Thursday, August 19, 2010

Does Corruption flourish in Uganda where decentralization has taken place?

Does Corruption flourish in Uganda where decentralization has taken place?
By William Kituuka
Yes; the reasons among others are:
1) Elective offices in local government are attained at a cost. One has to part with money to undertake the campaigns and at times bribe the voters. This induces corruption to recover spent funds and also to get to higher social status;
2) Up to now, many elected in local governments have been on a movement ticket. They have used this to abuse office on knowing that as long as they sing praises for the movement they, can embezzle funds at will as Government is most interested in staying in power;
3) The elective offices are seen as the cheaper way to accumulate wealth as compared to agricultural production or undertaking serious business. This conviction among the public induces corruption.
4) Decentralisation has tended to go hand in hand with financial resources, and to many counselors, this is seen as manna from Government which they have abused with impunity,
5) The central government previously did not have enough capacity to undertake the appropriate audit of financial transactions which has tended to give counselors chance to be corrupt;
6) In decentralized units what is most significant is not individuals being corrupt per se, but it is a collective decision by a group of influential counselors to strike a deal and then share

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