By Halima Athumani
KAMPALA, Uganda
The U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) has given the Ugandan government £30 million (around $49 million) as a contribution to fighting corruption in the East African nation.
The announcement was made following a meeting between Uganda’s Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi and British High Commissioner to Uganda Alison Blackburne.
The funds would be channeled into a new program dubbed "Strengthening Uganda’s Anti-Corruption and Accountability Regime (SUGAR)."
“SUGAR will focus on tackling corruption in the public sector,” Blackburne told the Ugandan premier.
The British diplomat said the funds would be also used to raise the risks for those engaged in corrupt behavior, “ensuring they are administratively and criminally sanctioned and their assets confiscated.”
“The five-year program to be launched on Monday next week would support accountability initiatives and address corruption in the country,” she added.
The SUGAR project is to be implemented in the form of short- and long-term technical assistance and retooling.
The Ugandan premier, for his part, expressed gladness at the launch of the program, saying the project would boost government efforts to stamp out corruption in the country, which he termed as “systemic, institutionalized and a major obstacle to good governance and accountability at national, district and community levels.”
Blackburne explained that the bulk of the funding under the two-component SUGAR program “would be channeled to the national anti-corruption chain, for priorities identified by the accountability institutions.”
Beneficiaries would include the Ugandan Office of the Auditor General, Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, Public Service Commission and the Police Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Department. Others are the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, the newly created Financial Intelligence Authority and the High Court’s Anti-Corruption Division.
“The aim of this component will be to strengthen these organizations to work together on issues such as administrative sanctions, criminal investigations and court cases,” Blackburne said.
The second component, she explained, would focus on local government accountability. Blackburne also noted the U.S. too had offered to support the anti-corruption initiative, but did not specify the nature of support.
Blackburne commended the Ugandan government for containing inflation and ensuring macro-economic stability, saying as a result several British companies want to invest in Uganda. She noted, however, that “the economy was not resilient enough to competitiveness.”
While Uganda has implemented reforms on many fronts, including efforts to curb corruption in the public sector, the country is still categorized by the international business community as one of the most corrupt in Africa.
The DFID has been assisting the government to address the vice in the public sector, such as helping stop payments to at least 9,000 ghost workers, which have led to the saving of millions of dollars since the 2005/06 financial year.
Currently, the DFID directly supports strengthening national audit offices in Vietnam, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda.
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