The Auditor General has just submitted to Parliament a report on the billions of shillings not properly accounted for in the Ministry of Health during the Covid crisis.
The Auditor General Nancy Gathungu, and her predecessors, have submitted multiple reports detailing losses in the use of public funds. Yet very little seems to happen, although the reports make newspaper headlines and the EACC says they have resulted in around 500 cases being opened.
Sometimes the Auditor General reports seem relatively innocuous. Some county staff should have been retired but were not. Is that corruption?
But if the paperwork is not correct that creates a smokescreen for outright corruption in future.
So, who is to blame? Not the Office of the Auditor General which does not have the power to prosecute. The DCI could access the necessary documentation. The EACC could do more. And the parliamentary committees that receive the Auditor General reports remain strangely silent. Why don't the MPs insist on accountability?
In the final analysis, it seems to be a failure of the bureaucratic and political elite. They don't seem to want to crack down hard on corruption.
Quote of the day: "They are going to kill me. I am not afraid."
Janani Luwum
The Ugandan archbishop was murdered on February 16, 1977
