The Fourth National Integrity Survey Report has ranked the State House Anti-Corruption Unit (SHACU) topmost (53%) among institutions that have put up efforts to combat corruption in Uganda.

The SHAU is followed by the Inspectorate of Government (IG) at 49% and the Police at 44%.

The survey was conducted by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) on behalf of the IG in 15 sub regions of Uganda, representing both rural and urban areas. It used a mixed approach of data collection including quantitative (figures) and the qualitative method, which focused on group discussions. The last survey was conducted in 2008.

But the police remained high (22.7%) when it came to the personally reported complaints by anti-corruption institutions and ranked top (75%) when it came to institutions where respondents would report corruption complaints followed by the Judiciary.

But the two institutions, still ranked high when it came to reasons for not reporting complaints, where at least 69% of the respondents said they did not trust the police while 25% also did not trust the Judiciary. At least 18% said they did not trust the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

About the Leadership Code of Conduct, which calls for leaders to declare their income, assets and liabilities between March 1 and 31, at least 54.6% of government employees said they were aware of it while 29.1% in the private sector knew about it.

The Deputy IGG, George Bamugemereire however said he was concerned that the worst forms of corruption, which include causing financial loss and fraudulent accounting or false claims, which he said are often in billions of shillings and affect the country most were unknown to the majority of Ugandans.

He said that the SHACU ranked high in performance and did a lot to inspire confidence among the population because they followed an ‘action oriented’ approach instead of the procedural approach, which he said needed a lot of processes.

The report was launched on Thursday at Sheraton Hotel Kampala.