The Former Minister of Ethics and Integrity, Miria Matembe has appealed to government and all authorities to avoid using diversionary means so as to shield AYA investors from cases of sexual harassment.
Matembe was responding to the arrest of the State Minister of Labour, Employment and Industry Herbert Kabafunzaki which she said is intended to cover up the sexual harassment allegations against the Aya proprietor Muhammad Aya.
Matembe noted that such interventions in fighting corruption are not practical but just intended to hoodwink Ugandans and for political gains.
“It is not the president who fights corruption but government and the system and not just an individual being rang by a colleague from Aya. Am not saying that the Minister should not be arrested if indeed implicated in corruption but I don’t even believe so, my mind shows me another side of the story,” Matembe told journalists in Kampala.
She expressed fear that the whole issue of a woman being sexually harassed is being submerged by the excitement of arresting a Minister over corruption.
“My concern is to the woman who was sexually harassed, am seeing the whole issue of sexual harassment of women by investors in this country being submerged by the issue of arresting a minister purporting to being bribed with 10bn,” Matembe noted.
Matembe noted that Ugandans should not be excited by the arrest thinking that corruption will end by such arrests adding that many officials have been arrested in similar cases and no action has been taken against them ever since.
“How many billions of Ugandan money have been stolen through corruption, do you expect me to be excited about this kind of arrest? Is this the first for Minister to be arrested under similar circumstances; don’t you remember the censured Minister who later became big a shot in the country, the Global Fund, the GAVI money, the Kuteesa censure.”
Matembe observed that her interest is in seeing government look into the issue of sexual harassment of women in the country with the same vigor they are using of corruption.
“In the women movement we have been pursuing issues of women harassment by the investors in the country; Ugandans have become slaves in their own country at the hands of investors, check all the factories, flower plantations as well as hotels,” she said.
Government Speaks Out:
Speaking to ChimpReports, government spokesperson Ofwono Opondo said “on Kabafunzaki, for some time now the President has been public that there ministers, MPs and other government officials who cajole and extort favors from investors especially foreign ones.”
These extortionists sometimes demand cash, shares, foreign trips or even university tuition for their children.
He said the President warned that he had put up spy networks to expose, cause arrests and prosecution of the culprits.
“So, if there’s any minister or Permanent Secretary who listened to the President in Kyankwanzi last year and in cabinet retreats who can still foolishly behave the way kabafunzaki is alleged to have behaved, then the problem is really of their own making and shouldn’t seek to shift blame,” he said.
“But we wait to see how the investigations unfold as we give him the benefits of the doubts. But l highly doubt that police is acting on shaky ground.”