The Inspectorate of Government should take over the role of Project supervision and invest 100bn wasted by public agencies on consultants in combating corruption.
Public Institutions in Uganda spend money more than Ushs 100bn per annum on project supervision, project consultants, projects Managers and auditors. In the first place, these so called supervisors and consultants are paid obscene fees that are above market rates or double the market rates. Secondly, in many instances they are just nominees of those in charge of the public agencies in issue. Thirdly, they are hired not for their likely contribution to the success of the project but for the kickbacks they pay to the public officers that hire them and fourthly, they usually do not add any value to the project. Soon or later the IG is called in to investigate the corruption and plunder of public resources that occurred under the watch of the so called consultants. Maybe it is time to get rid of the corrupt middle men and use this money to fund the fight against corruption. If the IG is going to come in and provide oversight regardless of the fact that the state hired an over paid consultant to ensure compliance, we should as well let that money go to the IG.
Imagine a rural electrification project that hires a project manager to supervise the construction of a power line. The contract manager is paid more than ten percent of the cost of construction or even more but due to corruption the power line is still sub standard. I can guess what happened even before taking any investigative step. The project manager or his or her staff most likely colluded with the project contractor to ignore breaches of the agreed standards by the contractors. Furthermore, the consultant most likely failed to hire qualified staff or to supervise them properly leading to negligently execution of their duties. This is the story of most projects in Uganda and in the end the Inspectorate of Government has to come in and unravel the whole mess. Maybe if the Inspectorate of Government was involved in monitoring the project instead of the consultant, contract supervision would become cheaper, streamlined and effective. So instead of giving the IG the clean up job, let the IG stop these corrupt contract variations before they take place, let the IG identify the shoddy work before the contractors are paid and let the IG stop the kickbacks before they happen. If you are not aware of this already but kickbacks and corruption increases the cost of projects. A contractor factors the bribes and delays and kickbacks in the price that is charged to the state in order to break even. If a contract could be obtained without overhead costs such as bribes and kickbacks, the contractors could offer a better price because it is easy for them to break even.
In the current state of affairs where billions of shillings are spent on corrupt consultants, the end result regardless of how the corruption occurs are the same. The state spends billions of shillings to hire firms to supervise it’s projects but the projects fail none the less and the IG is called in to clean a mess that could have been avoided. Yes the IG has been accused of being corrupt itself and maybe it is true but I believe that the IG is in a better position to ensure that government projects are properly and efficiently executed. Even where the Inspectorate of Government does legitimately fail, the money that would have been paid to the useless experts will still be utilized to combat corruption. Some value is likely to be obtained from the work done by the Inspectorate of Government. In any case with funding from these supervision contracts, the IG will nolonger have an excuse for the failure to make inroads against corruption.
The IG is not adequately funded and has been inadequately funded for many years yet the problem of corruption in Uganda grows on a daily basis. Every year trillions of shillings are paid out in bribes and lost through syndicated plunder of public resources. These corruption scandals can be averted with sufficient man power and oversight but the IG has only a few hundred staff overseeing a population of 45 millions and trillions of shillings in budgeted expenditure. One way to increase funding for the Inspectorate of Government without affecting planned state expenditure is by diverting money to paid to project managers to the IG. The IG should be the project managers and use this capacity to stop corruption before it happens. The IG as structured in the Constitution and the IG Act is not just an investigative agency but a regulator and oversight organization. It has the legal mandate to prevent, eradicate and investigate corruption and stopping corruption before it occurs is more effective than treating the wound.
Inspectorate of Government has the experience and technical expertise to supervise and manage projects. The IG has auditors, lawyers and accountants with many years project monitoring and investigation experience. It invest this money in hiring engineers, doctors and other experts to enable it effectively monitor and supervise government projects. This same man power and expertise can be used to carry out other investigations and prosecution of corruption. The money not spent on supervision of government projects can be invested in undercover operations, databases, asset tracing and recovery and other priorities to combat and deter corruption.
