Uganda has a high prevalence rate of fraud
By Drone Writer
Among the forms of economic crime that were found to have a high prevalence rate within
Ugandan organisations include Fraud Committed by the Consumer, Business Misconduct, Asset
Misappropriation, Cybercrime and Bribery and Corruption. Prevalence of fraud rate?
The first two forms of fraud primarily affect the private sector and it is imperative that the sector institutes measures aimed at curbing their prevalence. The prevalence of these particular crimes is not as high as in some of the other East African countries; it may be worthwhile therefore, for Ugandan organisations to assess whether there are any useful insights that can be borrowed from its neighbours.
Bribery and Corruption on the other hand has been perceived for a long time, and perhaps wrongly so, as a public sector problem. During his swearingin speech in 2016, H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni declared that there are two weaknesses that the Africa’s “market hub” countries, such as Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia and Ghana.
In some cases the elections resulted in some uncertainty, but matters are gradually returning to normal.
In addition, commodity prices fell for most of 2016 on the back of reduced Chinese demand, before showing some recovery in 2017. The effect of this drop and subsequent rise was to dramatically lower and then somewhat increase the value of African commodity exports, so that subSaharan Africa’s GDP growth dropped to 1.3% in 2016 before rising to 2.4% in 2017 .
Domestically, the annual GDP growth rate for the year 2016/17 was 4%, a 0.7% reduction from the 4.7% registered in 2016/17 according to Uganda Bureau of Statistics. In the medium term, the annual GDP growth rate in the fi ve years leading to 2015/16 was 4.5% according to the World Bank. For the last two years, adverse weather conditions have affected agricultural productivity and impeded economic growth.
This is due to the fact that as highlighted in the 2014 Uganda Population and Housing Census, 69% of Ugandan households depend on subsistence farming for a living. In this report, we highlight the forms of economic crime most prevalent in Uganda, comparing them with the global survey results as well as the results for Africa and the East Africa region consisting of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia. The comparisons provide insights on the opportunities that exist for cross adoptions and cross learnings amongst different countries and regions.
In today’s interconnected world, the comparison also provides a birds-eye-view of the economic crime environment in the region for organisations with cross-border operations, which is useful in forming fraud risk management strategies. Overall, Uganda respondents reported a 66% incidence rate in occurrence of economic crimes. Whereas this rate country needs to expunge for the economy to perform well and one of them was corruption by public offi cials. According to the President, corruption and delayed decision making “irritate the public and frustrate investors”.
Shortly thereafter, the Government of Uganda removed more than 5,000 civil servants suspected to be ghost workers from the state payroll . Such bold steps are encouraging and should be sustained to rid Uganda of the vices of economic crimes. Also encouraging as per our survey is the fact that a high proportion of Ugandan organisations seem to be investing in anti-fraud measures. For instance, 78% of respondents indicated that they have a fully operational cybersecurity programme.
An impressive 85% of our respondents also reported having insight into fraud and/or economic crime
incidence in their organisation. Our survey reinforces the importance of all stakeholders converging in the fi ght against fraud. While the government must for instance ensure that there is a comprehensive and all-inclusive legal and enforcement framework in place, the private sector, civil society, religious leadership and indeed the entire citizenry must converge around the goal of eradication of economic crimes.