By Gyagenda Semakula Zikusooka Ssajjabbi
Hidden in plain sight, those clues lived quietly within financial documents, slipped into deals handed to friends of power, murmured near offices untouched by oversight. Citizens used to call it theft. Now authorities label it protocol. Reports turned to silence over time.
From the earliest missing shilling to the most recent broken vow, a quiet change took place: government didn’t collapse under graft. Effort faded instead. Performance replaced purpose. Out of stillness came something different: not a world where decay gnaws at structure, but one where the broken part became the foundation.
That moment sticks with me. Back in July 2016, I watched from the press area during a retreat at NALI Kyankwanzi much like the recent one – where some of the sharpest political scenes unfolded in the party’s twenty years. Standing firm, Brigadier Balya Kakyomya, head of Internal Security at the time, told those present at the retreat what leaders often hide: corruption doesn’t just damage government – it collapses it.
His words weren’t warnings built on ideas. They came straight from secret reports of intelligence. From the retreat emerged a statement that would define that term: Kisanja Hakuna Mchezo. Truly, it stirred something deep.
Then suddenly, without warning, it turned into Kisanja Cha Mchezo. Back to Kyankwanzi in April 2026, a full decade on, they gathered once more. Their talks focused sharp on corruption, just like before.
Stating matters clearly, the President warned –“this thing will destroy Uganda, calling it self-destruction that cannot stand. As often happens, his words hit true. He spoke truth. Speeches now feed the issue, since a nation hearing identical words, from an old stage, in a familiar hideaway, years between, begins judging leaders not on retreat promises, but on choices allowed once back amongst the wananchi.
Late night calls shape courtroom decisions, even when facts say otherwise. One official already has the winner picked for a contract long before envelopes get unsealed. While daylight brings speeches on integrity, nighttime brings quiet deals behind closed doors.
Not rare mistakes – just how certain roles really work. Now shame lives inside the walls we built. Quiet used to be mandatory, today it just lingers.
When it comes to anti-corruption infrastructure, Uganda runs nearly more anti-graft agencies than most nations on the continent can claim. Year after year, the Auditor General delivers reports like clockwork, though their impact feels as strong as a drizzle in dry season.
The Inspectorate of Government watches closely. So does the authority managing how public goods are bought and sold. Prosecutors push cases forward. A special court handles them. Even the president’s office hosts an integrity unit – odd, given that major questionable choices often seem born behind those very walls.
Then you have Parliament: bloated in cost per lawmaker compared to others across Africa, built by law to check presidential power, armed with budget control and sharp questions but acting more like a high-priced show than real watchdog work. Committees meet. Lawmakers move around. Words fill rooms without weight.
Year after year, reports from the Auditor General will expose the rot. Ministries and departments of government remain, courts stay open, commissions keep functioning – yet something shifted underneath. Their core emptied out, reshaped quietly, turned toward another aim altogether.
That purpose was never about serving citizens. Each structure holds its shape but serves someone else now. Think of the engineer who scores perfect yet door after door closed. Has the right skills, wrong surname, wrong connections.
They’re the ones the rules claim to help, if you only read them on clean sheets. Most of the time, those hit hardest are also the ones who keep it running. Because they cover the costs behind deals that line certain pockets. Standing in line for help that was meant to be their own already gone. The government does not overlook them. Instead, it notes exactly where to pass the burden, placing it on their backs so few must feel it.
Change like this takes years. Not once has any nation fallen in an instant crash, instead comes quiet wearing down. First a rigged post here, a flouted procurement there, then a muted critic, followed by altered rules bit by bit. What we witnessed at the UNRA probe in 2015 wasn’t some hidden truth.
People driving on broken tarmac saw it coming. Money meant to link districts vanished, contracts played out like theater, while new asphalt stood less as failure and more as quiet theft. The Land Commission of Inquiry stories ran just as deep. Villagers showing up to empty plots, names erased, papers faked, titles forged, records bent by those inside the system, with local officers stamping approvals like nothing was wrong.
One probe exposed concrete promises turned hollow. Another revealed soil itself being stolen beneath people’s feet. Both left behind pages nobody can ignore. Rows of shelves stacked with reports, advice and recommendations.
Those supposed to watch the doors got placed right inside by the ones they should have kept away. Reports on dirty deals piled up where those deals were made. Audits happened. Committees met. Commissions gave orders. Still, nothing shifted. Looking responsible mattered most, done well enough to please funders, dodge questions, and secure one more round of quiet theft.
Yet it’s wrong to act like people had no clue. Everyone shares some blame here. We are all guilty as charged. Silence wears different masks; power isn’t always behind them. Take the office worker who signed off on fake payments, saying no might cost work, shelter or tuition money.
A person casts a vote for someone dishonest, simply because during election season they handed out soap along with empty words. A journalist elsewhere writes the truth, has proof ready, makes contact – yet stays silent after a call changes everything.
A worker gives money to get promoted, not from desire, but fear: watch another walk away with it all if they refuse. These acts become the ground beneath every broken system. What you get is more than broken leadership. Quiet people are shaped by the setup, their stillness later used to hold things up.
Still, nothing shows how sharply Uganda picks who answers for what quite like the iron sheets case. Action came fast at first, probes started, accusations laid down. Then reality showed through: just one lower-level minister got found guilty, convicted, sentenced, locked up, turned into a warning sign, her image splashed everywhere.
Everyone else higher up, tied clearly to the deal, named in papers, caught on record, faced nothing and were let scot-free and kept their jobs. Some shifted offices without noise. Still showing up at events, stand smiling beside new buildings paid for by aid meant for hungry families, speak of progress and protecting the gains.
What reached the ordinary ear wasn’t proof that cheating brings punishment. Instead came the quiet truth: only certain people pay, while the machine behind the theft keeps running, untouched.
Bravery inside a broken court does not stare ahead without blinking. It knows which doors to open, which shadows to avoid. When buildings stand empty inside, those who tried to fix things get worn down, people feel drained, those who caused the damage stay where they started – comfortable, untouched. Time shows just two paths forward.
Neither is neat. One way: falling apart quietly. Not sudden. A steady crumbling. A system that stops working so badly it cannot fake being alive. Patches of asphalt crumbling where no crew returns. Hospital wards echo without drugs, just uniforms playing make-believe care. Schools hand out papers that gather dust – nobody hires anyway. Officials draw salaries while serving mirrors.
From a podium in Kyankwanzi came the words: Uganda dies by stealing. It wasn’t framed as a future collapse, some far-off prediction about Uganda fading away. Right now, harm spreads through each dead project, one after another.
Damage grows where payments silence outrage. Picture someone teaching kids every day, another fixing bridges, a woman from Karamoja seeing relief supplies taken while officials look away. What looks like calm often isn’t agreement.
Quiet does not mean okay. Neither breaking down nor blowing up fixes anything. In an upside-down state, costs land where they shouldn’t. They always hit the unprepared. Something hollow settles when you see a place you care about crumbling from within. Not the shock of something breaking overnight, but the weight of knowing what’s broken never really needed fixing. What they said was just passing turns out to stay forever.
Promises made were never meant to hold. Retreats at NALI will happen once more, words rising like smoke, votes cast with purpose – then silence creeps back in before anyone reaches their door. To think otherwise would ignore what people already know too well.
Those structures weren’t dropped from sky, they came from our own hands. Taking it apart takes effort from regular folks. Not a quick job. Far from simple. There will be prices to pay. As usual, the heaviest burden lands on the most vulnerable. Yet staying quiet, giving up and slowly believing nothing ever changes is not strength. This complicity wears a softer label now. Still, the upside-down state holds more than its share. Its rule is a lootocracy! Oh Uganda May God Uphold Thee! The writer is a Journalist, Lawyer and Church Minister. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
