You Can Do Better!! Shadow Cabinet Trashes IGG’s Annual Performance Report

The Shadow Cabinet has described the Bi-Annual Performance Reports by the Inspectorate of Government– IG to Parliament as ‘abysmal’ and disproportionate compared to the funding appropriated to it by Parliament.

This occurs just a few days after the Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, received a 74-page performance report from the IGG, Beti Kamya Turwomwe, covering the time periods of January through June 2022, July through December 2022, and January through June 2023. The report highlighted significant accomplishments.

According to the report, from 53 percent to 40 percent of corrupt officials were found guilty throughout the time period under consideration. 3,504 corruption allegations filed between January 2022 and June 2023 resulted in a total recovery of 7.99 billion shillings. Out of the 92 closed prosecutions during that time, 43 convictions were obtained.The Inspectorate was able to demand 38 billion Shillings in refunds from various offenders, who have begun making payments.

The Mityana District Woman Representative and Shadow Minister for Information and Anti-Corruption, Joyce Bagala Ntwatwa, is shocked that the Inspectorate’s presentation “is a very minute fraction of monies recoverable.” Bagala contends that the Inspectorate was given 86.470 billion shillings under the current budget for FY 2023/2024 to carry out its job but was only able to recover a pitiful 7.9 billion shillings. She contends that the Inspectorate on the Cost of Corruption’s 2021 Report estimates that corruption costs the nation about 10 trillion shillings, or roughly 23% of the yearly national budget, each year.

The failure of numerous government initiatives, according to Abdallah Kiwanuka, Shadow Minister for Internal Affairs and Member of Parliament for Mukono North Constituency, is due to President Yoweri Museveni’s lack of political will to combat widespread corruption.The legislators informed the media that just 1,528 (43.6%) of the 3,504 corruption accusations the IGG had received since January 2022 had been investigated, and that only 47% of the cases had been brought to trial and resulted in convictions.

The IGG reports that because of out-of-court settlements and a focus on asset recovery, the conviction rate marginally decreased from 53.3% in the period from July to December 2022 to 40% in the period from January to June 2023.Although the Inspectorate reported a slight increase in recovered funds from January to June 2023 compared to the second half of 2022, the Shadow Cabinet noted that lists of the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAS) and individuals who have been found guilty of corruption, as well as the amounts of money that have been recovered from them, should be made public.

They raised worry over the fact that, while out-of-court settlements aim to increase recovered assets and revenues, they remain mute on the sanctions imposed against such public officials. They urged the Police to interest themselves in corruption cases that are settled out of court because this amounts to an admission of corruption, thus what can be settled out of court is the amount of money to be recovered, but not criminal liability under the Anti-Corruption Act and Penal Code Act.