The ongoing crackdown on corrupt government officials has led to several arrests of Members of Parliament involved in different scandals.

Five legislators have so far been arrested and some already undergoing trial over corruption charges.

The arrests come in after endless cries from the public over endless misuse of taxpayers’ money by government officials with impunity. Severally, many officials have been arrested and charged but later play around with the cases and get exonerated even when the evidence is glaring.

During the recent mbaati saga crackdown, many culprits who accepted having picked the iron sheets were later cleared by the Directorate of public prosecutions even without returning the iron sheets. Ugandans have since got used to the fact that the government has no will to fight corruption since the arrested are cleared without anything being done.

The few who get convicted serve their sentences and come back to enjoy the loot. Why can’t they be ordered to refund taxpayers’ money and have their properties attached? These people steal a lot of money and amass a lot of wealth than they would have earned from their normal earnings, they lose nothing serving the sentence and coming back to enjoy their wealth since they wouldn’t have earned the same during that period.

This has set a bad precedence. Every person who joins a public office looks at how much they can loot and not how they can serve the public. Imagine someone stealing Shss10 billion, invests it and he is jailed for five years only to come back and enjoy after the sentence. Ideally, the person wouldn’t have made the 10 billion through salaries in those five years so it is better they steal, invest, serve the sentence and come back to enjoy. It is worth it.

If the government fails to wake up and start ordering these culprits to refund the money and have their properties attached, the corruption will still be hard to fight. It is time for the government to put strict laws in place so that the corruption vice is dealt with expeditiously. Otherwise the current laws are massaging corrupt officials and therefore it becomes easy for these officials to get rich quick, serve small sentence and come back to enjoy the wealth.