Uganda’s war on corruption

SUGAR-TAF’s intervention

This is perhaps the environment under which a five-year UK government and European Union-funded programme known as Strengthening Uganda’s Anti-Corruption Response-Technical Advisory Facility or “SUGAR-TAF” has been running for the last four years to help more than14 government institutions become more effective in fighting corruption.

“When you look at the causes of corruption and what sustains it, sometimes it is outright greed and other times, it is inefficiencies in the public institutions,” Valentine Namakula, the SUGAR-TAF Director told The Independent early this year.

“We are looking at reducing levels of corruption through two mutually-reinforcing mechanisms; one is increasing the risk of engaging in corruption and the other is looking at reducing opportunities for corruption,” she said.

SUGAR-TAF’s objective to strengthen the effectiveness of anti-corruption functions is hinged on ownership for new approaches of fighting graft by leaders at different levels in institutions the programme supports.

The programme has particularly dwelt on strengthening the detection, investigation, prosecution and adjudication of corruption and the recovery of ill-gotten assets. The support has been provided through skills training, hands-on case support, support of legislative reviews, development of guidelines and reference materials, and through learner-led mentorship and coaching.

SUGAR-TAF has also invested in building leadership skills both for institutional heads and for technical officers at the Inspectorate of Government (IG), the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA), as well as the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA).

“Corruption is deeply ingrained in Ugandan society and so, to root it out requires a multi-faceted response,” Namakula said, “The public institutions starting from the legislation to the institutions cannot fight corruption on their own without getting support from the private sector or the citizens.”

Several anti-corruption government institutions have made significant progress and are now registering outstanding results. The Inspectorate of Government and the ODPP particularly did well in the 2018/19 financial year.

The two institutions registered higher conviction rates— an indicator of strengthened effectiveness of prosecutorial approaches both in preparation of cases and in trial advocacy at the court.

The ODPP, for instance, reported a conviction rate of 74% up from 68% in the previous year, which marks an 8.8% increase while the Inspectorate of Government registered a conviction rate of 73.5% from 66%, an 11% increase.

The two institutions also managed to recover Shs1.37bn. This is a 94% increase from the previous year.The Inspectorate of Government also completed 12% more prosecutions in the 2018/19 financial year than in the previous year.

This development, according to SUGAR-TAF’s annual results report for the 2018/19 financial year, is a testament that the programme’s multi-institutional approach to popularizing asset recovery as a prime anti-corruption tool is working.

Joram Magezi who heads the IG’s Directorate of Special Investigations and Reuben Bainomujuni, a Principal Inspectorate Officer said SUGAR-TAF has taught their team the value of teamwork—a virtue the directorate previously struggled to foster.

“We would have issues of fear of confidentiality and information leakage. Investigators wanted to keep everything close to their chest,” Magezi said. “(Now), the entire Directorate is sharing documents and information without the fear and conservatism that they had before. Because we are all doing the same activity and we are all responsible.”

Bainomujuni also describes a work culture within the Directorate which is much flatter than the typical government departmental hierarchy.

“This is important because investigations are time-sensitive: the longer they take, the more likely it is that evidence will disappear,” Bainomugisha says.

But, while Magezi and Bainomujuni credit SUGAR-TAF as being instrumental in shaping the Directorate’s work culture, it is equally clear that the leadership of the IG have steered this transformation.

At the Anti-Corruption Division (ACD) of the High Court, the court has also registered a conviction rate of 57%. This is an increase from 51.4% in 2017/2018. Fifty-seven percent of the completed cases were backlog cases, a remarkable performance as the target and accompanying budget from the Justice, Law and Order Sector (JLOS) had been for 30 cases.

The court also raised revenue of Shs 106.5 million in form of fines, and issued compensation orders worth Shs 15.7bn.

The SUGAR-TAF programme has also made inroads in fighting impunity in public service. When, for instance, the programme found out in 2017 that the public service ministry was rarely informed whenever public officials were convicted of corruption—a situation that undermined its oversight role— a case referral mechanism through which information could be shared was initiated.

This enabled the Ministry of Public Service to follow up on persons convicted of corruption so that they are removed from the payroll.

Allan Muhereza, the Assistant Commissioner at the ministry says that whenever a public servant was convicted, Public Service did not know because there was no communication between the ministry and the prosecution agencies.

Muhereza says the ministry has since established these communication channels to the extent that when a public officer is convicted of corruption, the responsible officer is notified of the ruling.

“We get a copy, and also the service commission gets a copy,” Muhereza says, “If a district does not comply, we write to the ministry of Local Government to follow-up.”

“If district accounting officer are not doing their job, we can recommend to the finance ministry that they be removed.”

These incremental developments in administrative sanctions are also being felt at the Judicial Service Commission where SUGAR-TAF has supported strengthening of disciplinary processes.

Disciplinary action was, for example, issued in 20 cases in the 2018/2019 financial year, a significant increase from the 11 issued in FY 2017/2018.

Going forward, Cissy Kagaba the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda (ACCU), one of several civil society organizations that have been working closely with SUGAR-TAF to fight corruption in Uganda told The Independent that the biggest achievement of SUGAR-TAF’s interventions will come in the form of a mindset shift for the government officials who have benefitted from the programme’s interventions over the last five years.

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