A pro-corruption argument can never win

What is the most outrageous commentary you have read this week? Mine is an anti-clockwise argument on corruption made by Andrew Mwenda; a man who incidentally, played a big role in inspiring me to pursue journalism. You might have stumbled upon his argument posted on the Independent Magazine website on August 12, under the title, ‘Andrew Mwenda on the links between corruption and economic development.’ The article generated debate and it made waves on Facebook and Twitter. Interestingly, on his website, it attracted only one long comment from one of Mwenda’s most avid readers but also arguably his most vicious critic, who goes by the name; Omoros. Ironically, this is the first time Omoros is in agreement with Mwenda’s point of view. What is your personal view on the effects of corruption on the economic development of a country? Basically, like in any debate, the right thing to do would be to start by defining the key terms in the question; in this case, what’s corruption? What’s economic development? Unfortunately, Mwenda’s argument ignored those basics and instead dove straight into the argument. Corruption can take many forms and can impact development in many ways; that’s why it’s important to point out specific definitions and forms of corruption one seeks to examine before they get into convincing us about the economic advantages of the vice. It’s not my intention to question my childhood role model from the way he started off his argument, instead, I am imploring him to put his argument in Rwanda’s context, a country where he has in the past correctly argued that the near absence of corruption is among the foremost factors for its impressive post-genocide economic development. In a nutshell, Mwenda’s argument pointed out that corruption {undefined} doesn’t necessarily impede economic development {undefined}. Using his country as an example, Mwenda picked on 2012 World Bank statistics that said Uganda loses USh500 billion annually to corruption. He negated the impact of this theft by comparing it to Uganda’s 2015/2016 budget of USh24 trillion which belittled the theft to 2 percent. A smart manipulator of statistics to fit his view, Mwenda’s arguments can be quite convincing until you subject them to scrutiny. In this case, Mwenda concluded that Uganda loses only 2 percent of its budget to corruption by way of public funds’ embezzlement. This therefore implies that the Ugandan government correctly uses 98 percent of its budget and the stolen 2 percent isn’t enough to block economic development. According to Mwenda, ‘most common sense is common nonsense’ but I think everyone will agree that his manipulation of the two different statistics by placing them in a biased context to simply justify corruption, in this case, simply can’t win. To be honest, I admire Mwenda’s intellect, whether in clockwise or anti-clockwise thought; he’s also a brave writer who has developed a thick skin for harsh public criticism against his often controversial commentaries. The last time I got a nasty beating from readers was when I wrote an anti-clockwise commentary on the ‘Monkey-officer emails’ saga; I actually felt like I was trapped in a tree with a hungry lion waiting on the ground. What impressed me about Mwenda’s pro-corruption argument was his conspicuous failure (I am sure deliberately so) to mention Rwanda in it. If you have followed his writings, Rwanda is always used as the perfect example to support his arguments but not this time! In Rwanda’s case, one hardly needs academic studies to prove that the near absence of corruption/embezzlement of public funds has had a massive contribution to this country’s transformation. To inspire this comment, I simply took an evening walk around my neighborhood in Niboye. With music pumping in my ears, I enjoyed a peaceful stroll on the well maintained paved sidewalks and reflected on a question; what if the money for all this had been stolen by the mayor? I also reflected on the Agaciro Trust Fund and the recent Ishema Ryacu, a voluntary effort by ordinary Rwandans to fight a Rwandan official’s spurious legal aggression in the UK. I concluded that the biggest cost of corruption by way of embezzlement is any government’s biggest loss because with it goes the loss of trust and confidence of the electorate. Without trust and confidence that Rwandans/investors have in the country’s current administrators, I highly doubt the country would be where it is today. There would be no Agaciro and most definitely, no Ishema Ryacu.

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A pro-corruption argument can never win