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Transparency International ranks Uganda among the most corrupt nations, at 143 out of 182 countries in its most recent survey. Public officials in high and low places are constantly looking for opportunities to steal or be bribed and the offerings of foreign governments and agencies have traditionally been easy to abuse, critics say. U.S. and European aid money, for example, frequently funds workshops at expensive hotels. Participants of the "capacity building" programs are given free travel to the sites along with per diems and accommodation. "Capacity building ... is the easiest to steal because the only evidence is paper accountability," said Augustine Ruzindana, Uganda's former anti-corruption chief. "The people who pay also know what they are doing, and so it's self-perpetuating. With the Chinese method it's easier to show that something has been done. They do concrete things which can be seen by several generations." China's aid is not always welcomed. Last month new headquarters paid for by China for the African Union were unveiled in Ethiopia. Rwandan President Paul Kagame called it "pathetic" that Africa accepted such a donation and asked whether Africa couldn't afford to pay for such a building itself. In Uganda, as in other African countries where it has strategic interests, China has polished its reputation with muscular projects which it then hands over as gifts. Prominent donations to Uganda include the headquarters of the ministry of foreign affairs and a sports stadium. Even when the projects are tied to loans, such as in the planned construction of a four-lane expressway from the capital to Uganda's international airport in nearby Entebbe, the Chinese insist on taking full charge. This has shut down avenues traditionally used by public officials to inflate costs while doing shoddy work, to get paid for work not done or to insist on bribes before endorsing certain projects, anti-corruption officials say. "The Chinese model is better," said Fred Guweddeko, a research fellow at the Makerere University Institute of Social Research in Kampala.
[Associated
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