Uganda is the second most corrupt country in the East African Community after South Sudan, according to the latest report released by Transparency International Uganda.
The report was released today at Grand Imperial Hotel in Kampala.
The report shows that Uganda just places on the global corruption index from the 151st position to now the 149th.
However, the report that studied governance in 180 nations on the corruption perception index for the 2018 shows that Uganda maintained its 26% score.
South Sudan emerged as the most corrupt nation in the East African region holding the 178th position.
Still at a regional level, Rwanda emerged the best in fighting corruption with a 56% score and held the 48th position globally. It is followed by Tanzania with 36% score in 99th position.
Kenya is the third most corrupt country in EAC with 27% score and globally stands at 144th position.
At the continental level, Seychelles is the least corrupt nation on the African continent with a 66% score at the 28th position having improved by six positions, with Botswana and Namibia holding the score of 61% and 53% in their score to fight corruption.
On the global level, the Scandinavian nations lead the fight against corruption with six of them; Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands and Finland occupying the eight spots save for New Zealand and Singapore that occupy the 2nd and third positions respectively.
Africa has its own share of the most corrupt countries that sees many of its member nations like Somalia (180), South Sudan (197), Sudan (172), Libya (170), DRC (161) join Syria, Yemen North Korea and Afghanistan to complete list of the most corrupt nations globally.
John Mary Odoi, Chairperson of Transparency International Uganda while addressing guests during the launch of the report noted that there is still need for political will to fight corruption in Uganda if the vice is to be tackled.
“We have the legal framework, the policy framework, we have huge write-ups about how corruption can be fought but the enforcement is what is missing out and I think that is where we need to put a lot of our effort; that more energies are put on enforcement,” Odoi said.
He added: “We realize that sometimes, things don’t seem to get on very well when there are efforts coming on to fight corruption and there are interruptions along the way and I think those are the interruptions that we want to see get rid of. We want the institutions to be left to work on their own without any interruption either from politicians.”
