Uganda’s deepening corruption and fiscal mismanagement were placed under scrutiny this week at a high-level policy dialogue in Kampala, as public finance experts, lawmakers and civil society actors warned that the country’s governance deficits are threatening debt sustainability and long-term economic development.
The conference, convened by SEATINI Uganda at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel on July 17 under the banner “Promoting Debt & Fiscal Justice for Dignified Lives”, brought together a cross-section of stakeholders concerned that entrenched corruption is diverting public funds, weakening institutions and compounding Uganda’s already fragile public finance environment.
With national debt nearing unsustainable levels, analysts cautioned that unless Uganda addresses the leakages in its public finance system, future borrowing could do more harm than good.
Institutional weaknesses
Joel Wanjala, Under Secretary at the Directorate of Ethics and Integrity in the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, told delegates that technical solutions alone will not suffice. “Technology can help track transactions, but without ethical leadership, systems are easily manipulated,” he said. Wanjala cited weak institutional integrity and low accountability among public officials as core drivers of corruption.
He pointed to Uganda’s Integrity Promotion Forums, supported by civil society groups such as SEATINI, as modest but important localised efforts to strengthen ethical norms. However, Wanjala warned that these initiatives must be scaled and institutionalised nationally if corruption is to be tackled meaningfully.
The view was echoed by Joseph Gonzaga Ssewungu, MP for Kalungu County West, who criticised parliament’s diminished oversight role and claimed that certain powerful offices—including the presidency—escape auditing altogether. “The Public Finance Management Act is strong on paper,” he said, “but the political will to enforce it is absent.”
Ssewungu also decried what he called a “deliberate effort” to block lifestyle audits and suppress scrutiny of unexplained wealth. He accused parliamentarians and senior officials of approving public loans without adequate oversight, contributing to ballooning debt levels with little to show in terms of service delivery.
Public procurement under the microscope
With more than 60% of Uganda’s national budget channelled through public procurement, the sector is widely regarded as the epicentre of graft. Catherine Natukunda, a senior procurement officer at the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA), said contract implementation stages remain vulnerable to irregularities including unjustified cost variations, opaque bidding processes, and interference with contract awards.
To improve transparency, PPDA has introduced Beneficial Ownership Forms to identify the true owners of bidding firms, and now requires pre-approval for project variations.
“We have seen cases where bid documents are designed to favour specific providers,” she said. “We’re now standardising requirements and conducting proactive audits to catch irregularities before funds are lost.”
Despite these reforms, Natukunda admitted that procurement remains a “high-risk area” requiring stronger deterrents and expanded digital procurement systems to limit discretionary decision-making.
Beyond petty corruption and procurement fraud, Uganda continues to lose significant sums to illicit financial flows (IFFs), particularly through trade misinvoicing and aggressive tax avoidance. Aloysious Kittengo, a fiscal policy analyst at SEATINI Uganda, said these practices are difficult to detect and even harder to prosecute due to institutional fragmentation and lack of enforcement powers.
“The tools to address these issues exist within the Auditor General’s findings, but the institutions either lack the capacity or the independence to act decisively,” Kittengo said. He called for greater inter-agency collaboration and political support for reforms targeting both domestic and cross-border financial abuses.
A call for public accountability
Stephen Mukitale, a former MP for Buliisa County, stressed the role of citizens in demanding accountability. “Voters must understand the cost of corruption,” he said. “When they fail to hold leaders accountable, the result is poor service delivery and a politics of patronage.”
Mukitale raised concerns over Uganda’s increasing reliance on opaque commercial loans and public-private partnerships with limited parliamentary oversight. He called for reforms in government procurement to centralise purchasing of common-use items and reduce waste.
“Up to 60% of corruption in Uganda is procurement-related,” he said. “That directly undermines spending on education, health, and infrastructure.”
Jane Nalunga, executive director of SEATINI Uganda, cited the Auditor General’s 2019 report estimating that Uganda loses approximately USh9.144 trillion (roughly $2.4bn) annually to corruption—an amount equivalent to 44% of the government’s total revenue. “This isn’t just a governance problem,” she said. “It is a fiscal emergency.”
Nalunga warned that corruption exacerbates inequality by depriving the poor of basic public services while entrenching wealth among political elites. She reiterated that corruption is not only about the misuse of resources, but also the abuse of power—a condition she said must be urgently addressed to restore public trust and deliver on Uganda’s development promises.
She called on the government to take seriously the African Union’s anti-corruption commitments, including its July 11th observance and the Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption.
Email:homelanndnewspaper@gmail.com
