Kampala- As President Museveni seeks to put the fight against corruption at the heart of his Kisanja Hakuna Mchezo tenure, meaning a term of no games, the Inspector General of Government has spoken about the frustrations she has encountered in the war against graft.

In her paper to the Cabinet retreat last week entitled: “Achieving Zero Tolerance to Corruption”, the IGG, Ms Irene Mulyagonja, lists the obstacles to the fight against corruption, singling out absence of adequate political will, insufficient staff and poor facilitation to the Ombudsman.

Ms Mulyagonja noted that there is need to empower her office to keep ahead of the sophistication in corrupt practices such as use of IT to steal from government, loopholes in the Leadership Code and Anti-Corruption Act.

She protested poor funding to her office drawing examples from Hong Kong, one of the least corrupt countries in the world, where increased funding produced results.

She said her office was allocated only Shs45.42 billion in the 2016/17 financial year, representing only 0.1 per cent of the total budget and only Shs962 billion (4.7 per cent) went to the entire accountability sector.

Ms Mulyagonja added: “The battle against corruption is difficult and dangerous. We are dealing with intelligent and powerful suspects yet there are no colleges in Uganda training investigators except Uganda Police Force which trains for its own purposes.”

Without mentioning names, sources told Daily Monitor that she informed the President and ministers that in July 2013, the Anti-Corruption court was closed for six months “to protect one individual” from prosecution.

The IGG also informed Cabinet that each year, Ugandans offer bribes worth Shs166 billion and that her office investigates about 2,000 cases annually.

Most of the MPs and civil society activists Daily Monitor talked to yesterday, including FDC secretary general, Mr Nandala Mafabi, Ms Cissy Kagaba of the Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda, and Mr Julius Kapwepwe Mishambi of Uganda Debt Network sympathised with the IGG and called for increased funding to her office.