President Museveni has appointed his senior advisor anti-corruption, Col Edith Nakalema to head the newly created State House Investors Protectorate Unit.
The president’s deputy Press Secretary, Mr Faruk Kirunda confirmed the appointment.
This comes just days after Mr Museveni promised to set up yet another anti-corruption unit inside State House, with the proposed body this time being dedicated to combating bribery in public offices.
Mr Museveni announced his latest anti-graft plans in a Labour Day speech delivered in the rural eastern Uganda district of Namutumba yesterday afternoon.
“I am using this Labour Day to tell everybody that we are going to have a big fight. I am going to set up another small unit in my office where the investors can ring directly if anybody asks them for a bribe or delays decisions,” Mr Museveni said.
The new unit joins a considerably long list of constitutional bodies like the Inspectorate of Government (IG), Auditor General, Parliament, Judiciary and police in the fight against corruption.
There have been at least two known parallel organs located inside State House for the same purpose: The State House Anti-Corruption Unit (Shacu) with its unlimited reach, together with the Health Monitoring Unit which is supposed to keep tabs on public health service delivery.
So far, Shacu which is run almost like a military operation, is heavily involved in investigating widespread corruption in the country’s land offices. It, however, also actively conducts parallel ‘special investigations’ inside government, among other areas.
Uganda loses more than Shs9.1 trillion to coruption annually.
That annual loss was revealed following a study commissioned by the IG in 2022 which was conducted by the Government Transparency Institute, an international think tank in good governance. The think tank found that a significant portion of the losses which accounted for 44 percent of government revenue in 2019, could be attributed to bribes paid to tax officials.
During Labour day celebrations, the President echoed what has become a common theme of his recent public addresses; singling out corrupt politicians and civil servants as “parasites” who have overtaken other problems facing the country like poor infrastructure.
“These are the ones interfering with your future. They are the ones disturbing investors, asking for bribes and delayed decision-making which raise the cost of doing business in Uganda,” he said.
Mr Museveni denounced a group within the tax body, Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), which he said goes around waylaying and blackmailing traders saying: “I will charge you so much, but if you bribe me, I will charge you less”.
“I already have a report about these groups and you will hear what will happen. The army has done its work, we have stabilised the country (and) that is why people are coming,” the President said.
