Combating corruption in Uganda by eliminating interactions between state employees and the public

Combating corruption in Uganda by eliminating interactions between state employees and the public.
Petty bribes and similar corruption in Uganda amount to more than 700bn per year. Most of these bribes are paid to access or expedite service delivery by members of the Public. The most affected sectors are land registration, the police, the judiciary, permits such as work and driving permits, tax processing, passport processing, electricity and water connections and building permits.
Public officers in Uganda have mastered the art of extracting money from vulnerable members of the public who have few alternatives and impatient members of the public who want efficient and expedite service delivery. In some cases public officers are simply overwhelmed and unable to process work in a timely manner but in a majority of cases they simply slow down the process so that the person seeking the service can pay a bribe to expedite the work. In most cases Public servants create ambiguities in the requirements for accessing a service so that they can ask for a bribe to correct errors or make the application pass a criteria that has not been clearly explained to the public. In some instances they create a useless criteria that many people are unable to meet so that those people can bribe them to relax or circumvent the criteria. These delays, ambiguous criteria and unduly onerous requirements are the tools that drive bribery and extortion in public service delivery in Uganda.
This system of delays, ambiguous criteria and unduly onerous requirements has created a whole subsystem of brokers and other middlemen who sell access to the decision makers or a hassle free experience. These brokers have contacts within the Public agency in issue with whom they have a mutually beneficial relationship. Under this relationship, the broker solicits for clients, negotiates the bribes and receives the money which he or she shares with the public officer whereas the Public servant processes the clients work. It is a neat system really, because the clients get their work done within the agreed time and the Public servants get the bribes with virtually no risk of discovery. The members of the public after getting what they want will complain about the prevalence of corruption but will be content that they have achieved their purpose and let it go. A few might complain to the anti-corruption agencies but that is a very small minority and the public officers know that the anti-corruption agencies will rarely act in any case. So the cycle continues year after year and the Public servants accumulate vast wealth in form of land, apartments, cars and other illicitly acquired wealth. That is just life in the banana republic of Uganda.
Obviously there is no magic wand that is going to stop this cycle of corruption and extortion. It is a lucrative system that benefits both low ranked and high ranked public officers in Uganda. You would think that heads of these institutions would put in place measures to curb the vice but they rarely do because there is a process whereby the bosses also get a cut of the money. Part of the public servant’s share of the bribes finds its way in the pockets of the big bosses. The solutions include eliminatimg the discretion of public officers, substantially limiting discretion, limiting interact between public officers and the clients.

1. Eliminate the discretion of public officers. The easiest solution would be to eliminate any sort of discretion that public servants have in approving certain permits or transactions. Under this system, the public would merely pay the prescribed fee and a computer generated permit is issued by the state. This system currently applies to certain taxes such as the trading license. Gone are the days when you had to make long lines to apply for a trading license and wait months before you get it, now days you simply register with the Uganda Revenue Authority and pay for your trading license. Your system generated receipt is your trading license. Through eliminating human contact and discretion, the process has been made so easy that the public nolonger pays bribes to obtain a trading license. This system is unlikely to be supported by bureaucrats in such areas as land registration, electricity connections, the judiciary, building permits and other areas. They will view such an efficient system as a threat to their jobs and livelihoods.
2. Substantially limit the discretion of public officers. Public officers exercise discretion in reviewing requests and application, making recommendation and performing their duties. This gives them the power to deny the public service or delay the provision of the service. If this discretion was completely eliminated or substantial limited public officers would become mere conduits. This would reduce on the prevalence of corruption if it were supplemented by strict time lines. Discretion can be restricted by automation of processes. Imagine if land transactions could be automated, there would be no need no to bribe anyone if the automated system also imposed strict timelines. Actually the system can be automated to make it possible for the land owner to register transactions with minimum participation of the Public servants. You would think that in the twenty first century a person could conduct a search of the land register without dealing with corrupt public servants but Public employees at the ministry of lands fought a proposal to automate search results. Searching the land registry is usually a time sensitive issue given that in most cases the search is because a land transaction is imminent. Due to the time sensitiveness of the search, parties to a land transaction are willing to pay a lot of money for a timely search. The same logic applies to the registration of interests because the interested people are in a race against time to protect their interest. Mobile money and internet banking have proved that any concerns of fraud are actually misplaced because safe guards and approval processes can be put in place. In any the manual process has been plagued by corruption and fraud ensuring that it is not any safer than the automated system. For example, an automated registration system can allow a transaction be registered but only completed upon confirmation from the land owner. Confirmation can be through video a conversation with the land owner or even through a phone call to the verified phone number of the land owner. In circumstances, where the Public officers must exercise discretion to ensure compliance with certain requirements that cannot be automated, strict timelines should be imposed.
3. Strict timelines for exercising discretion should be imposed. There are services that require the applicant to meet certain requirements. Such services include work permits and driving licenses. In respect of services of this type, strict timelines will reduce delay related to corruption. Normally to avoid long delays, citizens resort to paying bribes to get timely services. Where a service is strictly accessible within a strict timeline most individuals will wait for the reasonable timeline to expire. If I Know that I can get my work permit within two days, I am unlikely to bribe the public officer to get the permit. However, those who require a same day service will do so. In such circumstances, an expedited same day service can be implemented at higher fee. The state will tap the money that would have been used to bribe Public servants for the same day service. Instead of going to public officers, this money will be going to the treasury. If public officers can provide same day service to those willing to bribe them, they should be able to provide same day service to those willing to pay the higher fee for same day service.
4. Limit or completely eradicate the interaction between public officers and the public. In circumstances where strict timelines and same day service cannot be instituted, interaction between Public servants and the citizens should be eliminated. We can ensure that certain services are processed by covert centres. Under this proposal applications and requests can be processed by covert teams that members of the Public do not know about. There is no way to solicit bribes when no one knows that you are the one that processes the service in question. Public servants employed under such schemes can be classified to ensure that they can not disclose the nature of their work. In addition to classification of the work, the Public servants should be closely monitored to ensure that they do not disclose their work to either friends or family members. For example, work permits can be processed by such covert teams. It will be very difficult to bribe members of these teams when no one except their handler knows who they are.
5. Eliminate the monopolies to ensure competition and alternative. In certain services corruption is prevalent because there are simply no other options. For example in respect of electricity connections you can not be connected to the electricity by any one other than the agents of umeme or whichever service provider operates the lines in your area. You can not purchase an electricity pole from any where except from these service providers. So when the employees of these service providers adapt delay tactics in order to be bribed, the customer has no choice. If the service was liberalized without sacrificing standardization, then a person could buy a pole from certified pole vendor. A person could be connected to the electricity grid by certified technicians using materials purchased from certified vendors. In those circumstances, there are multiple alternatives to bribing employees of the single service provider. Competition will ensure that the most efficient and effective service providers are used by the customers