‘Independent unit at State House to protect investors from corrupt officials’

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The President of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, has said he will institute a specialized Unit attached to State house, which he says will safeguard investors from corruption tendencies, fronted by both politicians and technocrats to fleece investors when they solicit for bribes.

Museveni notes that the unit will be a one-stop call center, where investors can report cases of corruption by the different office bearers across the country.

Speaking during the Labor day celebrations at the Namutumba district headquarters on Monday, Museveni said the specialized Unit will increase the trust by the investors in the country’s systems and attract more parties to harness the country’s investment opportunities.

Museveni says that some members of the political class and technocrats alike in the country are found of conning investors in terms of bribes, in the guise of quickening their efforts of setting up factories which he claims to be slowing down the country’s economic growth.

His decision to formulate this unit resulted from complaints raised by the Labor and Gender Affairs minister, Betty Amongi who claimed that, corruption tendencies by largely public officials have overtime frustrated investors from setting up their preferable business enterprises in the country.

Amongi argued that most public officials are exhibiting poor work ethics by milking heavy bribes from investors, during their quest to explore the different investment protocols, hence frustrating them from fully exploiting the available opportunities in the country’s underexploited sectors like mining, agriculture, tourism among others  for fear of further manipulation by office bearers.

In his response, Museveni noted that such deliberate corruption tendencies orchestrated by office bearers at the different levels delay decision making on the viable investors’ plans, frustrate them and escalate the costs of setting up large scale business enterprises, forcing most of them to search out for investment options in other countries with limited bureaucratic tendencies.

Museveni says that, his office has been furnished with different reports concerning corrupt officials, comprising of politicians and some enforcement teams within the Uganda Revenue Authority – URA, whom he faults of impounding imports from unsuspecting investors, before forcing them to pay bribes or risk losing their goods to auctioning.

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