Uganda's first female vice-president says no one above corruption
North Africa Region, Politics, 9/17/1997

Uganda's outspoken vice-president, Dr. Specioza Wandira Kazibwe, has caused a fresh uproar, by stepping on some rather high toes.

According to her role as watchdog on corruption, she named Prime Minister Kint Musoke and Uganda's information minister as being under investigation in a scandal over the sale of government houses.

Journalists are always on Kazibwe's trail, hoping she will drop another bombshell.

42-years-old and married to an engineer, with four children, Kazibwe became Africa's first woman vice-president three years ago.

Kazibwe is a keen proponent of women's rights. "I never experienced sexual discrimination from my parents," she said.

She and her seven brothers were all taught in the same way, doing similar housework and going to school.

"The closest I ever came to being discriminated against was when my father wanted to marry my off after I reached 17," she said.

"But, this didn¹t happen and I continued with my studies," she added. In the mid-seventies, she studied medicine at Makerere university where she encountered state oppression, something which pushed her towards politics.

She led a demonstration against dictator Idi Amin after soldiers killed a student. And then she organized student boycotts of state functions.

After she had finished her medical studies, she worked at Malaga Hospital, and when Amin was overthrown in 1979, joined the Democratic party, and became its women's wing national mobilizer.

Her party lost the disputed 1980 election to Milton Obte's Uganda people's congress, and she later went back to Makerere to study surgery. "It was at this time that I started my anti-corruption work," she said.

She instigated an investigation which discovered that university officials were pocketing allowances.

Her political fortunes changed for the better when Museveni came to power in 1986. Elected in 1989 to a seat reserved for women on the national resistance council, the transitional parliament, she quickly rose through the ranks, becoming deputy minister for industry and technology and then minister for youth, culture and women's affairs, before being appointed vice-president.

After her declaration about corruption, some cabinet members called for her to be disciplined for embarrassing the government.

So, she said that, no one is above corruption. Once you are in government, you become a public matter, "If I don¹t speak about corruption, who will?"

President Yoweri Museveni said, "I heard so many criticisms of the vice-president, but I haven't any big problem with her." He suggested that her critics should follow her advice rather than show hostility.

Analysts expect that this matter will increase Kazibwe's political standing.

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