I would like to commend the boldness of the Rt. Hon. Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Markson Oboth, in rejecting the call by local government officials to suspend anti-corruption monitoring of schools by the Minister of Local Government, Hon. Balaam Atenyi. This, to me, shows that Hon. Balaam is truly working and that he has cut a chain of “eating” by many local government officials.
When the local government thieves raised their concern during a meeting with the Speaker ahead of their next regional engagements scheduled to take place in Tororo, they claimed that the anti-corruption monitoring in schools was disrupting learning during the final term. But my question is: how can one day of monitoring affect learning?
Now they left their various districts to meet the Hon. Speaker. Did their absence from their districts affect the operations of the local governments?
Those are the excuses of corrupt people who have been sharing school fees with headteachers, slashing money from contractors meant to construct classrooms and roads.
Actually, I have now realised that the anti-corruption crusade by Hon. Balaam in schools does not affect headteachers only, but also affects the offices of Chief Administrative Officers, district chairpersons and Resident District Commissioners, who are part of the beneficiaries of the collected money.
I want to thank Hon. Oboth for rejecting that invitation by thieves and let Hon. Balaam continue exposing and arresting corrupt officials until they realise that corruption has no room in Uganda.
To me, if we had people like Balaam in the last 10 years, by now all the community access roads would be clean, capitation grants would be appropriately utilised, and there would be no shoddy works in the districts.
I want to thank once again our “Badman General,” Muhoozi Kainerugaba, for picking Hon. Balaam from event promotion to clean the mess in local governments. Long live Gen. Muhoozi and long live Jaja Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.
The writer is a Senior Veteran Journalist.
