A Ugandan government official responsible for fighting corruption has challenged poor citizens who cannot afford treatment abroad and posh vehicles to shield them from feeling the country’s potholes to take the fight against graft seriously.
A significant portion of the country’s budget is lost to corruption, resulting in poor service delivery and widening income inequalities in the impoverished East African nation. As a result, rich Ugandans shun public hospitals and government schools for expensive private ones.
Most top government officials enjoy benefits that the ordinary Ugandans can only dream of. For example, tax payers’ money is used to foot their medical bills abroad on top of medical insurance in a country that lacks basic health insurance.
So, when she met officials at the National Medical Stores (NMS), Inspector General of Government (IGG) Beti Olive Namisango Kamya did not mince her words telling staff there that most of them would most likely die at the Mulago National Referral Hospital or some partially dysfunctional public health facility.
IGG Kamya also told the staff at NMS, which is being investigated over acute drug shortages in government hospitals, that they would continue to fall in potholes and struggling to fix their low-price vehicles if they don’t fight corruption.
And that while the poor Ugandans suffer she and the NMS boss Moses Kamabaale – representing the top government officials – will most likely be flown abroad and die there. She also assured them that her vehicle saves her from feeling the potholes.
“For us seated on this side, me and Mr Kamabaale, none of us (government officials) is going to die in Mulago because there is no medicine. I’m telling you. If there is no medicine, he will call the President and he will put him on a plane and take him to America. He is not and I am not a victim of corruption. You must know who the victim is and start fighting as victims, you will die in Mulago Hospital because you don’t have the option of going to Nairobi,” IGG Beti Kamya said.
“And when there is no money to make roads because Unra has mismanaged roads and people have stolen money and the roads are bad, me and Mr Kamabaale here we are driving VXs, we don’t even feel the potholes: it is you who is feeling the potholes. You with your ka-small car, a ka-Wish, every day you are in the garage, the cost of maintanence is yours. The cost of [Kamabaale’s vehicle’s maintenance] is on NMS.”
Months ago, IGG Beti Kamya was rushed to hospital after experiencing pain in her heart. Kamya, who is supposed to fight corruption, was summoned for questioning over her role in a corruption scandal. (See Details Here, There and Over There).
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