The news that US $12.7 million in donor funds had been embezzled from Uganda’s Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) hit the headlines in many donor capitals in late 2012, prompting serious questions about Uganda’s commitment to fight corruption. The stolen donor funds were earmarked as crucial support for rebuilding northern Uganda, ravaged by a 20-year war, and Karamoja, Uganda’s poorest region. Approximately 30 percent of the national budget came from foreign aid in 2012. As a result of the OPM scandal and claims that the money was funneled into private accounts, the European Union, United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, and Norway suspended aid.
Corruption in Uganda is severe, well-known, cuts across many sectors, and is frequently debated and discussed in the media. Such corruption undermines human rights in multiple ways: a direct defiance of the rule of law and accountability, it indicates that the law and its institutions cannot be relied on to protect against violations of fundamental human rights or deliver justice. By unlawfully interfering with resources that should be available to realize fundamental rights such as the rights to health, water, food, and education—either through illegally appropriating public funds for personal wealth or rendering access to services subject to bribes, which are illegal—corruption leads to violations of human rights that may have disastrous consequences. (abbreviated author introduction)