More graft and corruption

Are you tired of our posts about corruption in Uganda? I tell you, we're tired of seeing it. From the top to the bottom, it's endemic.

We have a friend who heads up the office of a Danish engineering firm here in Uganda. The firm has a policy of not paying bribes. The result of that policy is that they get no Ugandan government work. None. You can't do business with the government if you don't pay bribes. We were taken aback by the example he gave. The firm submitted a proposal for an engineering project (just as Paul does regularly for CH2M HILL when he's in the U.S.) and were not selected. The reason given was that their proposal was incomplete. The friend met with the officials to debrief and realized that someone on the receiving end had simply torn out and discarded pages from their proposal containing required information. Since they had not paid the bribe, they weren't in the game.

Today I was at the children's clothing store where I occasionally volunteer. Our store is located next to an orphanage, and all the proceeds of sales go to help cover medical costs for the orphans. We visited the orphanage when we were finished working today, and one of my co-workers noticed that there was a storage room with a large amount of used clothing piled up in it. She asked one of the women who helps run the orphanage about it, and the woman assured her that those clothes had been donated directly to the orphanage for the use of the orphans. After we left, my friend shook her head and said, "I'm sure those clothes are for our shop, but the orphanage workers keep them to sell them on the side." Everyone seems to be on the take.

The thing is, it's more complicated than this just being simple corruption. From what we've read and seen in action, the traditional African thought about money is that "anyone's money is everyone's money." If you have money or goods, it's understood that you will share with your family and tribe. For example, in some African languages, the word for "refrigerator" is the same one as the word for "greedy." Why would you have a refrigerator to keep food in? If you have food, you share it until it's gone. If you have a party and there are leftovers, you give them out to those around you rather than save them for yourself for the next day. At Bead For Life, one of the most frequent uses we see for the increased income women gain is to pay school fees for more relatives' children. When you get married, you hold meetings to collect money from family, friends, and co-workers to pay for the wedding. There are few social services provided by the government, but people provide for each other as much as they can.

We actually benefited from this sharing mentality when we went on our safari with our kids in December. Somehow we had significantly underestimated the amount of cash we needed for the trip. Remember, you can't use credit cards in Uganda-everything is done on a cash basis. We were out in the middle of nowhere, no ATMs to be found, and we didn't have the money we needed for park entrance fees, food, lodging, etc. Paul mentioned our dilemma to Farouk, our driver. Pretty soon Farouk pulled into a sort of ranger station, and 15 minutes later he came out with a wad of cash in his hand. He explained that he told his friends at the station (it helps that Farouk knows everyone in Uganda on a first-name basis) that he'd be back in a few days and would repay the money. So they donated to us. It was a great start, but it wasn't enough. That night, unbeknownst to us, he went around to the other guides and workers where we were staying and took up another collection. We now had enough money to get us through. Can you imagine something like this happening in the U.S.? "An acquaintance of a friend is strapped for cash, can you contribute?" Of course, as soon as we got back to Kampala we went to an ATM and got Farouk his money back.

So, although there is no excuse for corruption, there is some history and context that provides insight. On some level people feel they are taking money from strangers, from those with whom they have no connection, to share with those in their family and tribe.