Kampala – The Inspector General of Government (IGG) Beti Olive Namisango Kamya has said that government agencies and departments are contributing much to the high levels of corruption in the country.
She cited ghost workers and failure to account for government funds as being common in these ministries. She made the remarks while meeting Permanent Secretaries, Accounting Officers, and Heads of government Department and Agencies and departments in Kampala on Wednesday to rally them to join the war against corruption, and ensure that they close gaps in their institutions where money is lost.
It should be remembered that Uganda is ranked the thirty ninth (39th) most corrupt country in the world.
“The inflated payroll is one of the outflows of public funds. Ghost workers, ghost claimants, ghost beneficiaries if I give examples of schools with ghost teachers and students,” adding that the recruitment of unqualified staff with fake academic papers whose certificates are doctored from Nasser Road in Kampala are among the cancers causing financial loss to the government.
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When she took the office in September 2021, Beti Kamya, said her main focus would be on creating a more conducive environment for whistleblowers and other Ugandans to report corruption cases without being easily identified.
“The corruption fight is not the work of only the IGG and the State House Anti-Corruption Unit,” she noted at the time.
On her first day at her new office, at the Inspectorate of Government head offices in Kampala, Kamya told journalists at the time that the fight against corruption should be branded a public war.
At the time she also said that her primary strategy would be to sensitise the public about the evils of corruption and promotion of constitutionalism and the rule of law to empower the people.
According to the IGG, prevention is better than cure.
“As much as we shall continue to hunt the corrupt, we are also going to pay a lot of attention to detection and prevention. Because allowing people to steal first and run after them takes a lot of energy and resources and you might not even recover what is lost,” said Kamya.
But the detection and prevention strategy against corruption can only be done with the involvement of the entire population.
“It is going to be everybody’s war. People must personalise the cost of corruption so that everybody knows that it is me they are stealing.
‘People who earn salaries work hard. They are paid a salary and 30% of the salary goes to tax as Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and somebody comes and takes it? You should know that they have stolen from you,” said Kamya, who was appointed as IGG in September 2021.
She said if everyone is cautiously aware that there are those who are being ripped off, then everybody will be part of the war against corruption.
