Beti Kamya, the Inspector General of Government
The Inspectorate of Government is seeking Shs3bn as payment of reward for whistle blowers who successfully report cases of corruption as a way of motivating Ugandans to report such cases.
The request was made by Rose Kafeero, Secretary, Inspectorate of Government while appearing before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee to present the 2023/2024 ministerial policy statement for the Inspectorate.
Kafeero informed the Committee that the Inspectorate is required to pay 5% to the whistle blower who successfully reports and leads to the recovery of the funds, but unlike the earlier practice where such money was obtained from the Asset Recovery Funds, the IGG was advised to refrain from spending at source and instead have the funds budgeted in the annual budget.
“The payment of whistle blowers as per whistle blowers Act because we are required to give 5%. However, we have been advised that this can’t be from the asset recovery account because we have to bank this money at the consolidated fund and we can’t use it at source. So we have included it in the budget from the offset so that we are able to motivate the whistle blowers to give us more information,” she said.
Documents before the Legal Committee indicate that in 2022, the Inspectorate of Government recovered Shs4.682bn up from Shs2.776bn the Inspectorate recovered in 2020.
While appearing before the Committee, Beti Kamya, the Inspector General of Government said that in the 2023/2024 Financial Year, the focus will be on the prevention of corruption by encouraging all Ugandans to own the war on corruption instead of leaving it to elites in Government.
“We intend to shift the war on corruption from an elitist to a people driven war. And I call it elitist in the sense is that public perception is that corruption must be fought by government functionary, civil society and development partners, while the general population are supposed to pay the role of observers and commentators,” said Kamya.
The IGG said that there is need for mindset change so that the entire population become activists in the war against corruption and end the current practice in society where people defend the corrupt.
She said, “Today, people come out to defend a corrupt person on the account that they are village mates or tribe mates and they appeal to the President to save their tribe mate.”
The development comes at the time a 2021 survey on the cost of corruption conducted by the Inspectorate indicated that Shs9.14Trn is lost annually due to corruption in Uganda, which is equivalent to 44% of the revenues collected by URA which include direct and indirect corruption practices.
In the 2023/2024 Budget, the Inspectorate has been allocated Shs86.470Bn, and of this, wages will account for Shs27.953, non-wage Shs35.121 and development Shs23.396Bn, which is an increment from the 2022/2023 budget where the Inspectorate was allocated Shs75.368Bn, with wages accounting for Shs27.93Bn, non-wages Shs36.2 and development 15.2Bn.
