Opinion: Uganda At War In South Sudan&DRC: Let’s Deploy Security To Fight Corruption

Ugandan Security Personnel Standing Watch Photo Credit: Tuko.co.ke

Introduction

On the 17th Day of March 2025, South Sudanese Minister for Information Hon. Micheal Mukuei publicly stated that the Government of South Sudan has declared war on the so called ‘white army rebels. Uganda who is a major ally to the Government of Sudan pledged support for the peace process. A few days before the Parliament of Uganda officially approved the deployment of the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces to South Sudan. Some claim they were already in country based on a video post from the CDF on the 11th of March.

Ugandan Forces are also currently deployed in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo with the aim of defeating the Al-Shabab and ISCAP Islamist groups respectively and preventing them from gaining the capacity to attack us at home.

Uganda’s historic role in the region

There is also the Pan-African Justification of helping brotherly countries find a modicum of peace and stability thus become prosperous and good neighbourly trading partners. The Ugandan People’s Defense Forces since 1986 and the Ugandan Government have a long history of stabilising the region from Rwanda with RPA/F to Burundi with CNDD-FDD, to removing Mobutu and supporting Kabila 1 and 2, to supporting the SPLA against the radical Islamist NIF of Bashir that was supporting Joseph Kony’s LRA and the ADF among many other cases.

Corruption the hidden enemy

Currently the single greatest national security threat in Uganda is not ADF or Al-Shabab. It is not the white army rebels in South Sudan. Our biggest National Security threat is corruption and I will explain why below.

A case for why we need a full-scale military war on corruption can be found with simple statistics.

In 2023 our trade with South Sudan was $606 Million USD or 2.211 trillion Ugandan shillings. In 2022 our Trade with the Democratic Republic of Congo was $210 Million USD or 766 billion Ugandan Shillings. Last year Uganda lost over $5.5 Billion USD (20 trillion Shillings) to Corruption.

Imagine if yesterday a rebel group attacked Bank of Uganda and hacked 20 trillion from the servers. What do you think would be the security response? I guarantee you that the Government would launch the biggest war the country has ever seen until that group was defeated or the money was recovered. We would see all kinds of jets and choppers, new equipment and strange letter agencies we have never heard of.

Has the UPDF even had any non-war operations?

Before you start telling me “Oh it can’t be done”, “UPDF can’t defeat corruption”.  Let me remind you that in 2013 the Government launched a war on Poverty. A full-scale military operation led by the Army and Implemented by the army. While there were some hiccups in the beginnings of Operation Wealth Creation as the UPDF had to shift from battlefields to farm-fields and tanks to tractors out of this has come programs such as Parish Development Model, Emyooga for SACCOs, Women’s Entrepreneurship Fund and many others that are helping hundreds of thousands of Ugandans break out of poverty each year. Just travel deep into many parts of this country and you will notice that many ordinary households are getting more purchasing power and quality of life is improving across various human development indicators.

I am here to say that instead of deploying Joint Anti Terrorism Forces and all kinds spies and heavy weaponry, in places such as Kawempe let us instead deploy them in the hotel lounges, the bars, the conference halls, the secret meeting room corners all over the country. Let us make it so that there are no more dark corridors for corruption to hide in Uganda and it must come out in the open where it can be defeated easily by the courts.

I forgot to mention, when looking at the Kawempe videos I noticed that some officers even had night vision equipment. Surely this could come in handy when monitoring the late-night deal meetings that take place all over Kampala city. Oh and they already have procured enough supply of masks so it is difficult for the corrupt people they will arrest to identify they them and come for them later.

*Ok so how do we do it?

1.      Procurement vs production: Currently over 60% of our 70 trillion budget goes to procurement? What are we procuring year in year out? That is consumption and we can sure do without much of them. Procurement, Storage, Transport and Distribution is where a lot of money disappears and never fully returns. We procure cars for districts but after a short while due to negligent driving the cars get wrecked and their mothballed remains can be found in district headquarters all across the country. These trillions of shillings would be better spent in production related activities or better yet added to programs such as PDM to better help citizens than remaining in bank accounts in Kampala and abroad.

2.      Comfort vs Conscience: Many in Government service for no fault of their own have no recollection of the times when Uganda had very little. Where the President would meet leaders in lecture rooms with a modest tea at the end. Nowadays it is a full 3 course all you can eat buffet at many government functions. In many offices there is Break tea, lunch sometimes even dinner and evening tea. Air-conditioned offices, cars, high perimeter wall fences have created a shock absorbed bubble where many in Government service cannot understand the plight of the people they serve because they live in an alternate Uganda. This is why a government minister can boldly stand in a cabinet meeting and say they need 50 billion for something that ordinarily should not take more than 5 billion. Because to them a billion shillings is just a number on a paper.

Government could save trillions of shillings by simply cutting down on some of the trappings of power in Government Offices and enforcing frugality in lifestyle for all in service. The argument that cutting people’s job benefits will lead to corruption is a lie because with all these benefits people are still stealing tax payers’ money.

3.      Wartime vs Peacetime: even though I am young, I remember a time when Uganda had little but was able to achieve more. How is it that despite fighting Kony, ADF, HIV epidemic and other many crises Uganda was still able to grow its economy engage in production, welcome refugees etc throughout the 2000s?

Conclusion

I propose since Uganda is already at war in the DRC and in South Sudan and Somalia that President Museveni and the NRM government treat the budget as if we are at war. The same way the Budget was treated in the 90s and 2000s. It will involve serious spending cuts, freezes and fiscal belt-tightening. We may even need to add a new hole on the belt to make it extra tight.

Uganda has soo many different agencies with different letters even the corrupt people will get confused they will run from ISO and go abroad and find ESO waiting for them whent they land, they will run from IGG by hiding money in relatives accounts only to find FIA waiting for them.

As the Operation Wealth Creation Mandate in 2013 was to banish poverty Let us have "Operation Fukuza Uwizi" translated Operation Chase Theft.

For God and my Country,

God bless you the reader and God bless Uganda,

*The Author is a junior research officer at the Africa Leadership Institute. A Pan-African, Independent and Politically Neutral Non-Governmental Organisation*