By Andrew Irumba
President Museveni has said that the Central Bank of Uganda (BoU) has been invaded by the bean weevils (corrupt officers) that must be dealt with decisively.
Museveni made the remarks on Tuesday during celebrations to mark 25 years of Transparency International at Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala.
The president said that before he went to the bush, corruption was among the problems affecting the country, adding that when they captured power in 1986, they focused on overhauling the army and left other government institutions and departments like the civil service to manage themselves.
“Of course there was a problem of remuneration but remuneration cannot replace integrity because some of the areas where there are problems, people are well remunerated like URA did very good salaries so why would you have corruption there?” Museveni wondered.
He added; “In Bank of Uganda there is corruption , so there is Kawukumi now, there is mungwe (bean weevils), gradually Kawukumi has come in now so remuneration is not the cure, the cure is patriotism first”.
Museveni said that he now has medicine for corruption especially among civil servants that he said would soon be applied.
The president noted that the country currently has enough civil servants to replace the corrupt ones since the population is fed up with them, chasing them will now be easy.
“We have given them (civil servants) time to expose themselves and the entire population is fed up of them. They will no longer blackmail us,” he noted.
This comes after the president declined calls of the finance minister Matia Kasaija to intervene and save bank of Uganda officials from the on-going probe by the Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) which is investigating Bank of Uganda over the sale of seven commercial banks.
This is the second institution president Museveni is publicly declaring as being infested with bean weevils after Uganda police, which he ‘fixed’ by replacing its head, the IGP Gen.Kale Kayihura with Martins Okoth Ochola.
