28, 2009

It is utterly dumb, unintelligent to settle. Aim high, dream big, think big so that even if you don't attain your ultimate goal you would have gotten far along. If you want to score a ninety aim for 100 %. Aiming at 90 when you want score 90 will in all likelihood result in you ending up at a figure much less, like 80 or worse. So, hell yeah, insist on a good a govt that is accountable to the people, who should never accept to shortchange themselves. They do so at their own folly. Those who don't stand for something are doomed to fall anything.

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Corruption is a culture
written by Kamoga, December 28, 2009

Much has been said some wrong but much of it right. As a writter who puts a fish with a rotten head is all rotten. I fail to see KCC as a failure other that M7 and his staff.
In our country one is smart if one can beat the system, and one is smart if one has a huge pocket, the quality of the words and teachings one comes with are never respected considered coherent. In western world when you beat the system you are considered silly or which other words one can find fitting. For as long as we need some thing done here we need to eradicate the current culture to a more construtive culture. I would like to salute OJA who wrote "When the head of fish is rotten the whole body has nothing to do except succumb to decay and petrification. " This is M7.

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Govt is about the public good, culture
written by Ocheto, December 28, 2009

A culture that doesn't understand and appreciate what a public good is will not last. It is one thing to succeed as an individual but it also and entirely different challenge to succeed as a group, a family, a clan, tribe, nation, or an empire. The skills and wherewithal that are needed to succeed and thrive at different levels are different. These corrupt govt officials who steal money from Africa and hope to escape to europe, where in most cases they aren't welcome either, are deluding themselves and their offsprings. Good govt is about the public good, culture (preservation) and all that.

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...
written by Kato, December 31, 2009

Andrew are we talking about the same word- Corruption
corruption–noun
1. the act of corrupting or state of being corrupt.
2. moral perversion; depravity.
3. perversion of integrity.
4. corrupt or dishonest proceedings.
5. bribery.
6. debasement or alteration, as of language or a text.
7. a debased form of a word.
8. putrefactive decay; rottenness.
9. any corrupting influence or agency.
Nothing in the above meaning of the word says "incentive"
So what exactly are you trying to say?

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Fighting Corruption
written by Joseph, January 04, 2010

Dear Andrew,
The only way to fight corruption is to make the corrupt 's life unsafe. Former President of Gahna did it and it worked. The corrupt have money to buy everything so the only way to mange them is to show them that they cannot buy thier life once caught. Unfortunately we may have no Government if this is implemented.

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Another system is needed
written by Watcher, January 05, 2010

A federal system of governance is the solution to Uganda's corruption. Corruption will have no chance to survive and so will be the corrupt..

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People read Buganda post at "http://www.bugandapost.com/main/archives/1024" on M7 and corruption
written by Kamoga, January 11, 2010

This is a must read either here or at Bugandapost.com. Follow the link above
Corruption

“Expecting Museveni to fight corruption is the same as expecting the pope to fight Catholicism. Just like the pope is the most dedicated practicing catholic, Yoweri Museveni and his wife are the most corrupt Ugandan alive. He started robbing Uganda was back in the mid 1980’s, working with Jim Muhweezi, Frank Katana, Nyakayiru and the late Grace Ibingira and investing in the UK, Sweden, Iceland and other places.
Museveni would have arrest, prosecute and imprison himself if he wanted to start fighting corruption.”
Well put bugandapost.

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