Who depends on whom? Uganda’s refugee ‘success story’, corruption and the international community

Abstract

The progressive refugee policy of the Ugandan government has been widely applauded as a success story, and Uganda has been depicted as a role model. This article argues how the perceived success created a situation of mutual dependency between the Ugandan government and the international community. While the Ugandan government relied on aid from the international community, the international community had interests in the success story as proof that their policies work (for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), and in response to the European migration crisis (for bilateral donor governments). Nevertheless, in 2018, it emerged that the Ugandan refugee policy suffered from large-scale corruption. The article argues that the mutual dependency provided a fertile breeding ground for corruption, and negatively impacted accountability. Similarly to how the Museveni regime has been able to benefit from an image of success to deflect accountability on governance transgressions in the past, it has now largely managed to evade accountability for corruption in its refugee policy.

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Who depends on whom? Uganda’s refugee
‘success story’, corruption and the international
community
Kristof Titeca
To cite this article: Kristof Titeca (2021): Who depends on whom? Uganda’s refugee
‘success story’, corruption and the international community, Third World Quarterly, DOI:
10.1080/01436597.2021.1989301
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1989301
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THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY
Who depends on whom? Uganda’s refugee ‘success story’,
corruption and the international community
Kristof Titeca
Institute of Development Policy, University of Antwerp, Antwerpen, Belgium
ABSTRACT
The progressive refugee policy of the Ugandan government has been
widely applauded as a success story, and Uganda has been depicted as
a role model. This article argues how the perceived success created a
situation of mutual dependency between the Ugandan government
and the international community. While the Ugandan government
relied on aid from the international community, the international com-
munity had interests in the success story as proof that their policies
work (for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), and in
response to the European migration crisis (for bilateral donor govern-
ments). Nevertheless, in 2018, it emerged that the Ugandan refugee
policy suffered from large-scale corruption. The article argues that the
mutual dependency provided a fertile breeding ground for corruption,
and negatively impacted accountability. Similarly to how the Museveni
regime has been able to benefit from an image of success to deflect
accountability on governance transgressions in the past, it has now
largely managed to evade accountability for corruption in its refugee
policy.
In December 2013 an eruption of fighting in South Sudan triggered what would eventually
become a major influx of refugees into Uganda. From July 2016, an unprecedented flight of
people became the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world (GoU and UNHCR 2017).
Between mid-2016 and mid-2017 an average of 2800 South Sudanese people arrived in
Uganda each day, peaking at 8000 per day (Robinson 2017; Office of Internal Oversight
Services (OIOS) 2018, 4).
Facilities in Uganda became overwhelmed and ‘chronically and severely underfunded’
(GoU and UNHCR 2017). Nevertheless, with a particularly progressive refugee policy – includ-
ing granting refugees the right to work and freedom of movement – Uganda kept its borders
open. Moreover, in March 2017, Uganda became a policy pioneer, implementing the
Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), the flagship UNHCR (United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees, or the UN refugee agency) project in the country, and an
application of the 2016 New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants.
As a result, in media and policy circles alike, Uganda was portrayed as a ‘role model’, and
as having one of the ‘most progressive refugee policies’ in the world. As the United Nations
Secretary-General António Gutteres declared while visiting Imvepi Refugee Settlement in
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 26 June 2020
Accepted 29 September
2021
KEYWORDS
Uganda
donors
international community
agency
UNHCR
migration and refugees
© 2021 Global South Ltd
CONTACT Kristof Titeca Kristof.titeca@uantwerp.be
https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1989301

2K. TITECA
Uganda in 2017: ‘In a world where so many people are selfishly closing their doors, closing
their borders, not allowing refugees to come, this example deserves praise [and] admiration
from the whole international community’ (UN 2017). At a time when the European migration
crisis was unfolding, with most countries at best hesitant to admit refugees, Uganda was
accepting large numbers of South Sudanese refugees in what was called ‘Africa’s biggest
human exodus since the Rwandan genocide’ (Pilling 2017). Today, Uganda hosts around 1.5
million refugees, including non-South Sudanese nationals (Uganda Comprehensive Refugee
Response Portal 2020).
However, in February 2018 the image of the role model was marred when Ugandan press
reports revealed that the country’s refugee response was riddled with large-scale fraud. The
number of refugees was inflated, funds were misused, and women and girl refugees traf-
ficked, according to the reports (Sserunjogi 2018). These reports were particularly damning
for the Ugandan Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), the department in charge of refugee
affairs. A November 2018 UN audit revealed the extent of the fraud, as well as inaction by
– and the complicity of – UNHCR (OIOS 2018).
Following the initial revelations, four Ugandan officials were suspended pending inves-
tigation, among whom was the OPM’s Commissioner for Refugees, Apollo Kazungu. Donor
countries and UNHCR initially used strong language to voice their concerns and insist on
accountability. However, that accountability has not materialised. On the contrary, the com-
missioner – whose role was seen as central to the scandal – is back in office and has not
appeared before court. The same donor countries that previously called for action have
accepted this as a fait accompli.
What does this tell us about relations between the international community – and UNHCR
in particular – and the Ugandan government? This article aims to answer that question by
examining the period starting with the influx of South Sudanese refugees from late 2013 to
the present day, during which Uganda’s refugee policy came to be seen as an international
role model and success story. The article considers how the international community and
the Ugandan government engaged each other on the issue of corruption, both contempo-
raneously as events unfolded, and after the malpractice had been publicly exposed, in a
maladroit search for accountability.
The paper does not aim to make an argument about the quality of the refugee policy,
although elements of the analysis inescapably touch upon that. Instead, it focuses on the
leverage the international community – and especially UNHCR – had over President Yoweri
Museveni’s government, and how it did, or did not, use it. The article provides new and
detailed empirical insights on the ways in which the international community – both UNHCR
and bilateral donor countries – have tried to enforce accountability for corruption in the
refugee sector, and the ways in which the Ugandan government has been able to evade
this. In doing so, it argues that the investment of the international community in the Ugandan
refugee ‘success story’ has created a situation of mutual dependency, an important enabling
factor for the ‘refugee scandal’ to unfold. Moreover, it shows the historical continuity in how
the Museveni regime has been able to evade accountability on corruption with regard to
donors; and how the refugee success story is the latest manifestation of the ways the regime
has benefitted from its image as a success story. Previous manifestations include Uganda’s
image as a developmental success story (Harrison 2001; Khisa 2019; Wiegratz 2010) and its
role in the ‘war on terror’, especially by contributing troops to the African Union Mission to
Somalia (AMISOM) (Fisher 2012; Titeca and Fahey 2016). Each of these played an important
role in deflecting accountability for good governance transgressions.

THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY 3
These findings have relevance beyond the case study because they contribute to the
literature on the agency of African states in the international community – a central concern
of political science scholarship on the continent (Fisher 2012; Brown 2012; Kwasi Tieku 2013)
– as well as on the literature concerning the co-dependency of donors and host governments
(Peiffer and Englebert 2012; Whitfield and Fraser 2009; Beswick and Hammerstad 2013).
Methodology
This article is based on field research in Uganda between 2017 and 2021, during which a
number of actors were interviewed: journalists, humanitarian officials, diplomats, govern-
ment officials and analysts. Forty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted, primarily
in Kampala, and a number of others by video call from Europe. The interviews took place in
English and lasted from half an hour to two-and-a-half hours. Interviewees were selected
through purposive and snowball sampling – that is to say, on the basis of their knowledge
of the research theme, and in turn directed me to other potential interviewees. Occasionally,
the article draws on older data, as I have been conducting fieldwork in Uganda since 2003.
Respondents were not interviewed in their official capacity and are kept anonymous. As
a result, while some information is given about the nature of the respondents, for example
by indicating their role (‘Ugandan civil servant’ or ‘diplomat’), their position is kept sufficiently
vague that they cannot be identified, which requires withholding diplomats’ nationalities
or using the general term ‘analyst’.
The reason is straightforward: corruption is a sensitive issue, particularly following the
refugee scandal, when the issue was politically contentious for all involved. Trust was there-
fore central to conducting these interviews and interviewees had to be certain that their
identity would not be revealed. Importantly, many of these contacts were based on rela-
tionships I had established since 2003 while conducting research on issues related to cor-
ruption and patronage in Uganda (eg Titeca 2012, 2019). By respecting my sources’
confidentiality I have established a reputation for trustworthiness and built a wide network
of informants who provide sensitive data that would not otherwise be disclosed.
Given the sensitive and secretive nature of corruption, information disclosed by actors
was often fragmented, with interviewees giving their own, partial perspective. For example,
interviews with diplomats focussed on their diplomatic efforts, while they had less informa-
tion about the internal dynamics of OPM, a topic that government officials or journalists
were better placed to speak about. Comparing and combining interview data allowed me
to triangulate information. Interview data were, to the extent possible, cross-checked with
other sources of information, such as press articles or audit reports.1
Using these data, a chronological account is presented of the refugee scandal and how
it unfolded over time. This narrative is unavoidably selective because the main focus is on
relationships between the international community, particularly UNHCR, and the Ugandan
government. Key events and quotes were selected on this basis.
Before giving this account, I will review the relevant literature, particularly on the agency
of African states and the leverage of donors around governance transgressions.
The agency of African states with regards to the international community
African governments are often examined from a position of structural dependence on, and
in, the international system (Fisher 2013a, 538). They are seen as being dominated by ‘big

4K. TITECA
structures’ of global inequality (Brown 2012, 1903), constraining and influencing their ability
to implement policies (Fisher 2013a, 540) – an approach that regards Africa as marginalised,
victimised and almost politically inert (Brown 2012, 1890).
In contrast, in recent years a stream of literature has explicitly emphasised the agency of
African states (Fraser and Whitfield 2008; Brown 2012). Broadly speaking, this literature argues
that African states and individuals cannot be looked at as passive subjects to be understood
by looking only at their structural dynamics (Beswick and Hammerstad 2013), but that their
forms of agency need to be understood as well: how they ‘define, act, own, control and lead
on issues that affect them’ (Kwasi Tieku 2013, 514). Importantly, agency should not be
thought of as ‘unlimited’, without any structural constraints; rather, it should be understood
as relational and contextualised in a ‘complex dialectical interplay’ with the structural context
in which it operates (Brown 2012, 1904). In other words, ‘structure’ and ‘agency’ are mutually
reproduced over time (Brown 2012; Fisher 2013a; Beswick and Hammerstad 2013, 472;
Wight 1999).
As Fisher (2013a, 542) argues, donor aid can be considered ‘the most central “structure”’
affecting Africa, through various loans and other forms of financial input. Host states are not
powerless vis-à-vis donors, but are able to influence the ‘donor aid rationale’ in various ways.
For example, they are able to access dominant Western discourses on democratisation or
governance reforms, and to influence how they are seen by Western governments. In doing
so, they are able to influence specific priorities and position themselves favourably in relation
to them (Fisher 2013a). States can thus frame their ‘domestic and foreign policies in ways
that can resonate with hegemonic international discourses, seeking to obtain either more
support from Western states or to lower their democratization pressure (or both)’ (Jourde
2007, 481). In other words, the way in which particular policy images of countries are under-
stood is not only the result of how donors perceive them, but also of ‘African image man-
agement’ (Fisher 2013b, 2): the selecting, plotting and interpreting narratives by both African
states and the international community (Dunn 2003, 65; Titeca and Costeur 2015). Put dif-
ferently, by enacting particular policies – democratisation, the war on terror and others –
African agents are able to mobilise, appropriate and redirect foreign resources and agendas
(Hagmann 2016, 6).
Bayart’s idea of extraversion has been particularly influential in this context. He describes
dependence as a ‘mode of action’, in which resources are ‘derived from their (possible
unequal) relationship with the external environment’ (Bayart 2000, 218). In other words,
‘African ruling elites employ their dependent relationship with the external world to appro-
priate resources and authority in order to establish or reinforce their power over domestic
competitors’ (Peiffer and Englebert 2012, 361, drawing on Bayart 2000). African elites are
therefore active agents in this dependency relation and have turned it into a major resource
(Bayart 2000, 219), leading Taylor (2010, 6) to describe African elites as ‘arch-manipulators
of the international system’.
When do donors take action and what power do they have?
An important question in this dependency relation is: how far does the agency of African
actors extend, and how far can they manoeuvre in opposition to the interests of the inter-
national community?

THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY 5
A wealth of research has shown the limitations of donor influence on governance practices
in recipient countries – which are, paradoxically, weaker than, and dependent on, Western
assistance (Brown and Raddatz 2014; Uvin 1993; Brown 2005; Hook 1998). One reason is
donors’ failure to apply sufficient political pressure or to follow through on warnings that
they will leverage their influence (Brown and Raddatz 2014, 45). Donors make threats that
they are unwilling or unable to enforce, for example in Kenya (Brown and Raddatz 2014, 46).
This is particularly the case for governance transgressions where there is low donor com-
mitment and largely ‘rhetorical endorsement of democratization’ (Brown 2005, 186).
Central to all these dynamics are the trade-offs made by donors based on the other
interests they have in particular countries. It has been shown that donors are less critical of
countries ‘on which they depend for critical resources’, and less committed to the promotion
of democracy in those countries (Peiffer and Englebert 2012, 369; Uvin 1993; Hook 1998;
Brown 2005). Donor measures are implemented selectively and inconsistently, and aid con-
ditionalities are subordinated to other foreign policy concerns (Crawford 1997, 69), of which
three stand out: economic interests, security and political stability (Brown 2005, 2011). For
this paper, the latter two are of particular interest. It has been demonstrated that peace and
political stability are deemed much more important than governance or justice transgres-
sions (Brown and Raddatz 2014, 43; Peiffer and Englebert 2012, 371; Brown 2005, 188).
Thus, it is not only donor concerns that play an essential role in this trade-off; host coun-
tries also have leverage. Peiffer and Englebert (2012, 361) specifically highlight the ‘unique
extraversion portfolio’ of African countries, ie specific elements which they are able to ‘instru-
mentalise as part of their extraversion strategies’ (Peiffer and Englebert 2012, 361). Similar
insights emerge from other studies. Whitfield and Fraser (2010) use the term ‘negotiation
capital’ and Freeland (2015) ‘reputational capital’; Feyissa (2011) refers to it as the ‘cards’ that
recipient countries have on the table. All these terms highlight how African actors are able
to influence donors’ trade-offs and exploit elements of their dependency relations, such as
fragility or limited capacity, in order to garner support and resources (Beswick and
Hammerstad 2013, 478–479). Dependency is thus a two-way street. It is not only host coun-
tries that are dependent on donor aid; donors also need host countries for, amongst other
things, stability or security – for which host countries play an important role in ‘marketing’
themselves.
In the coming sections we will apply these insights to the Museveni regime in Uganda,
asking: What characterises Uganda–donor relations, and what kind of agency has the country
been using?
Image management by the Museveni regime
Since coming to power, the Museveni regime has skilfully used its ‘image management’
strategy vis-à-vis the international community (Fisher 2013b). Uganda has been particularly
clever at engaging in behaviours, both domestically and internationally, which secure sup-
port from international donors and, as I will show, enable it to tie donors’ interests to
Uganda’s success. During its history, the Museveni regime has presented itself as a successful
economic model, a crucial geopolitical ally guaranteeing peace and stability in the region
and, most recently, as a model country for refugees. Each of these images has been of
particular interest to specific donors. Its image as a central ally in the war on terror by being

6K. TITECA
a key partner of the AMISOM mission, for example, has been of particular interest to the
US and UK security community (Fisher 2012; Titeca and Fahey 2016). Its image as an ‘eco-
nomic success story’ has been of particular interest to international financial institutions,
allowing them to showcase Uganda as an economic success story, prompting the World
Bank to ‘at last claim that SAP (Structural Adjustment Programs) was worthwhile after all’
and touting Uganda as ‘a justification for the Bank’s actions over the last twenty years or
so’ (Harrison 2001, 672; see also Tangri and Mwenda 2006, 101; Khisa 2019; Wiegratz 2010,
123–124; Reuss and Titeca 2017).
These behaviours and images of a ‘model partner’ have served to deflect criticism from
a wide range of issues: governance transgressions such as increasingly apparent corruption,
reduced political freedoms, the continued war in Northern Uganda, and the military invasion
of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Tangri and Mwenda 2008; Khisa 2019). While (limited)
criticism was voiced by international actors or (again, at most limited) aid was cut or redi-
rected, none of these actions have fundamentally altered international support for the
Museveni regime. As a result, Uganda is understood not through the country’s overall per-
formance, but through its ‘reputational capital’, the ‘cards’ that it is able to lay on the table.
By emphasising its particular image as a useful and necessary partner for donors, the
Museveni regime has achieved a ‘considerable degree of agency in a seemingly asymmetric
relationship’, in spite of aid dependency (Fisher 2012, 404–405).
Recently, Betts (2021) has made a similar point about Uganda’s refugee policy. He shows
that since its independence in 1962, Uganda’s refugee policy has served to strengthen
patronage structures and political authority, both internally and externally – internally by
strengthening authority over the refugee-hosting hinterlands, and externally as a means to
achieve foreign policy goals. Betts (2021) demonstrates that governance transgressions –
‘domestic illiberalism’ – are allowed to continue in order to advance an image of a ‘refugee
policy role model’, sometimes called a ‘liberal internationalist success story’. This article builds
on and expands Betts’ claim. However, differently from Betts (2021), it examines one historic
episode: Uganda’s recent portrayal as a refugee role model, and the refugee corruption
scandal. In doing so it analyses in greater detail the interactions between the international
community and the Ugandan government. By focussing on depth rather than breadth,
during a limited and recent time frame, the argument builds primarily on the literature on
African state agency and the contemporary political use of the ‘success story’, rather than
making an argument about the quality and history of Uganda’s refugee policy.
In the following sections, the article shows first how Uganda’s refugee role model emerged,
then documents how tensions stemming from corruption developed and what this meant
for relations between the international community and the Ugandan government.
Uganda as the refugee policy role model
Uganda’s refugee policy has been widely applauded, not only for hosting large numbers of
refugees, but also because – as laid out in the 2016 Refugee and Host Population
Empowerment strategic framework – refugees can make use of local services. The host com-
munity can also make use of the services provided by non-governmental organisations
(NGOs) to refugees (Betts et al. 2014; Golla 2016).2
This refugee policy was widely seen as an ‘example to the world’ (Summers 2017), with
newspaper headlines such as ‘the refugees are like our brothers’ (Summers 2017) and ‘the

THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY 7
most refugee-friendly country in the world’ (Titz and Feck 2017). This image was in the
interest of both the international community and the Ugandan government: it allowed to
legitimise both the disbursement and the demand for aid, as the ‘role model’/’success story’
idea guaranteed it would be put to good use. A 2016 press release from the World Bank,
announcing $50 million relief funding to refugee host communities, for example, used the
idea of Uganda as a role model to legitimise its funding by dubbing the country a ‘home
away from home’ for refugees: ‘one of the most progressive and generous in the world’
(World Bank 2016).
This legitimisation of aid, and the broader political investment in the Ugandan role model
by donor countries, also had to be understood in the geopolitical context: the period from
2014 onwards overlapped with the European migration crisis, when more than a million
people entered the continent via its southern borders, and when many countries were clos-
ing their borders. More than ever, migration became an important geopolitical issue in the
Global North, with governments under increasing pressure to control these movements
(Faist 2004, 104). The hosting of refugees in their regions of origin was an important element
in these policies: it was seen as way to address a threat emanating from the Global South,
as a global ‘technology of control’ to ‘keep migrants in their place’ (McDowell and Wonders
2009). Again, Uganda was held up as the example to follow. As one diplomat summarised it:
the eyes of the world were on Uganda at that point [ie after the influx from South Sudan]: for
both left and right, Uganda became the example to follow. For many of our governments, it still
remains an example, a solution for the migration crisis.
Lastly, UNHCR was politically invested in the Ugandan refugee policy in another way:
Uganda was the model of its CRRF (Sigfried 2017). For example, a 2017 joint statement by
UNHCR and the Ugandan government argued that ‘Uganda was chosen as a role model for
pioneering a comprehensive approach to refugee protection that complements humani-
tarian responses with targeted development action, benefiting both refugees and the com-
munities hosting them’ (GoU and UNHCR 2017, emphasis added). In personal interviews,
UNHCR officials often referred to Uganda’s function as a role model for the CRRF.3
In sum, through Uganda’s refugee policy, and its image as a role model, the country’s
interests and those of the international community increasingly overlapped: the successful
refugee hosting model allowed to legitimise the demand for, and disbursement of, aid during
the European migration crisis, as well as UNHCR’s CRRF.
Trouble in paradise
This situation came to an abrupt end in February 2018, when the Ugandan press reported
that OPM had been ‘hit by a refugee corruption scandal’ (Sserunjogi 2018), and investigations
had begun into the ‘alleged scam that has consumed hundreds of millions of dollars’
(Sserunjogi 2018). It emerged that the UN country representative had raised a number of
concerns with the Ugandan government related to the abuse of funds and other resources
by officials, suspected trafficking in girls and women refugees, and the inflation of the num-
ber of refugees in Uganda (Sserunjogi 2018). A verification exercise later found 300,000 ‘ghost
refugees’, ie 1.1 million instead of 1.4 million refugees (Bagala 2018).
What had happened? Based on interviews, press reports, and audit reports, two important
and interrelated issues need to be highlighted: a lack of oversight by UNHCR, and engrained

8K. TITECA
corruption in the refugee response. First, we need to go back in time to when the refugee
influx unfolded, particularly around late 2016, when humanitarian actors (such as NGOs
working in refugee settlements) started noticing that the ‘the refugee numbers didn’t add
u p ’. 4 As one humanitarian actor explained:
overall, it is pretty common that refugee numbers are not 100% correct […]. But here, the scale
of [how these figures were different] was of a completely different level. In a number of camps
we found the actual number to be half of the official numbers. All across West Nile, refugee
numbers were wildly inflated.5
The lack of oversight in the delivery of relief goods also raised concerns among human-
itarian actors. For example, although the emergency phase had long passed, water continued
to be delivered in trucks, instead of through more sustainable measures such as boreholes.
Indeed, an audit published in November 2018 revealed that these trucks ‘invoiced UNHCR
at two, three and four times the contracted rate’, leading to a ‘potential overpayment of $7.7
million out of $27 million’ (OIOS 2018, 11). Similar problems existed beyond the water sector:
for many expenses, there was no audit trail (OIOS 2018, 4).
At the time, and particularly in 2017, these issues were raised with UNHCR,6 but human-
itarian actors and various donors felt that no action was taken. They described general dis-
content with how the refugee crisis was handled, about the inflated refugee numbers, and
‘what we felt was a complete lack of oversight in how things were run’, facilitating corruption.
A humanitarian actor summarised this as follows:
The humanitarian community was full of discussion about UNHCR. Multiple times, there were
informal discussions with the donors about this. It would be raised to their humanitarian offi-
cers: direct and indirect complaints were made to them. The entire INGO [International Non-
Governmental Organisation] community was fed up with it. And still UNHCR wouldn’t move.
Nothing was done by them to address these issues.7
The UN organisation’s relation with OPM was considered particularly problematic. OPM
is the Ugandan counterpart of UNHCR, with whom it co-manages the response. It manages
refugees and provides contract services to UNHCR, yet: ‘UNHCR had lost the capacity to do
anything when it came to OPM. There was no oversight; they could not, or didn’t want to,
intervene when it was necessary’.8
The question of control of refugee registration data is a stark illustration of this, and a
major explanatory factor as to why corruption could occur. Moreover, and importantly for
this article, given their central role in any refugee policy, control over these data is an import-
ant indicator of the power relations at stake. OPM had controlled the data since 2014 (Uganda
Radio Network 2019) but, with ongoing concerns about inflated refugee numbers, access
to the figures became particularly important for UNHCR. Yet OPM refused to give UNHCR
access for almost three years, even though UNHCR had paid to set up and run the refugee
registration platform (OIOS 2018, 4). In the words of a humanitarian actor: ‘No one could
access these data – UNHCR, partners, research organisations, etc. – OPM refused them all.
This of course had a major impact on the operations: in this situation, no one knew how
many people we were responding to’.9 The UN audit concluded that it was ‘a major failure’
of UNHCR to not use leverage from the funding it provided to get access to these figures
(OIOS 2018, 14). The audit also confirmed that UNHCR had been aware of these issues from
2015 onwards, but had not taken action.

THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY 9
In this context, it was possible for major fraud to occur. Interviews reveal how battles
erupted around which NGOs could deliver services to refugees, as the main political players
wanted ‘their’ NGOs to do so. In the words of an analyst,
Part of the fight was which NGO should get which tender. The minister in charge would have
some [NGOs], the commissioner would have some; UNHCR guys would have some. There was
a big fight, and you would see compromises would be reached: if this company would have,
let’s say, Nakivale [refugee settlement], than the other one would have this other area.10
The UN audit seems to back this interpretation: it documents how UNHCR agreed to
contract three underqualified local NGOs, none of which had been shortlisted, two of which
had not submitted a proposal and one of which had defrauded UNHCR before (OIOS 2018,
3). The UN audit report reveals how the UNHCR country representative chose the NGOs ‘upon
advice of OPM’ (OIOS 2018, 3), further illustrating the organisation’s lack of oversight. Equally
suggestive were the OPM’s Commissioner for Refugees’ formal links
11
with the NGO in charge
of water trucking, the sector in which much corruption occurred.
A ‘Frankenstein’ refugee policy
Aid officials involved in the above processes emphasised the powerlessness of UNHCR
vis-à-vis the government, and particularly OPM, such as its inability to curb corruption or
access refugee statistics. An aid official who had been involved said: ‘Everyone had the
feeling UNHCR was at mercy of the government […]. They remained passive and didn’t
stand up sufficiently when all of this was happening’.12 Another humanitarian actor said:
‘I was made very clear that OPM was in charge’.13 And another: ‘I’ve been in a lot of emer-
gency situations, but I’ve never seen UNHCR as powerless as they are here’.14 Why was this
the case?
Interviews with a variety of informants – aid officials, government officials, journalists –
emphasised the importance to UNHCR of the success of the Ugandan refugee success story.
One humanitarian actor said that UNHCR seemed ‘desperately cautious not to upset the
Uganda government’ as it has been ‘singing Uganda’s praises’ as a ‘model country’ (Parker
2018). Another argued that Uganda ‘was branded globally as the example to follow […]. Does
that influence the oversight and dissuade UNHCR from digging a little deeper and uncovering
corruption and mismanagement? Who has leverage on who?’ (Parker 2018). Others were
even more explicit: ‘they knew about all of this happening, but didn’t act upon it [….] They
needed it to be the role model, and it stopped them from intervening’.15
Interviews showed that government actors were aware of their power in this relationship
and clearly signalled this to the international community. A number of sources described
how a number of OPM officials threatened to move away from its refugee settlement policy
– the showpiece of Uganda’s refugee policy – towards ‘traditional’ refugee camps, if UNHCR
continued to push them on the refugee figures. According to a key informant, in answering
pushes for more transparency, a number of OPM officials stated that UNHCR should
stop asking us for these things. If you don’t think we’re doing a good job, we’ll turn the settle-
ments into refugee camps. […] If you don’t like what we’re doing; we’ll do like Kenya: we’ll have
big camps, in which people can’t move. Do you want this? And yes, people got the message:
you can’t push OPM too hard.16

10 K. TITECA
During the same period, a state minister said in a speech at an embassy reception, before
an audience of diplomats: ‘if you push us too hard, we’ll close down the settlements’.17
Interviews revealed that this was a concern in the international community: What if they do
close up shop?
This bring us back to the analysis of dependency as a two-way street. On the one hand,
Uganda was in need of, and dependent on, assistance from the international community to
manage the influx of refugees, which was certainly overwhelming. They continued empha-
sising this need after the corruption scandal had been exposed and donors were cutting aid
as, in the words of the responsible minister, Uganda ‘can’t handle this crisis alone’, and remind-
ing ‘donor, partners and friends that this is a shared responsibility’ (Okiror 2019). On the other
hand, the international community, particularly UNHCR, had also invested in the success
story, both politically and financially. UNHCR had been marketing Uganda as a role model
for refugees, and this was also financially important: the organisation does not have perma-
nent financing, but depends on donations and periodic appeals (Stevens 2006, 53–54). A
convincing narrative was therefore particularly important for the UN organisation as its ‘level
of funding largely depends on how it sells emergency relief operations to the West’ (Stevens
2006, 54).18 Thus, both UNHCR and the Ugandan government had an interest in the success
of this narrative. This brings us back to the ‘structural embeddedness’ of agency highlighted
above. As Hagmann (2016, 6) summarises, the interests of national and international actors
have become intertwined: foreign actors are not outside local and national political settle-
ments, but are intrinsically part of it. Here, this made the international actor, UNHCR, weaker
in its capacity to intervene in cases of corruption, and gave the Ugandan government body
a degree of leverage: it could threaten to end the success story.
A comparison with the late 1990s and 2000s is useful here, when, as explained above,
international financial institutions needed success stories to prove their model worked.
Discussing the inability of the international community to act upon corruption in Uganda
in the mid-2000s, a Ugandan journalist argued: ‘Both donors and Uganda are in a catch-22
position: you create a situation which you can’t control any more. The donors have created
a “Frankenstein” which they’re no longer able to control’.19 To use the analyst’s analogy, the
international community, and UNHCR in particular, had created their own catch-22 or
Frankenstein: the role model that influenced the trade-off. Governance transgressions, such
as corruption or denying access to refugee data, were weighed against the importance of
this role model (Schiltz and Titeca 2017).
Lack of accountability: the Commissioner for Refugees
After the story broke, the Commissioner for Refugees in OPM, Apollo Kazungu, and three
other officials were asked to step aside in February 2018, after initial investigations by the
Ugandan government and UNHCR and an initial government report on their involvement
in corruption (The Independent Uganda 2018). Soon after, the UNHCR Uganda Country
Manager was replaced by a veteran UNHCR official. The international community made
strong statements. The US ambassador, for example, asked for ‘swift and definitive actions’
by the Ugandan government, as ‘anything less than such actions would breach the trust
bestowed on Uganda by the international community’ (Biryabarema 2018). The heads of
mission of the most important donor countries involved20 issued a joint statement
declaring that

THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY 11
The common objective of the Government of Uganda, donors, and UN agencies is to continue
to cooperate to bring those suspected of wrongdoings to face their responsibility in court so
to fully restore confidence in the international humanitarian response system in Uganda.21
Ugandan governmental actors made similarly strong statements. The Minister for Relief
and Disaster Preparedness, Hilary Onek, promised to change the whole system, while Prime
Minister Ruhakana Rugunda vowed ‘zero tolerance to corruption’. The United Kingdom and
Germany cut aid to UNHCR (Okiror 2019). Germany specifically cited lack of progress in the
accountability process as, in the words of the ambassador, even 15 months after the scandal
had broken, ‘those who seem to be at the centre of this machination have not faced justice
[…]. I would not like to think that someone wishes to sweep that under the carpet’ (Gitta
and Frohlich 2019; Hayden 2019). High-level diplomatic efforts from the US–EU–UK troika
closely followed up on these demands for accountability.
Yet of the four senior OPM officials who were suspended in February 2018, only one has
been charged so far.22 None of the others – including the suspended Commissioner for
Refugees – has been; and, as will be explained below, it does not seem this will happen in
the future.
The exact circumstances in which this happened remain murky: no official communication
can be found on the issue, but all interviewees (government officials, diplomats, journalists)
confirmed this. Some interviewees claim OPM did not want to present evidence; others claim
no one dared to testify. All of the interviewees understood it as a lack of accountability due
to political protection.23 As this process reveals a lot about the power relations, and the
trade-off made, let us examine it more closely.
Without any case against him and therefore formally innocent, the road was open for
Kazungu - the suspended Commissioner for Refugees - to return to his old job. First, he took
a number of formal steps, notably a court case against the government in November 2019,
arguing that his continued suspension was unconstitutional (The Independent Uganda
2019). Second, Kazungu relied on his political connections: Rebecca Kadaga, the former
speaker of parliament, is considered his ‘political godmother’. In February 2019, the parlia-
ment – and in particular Kadaga – had instructed the responsible minister to have Kazungu
return to work, as there had been no follow-up on the interdiction (The Edge Uganda 2019).
More importantly, Kadaga arranged for meetings with President Museveni, which Kazungu
used to insist on his innocence.24 One actor described this thus: ‘There’s been a huge push
from Kadaga, and he has a big shout of being innocent’. This proved successful: in September
2020, Kazungu was reinstated in his position as the OPM Commissioner for Refugees, on the
order of the president, which some sources25 claim was a presidential directive.26
How did the international community react to this? When it became clear that efforts
were being made to have the suspended commissioner return to office, a number of
démarches were made to President Museveni, in which foreign diplomats made it clear
that they did not want Kazungu back. He was very much considered to have been at the
heart of the refugee scandal, and had not yet appeared in court. ‘The President promised
the ambassadors, all of us, but also on individual visits, that this [Kazungu’s reinstatement]
was not going to happen’.27 Another international actor said the same, and emphasised
that this promise didn’t materialise.
In a meeting with the President, it was clearly said [by the international actors]: this is not
acceptable [for Kazungu to be back in place]. The President responded something along the

12 K. TITECA
lines of ‘indeed, this cannot be allowed; I didn’t know he was back in his position’. He asked to
have it checked; and promised to have him [Kazungu] removed from this position. This didn’t
happen. […] Other actors raised the same issue in later meetings: they asked for Kazungu to
leave. Similar promises were made – it was said procedures had to be followed, that it might
take a while, but that he was going to be removed. But nothing happened.28
Kazungu himself, and the Ugandan government, were aware of the sensitivities around
his return: while having returned to his old job, he initially operated under the radar. But,
according to an international actor, he gradually became more visible:
For the international community, and UNHCR in particular, the attitude has always been: we
don’t want Kazungu to be present in meetings. But then this evolved: he could be present in
meetings, but not speak. And suddenly he was present at an official function where he did give
a speech.29
This process put the international community – both UNHCR and the donor countries – in
an uncomfortable position. As a local analyst explained: ‘ They [the international community]
felt lied to, and embarrassed that they had been given reassurances for all this time. And
then suddenly Kazungu is back in office. It’s so brazen that it’s shocking’.30 A journalist sum-
marised this:
Donors were outmanoeuvred, and they were embarrassed by it. […] They really believed it
when the prime minster and the attorney-general said they were going to go to the bottom of
this, and they gave hundreds of thousands to prosecute Kazungu, and it’s all gone to waste.31
Indeed, this quote highlights a salient detail: donor support was also provided for the
prosecution of Kazungu and the other OPM officials. A year after the scandal broke out, the
Ugandan Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said that ‘progress in the investigations
had stalled as a result of inadequate resources’. The UK’s Department for International
Development then funded these investigations for a year through its deputy head of office,
to the amount of 551,000 euros.32 In the words of a local analyst: ‘It took me at the time as
the donors being taken for a ride: it was naivety at the extreme’.33
What does all of this show?
The previous section showed how a person deemed a major player in the corruption scandal
returned to his old position in a manner that suggested a lack of proper accountability, and
much against the will of international actors. Yet donor countries and UNHCR did not push
against it. This section shows two things: first, how the corruption scandal became much
less important in the trade-off; and, second, the Museveni regime’s skilfulness in avoiding
negative consequences after the scandal.
After it had become clear that Kazungu was back in office, and that there had been no
court case or accountability, a number of high-level UNHCR visits to Uganda took place,
including High Commissioner Fillipo Grandi’s trip in March 2021. While the issue was on the
agenda in meetings with the Ugandan government (including the president), there was a
general understanding that it would not be pushed hard. One diplomat said: ‘For UNHCR,
they argued it is difficult to keep insisting on this issue; it is getting an old story’.34 Another
international actor said: ‘no one is happy with the situation, but for UNHCR, it no longer is a
central problem’.35 Many in the international community felt that the UN – not only UNHCR

THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY 13
but also the UN Resident Commissioner – could have pushed harder on accountability, but
chose not do so.36
Why didn’t they? Here, the trade-off discussed in the literature review comes to the centre.
International actors are less critical of governance transgressions in countries on which they
depend for critical resources (Beswick and Hammerstad 2013, 478–479). And, refugees – and
the willingness and capacity to host refugees – are a critical resource, a central element in
the Ugandan government’s ‘extraversion portfolio’ (Peiffer and Englebert 2012). Interviews
with international actors reveal tensions between their strong appreciation for Uganda’s
progressive refugee policy and concerns about the corruption scandal and lack of account-
ability. But, it is clear that the first point is considered most important: UNHCR continues to
need its ‘model country’, a phrase it continues to use in its communication on Uganda. As
one diplomat put it,
For UNHCR, Uganda remains its poster boy, and that remains the emphasis in this story. The
corruption case: it’s not that they don’t want to look at it, but the feeling is: we’re very sorry it
happened, but it is behind us.37
The broader structural context is again important. At the time of High Commissioner
Grandi’s visit, neighbouring Kenya was about to threaten to close down its refugee camps,
increasing Uganda’s importance as a refugee-hosting country, and consequently donors’
dependence upon it (The Sentinel Project 2021). Accountability for a fraud that occurred
years ago came second to the need for a place to host refugees – and, hence, security and
political stability (Brown 2005, 2011).
Similar comments were made by donor-country diplomats: for them, also, the trade-off
had evolved. In interviews, a number said they felt they no longer have the support of their
capitals to act on accountability. While the corruption issue, as well as other governance
transgressions such as human rights violations around the 2021 elections, are seen as prob-
lems, they are not considered serious enough to merit action. Uganda’s benefits, as a refu-
gee-hosting country and as an ally in the war on terror (through its contribution to AMISOM),
are more important.
Second, this outcome is the result not only of calculations by the international community,
but also of how the Museveni regime navigated it: the way the refugee scandal was handled
is strikingly similar to how aid corruption cases have been handled in the past. A 2013 Human
Rights Watch report describes the different steps the government took in reaction to major
corruption scandals. The list reads as a step-by-step description of the aftermath of the
refugee corruption scandal. Initially, after major cases of corruption emerge, ‘endless zero-tol-
erance promises’ (Human Rights Watch 2013, 11) are made. Yet charges do not materialise
or are dropped, or those accused are acquitted, in part due to powerful supporters lobbying
the President (Human Rights Watch 2013, 17). A common pattern is that the high-ranking
government officials involved either remain in office, or are reappointed to another key
position in government, in a ‘game of musical chairs’ (Human Rights Watch 2013, 2). Then,
the Museveni government plays the long game. As a long-serving diplomat put it: ‘They
understand how donors work and how slowly they work […] they bide their time until this
ambassador, who is too noisy, will go’ (Human Rights Watch 2013, 53). Or, they wait until the
momentum has passed and geopolitical priorities have changed. All these steps occurred
with the refugee scandal: after a number of promises and strong declarations, little account-
ability was provided. When, roughly two-and-a-half years later, things had calmed down

14 K. TITECA
and it was clear that the issue was no longer a breaking point for the international commu-
nity, the main actor involved gradually returned to his original function.
The reaction by the international community has also been strikingly similar over the
years. Initially, strong statements are made and some aid is reshuffled. At the same time,
and as Tangri and Mwenda wrote already in 2008, they placed ‘much faith in Museveni’s
repeated declarations of his intention to tackle corruption in Uganda’. Yet ‘they rarely held
him to his word’ ( Tangri and Mwenda 2008, 189–190). Indeed, Museveni and his government
have not been held to their word, both when the scandal erupted and when it became clear
that Kazungu was back in office. Again, the lack of accountability, in this case the reinstate-
ment of the commissioner, sends a clear message to Ugandan institutions. In the words of
a journalist: “The fact that no decent accountability has taken place is a scandal in itself: it
puts the most vulnerable people in the world at risk. The real message of this story is: there
are no consequences, as long as you have connections to the highest levels.”38
The end result is that these dynamics continue. An institution like OPM has been, and will
likely remain, a hotbed of corruption. Indeed, even in the last year, new examples have
emerged of corruption in OPM related to the inflation of prices for COVID-19 relief food, who
were not held to account (Ndagire 2021).
Conclusions
Following the influx of South Sudanese refugees, particularly since 2015/2016, Uganda has
received much attention as a refugee role model and a success story. However, beneath
this image, a struggle for accountability took place around processes of corruption, both
before this became public as the ‘refugee corruption scandal’ (in February 2018) and
afterwards.
An analysis of this process allows for a number of conclusions. First, in the recent history
of Uganda’s refugee policy, external interests – particularly those of UNHCR and donor coun-
tries – and internal ones became closely intertwined: both sides had an interest in a refugee
role model. This is similar to the previous ‘success stories’ of the Museveni government, which
also tapped into the core interests of the international community. The level of investment
by the latter meant that they had to ensure Uganda remained a positive example. Harrison
(2001, 672), when talking about donor involvement in Uganda in the 1990s, summarised
this situation as ‘cherries should not go rotten’. Here, a similar process was at stake: in the
aftermath of the refugee corruption scandal, both UNHCR and individual donor countries
did not rock the boat on accountability.
Second, at the heart of this is a trade-off by the international community: what level
of governance transgressions are accepted, at what price? While donors and UNHCR had
slightly different motivations for their investment in the refugee role model, they had
similar motivations in pushing for accountability: A ‘corrupt’ role model would tarnish
the legitimacy of their support to the government and/or refugee policy model. As a
result, there initially was a strong pressure for accountability: strong statements were
made, and some aid was suspended. But, as the article has shown, this trade-off evolved
over time. The corruption issue disappeared from the limelight, and attention returned
to the critical resources at stake: peace and stability, which are considered much more
important than corruption. Migration is today an intrinsic part of peace and stability
policies.

THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY 15
Not only structural factors influenced this evolution: the Ugandan government itself was
an active agent influencing this trade-off. The article has shown the Museveni regime’s his-
torical skilfulness in avoiding accountability in corruption with aid money. Moreover, gov-
ernment officials have emphasised the co-dependency and co-responsibility of donors in
managing the refugee response. As the Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs said after
the scandal broke out, donors should remember ‘that we are in this together … looking after
the refugees is a responsibility of the international community, for us we are just helping
the situation’ (Daily Monitor 2018). In doing so, we observe the ‘structural embeddedness’
of agency: on the one hand, the Ugandan government is dependent on funding from donors
to implement its refugee policy; on the other hand, Ugandan government actors are able
to exploit this relation.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Anna Reuss, Michael O’Hagan, Sarah Vancluysen, Sara de Simone and Mark Marvin
Kadigo for comments on earlier versions of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
This work was supported by the VLIR-UOS TEAM project ‘Making Refugee Integration Sustainable: In
Search of Durable Relations with Host Populations in Uganda’.
Notes on contributor
Kristof Titeca is Associate Professor at the Institute of Development Policy at the University of
Antwerp. He is interested in issues related to governance and conflict in Uganda and the Democratic
Republic of Congo, subjects on which he has published widely. His latest books are Rebel Lives.
Photographs from inside the Lord’s Resistance Army (Hannibal Books/FOMU) and Negotiating Public
Services in the Congo (with Tom De Herdt, ZED Books).
Notes
1. This project received ethical clearance from the Ethical Commission for Social and Human
Sciences from the University of Antwerp (#SHW_103).
2. See also Hovil (2007), IRRI (2018) and Krause (2016).
3. For example, according to a UNHCR official, ‘it [the CRRF] reads like a description of Uganda:
The way the Ugandan government has taken on refugees is a very good example of this. So
we’ve done very good in Uganda; we’ve done better in Uganda in many areas […] Uganda did
present itself as a success story in the CRRF’ (interview, UNHCR official, 14 January 2019).
4. Interview, humanitarian actor, 8 July 2021.
5. Interview, humanitarian actor, 6 July 2021.
6. When ‘UNHCR is used in this chronology, it is short for ‘UNHCR Uganda’. The audit report, for
example, mentions how other UNHCR divisions had also raised these concerns for several years
(OIOS 2018, 19).

16 K. TITECA
7. Interview, humanitarian actor, 6 July 2021.
8. Interview, humanitarian actor, 6 July 2021.
9. Interview, humanitarian actor, Kampala, 4 December 2018. The audit similarly notes how
this lack of access seriously affected ‘programming, distribution of assistance, resettle-
ment processing, case management, and planning of cash-based interventions’ (OIOS
2018).
10. Interview, analyst, 10 July 2021.
11. Kazungu’s LinkedIn page publicly states he is on the board of trustees of this NGO: ‘He is also a
member of the Board of Trustees of African Initiative for Relief and Development (AIRD) an
African NGO that has presence in Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo, handling logis-
tics management on behalf of UNHCR’. https://ug.linkedin.com/in/kazungu-david-apol-
lo-4a0414112?trk=public_profile_samename-profile, accessed 7 July 2021.
12. Interview, humanitarian actor, Kampala, 25 February 2020.
13. Interview, humanitarian actor, Kampala, 5 December 2018.
14. UNHCR would say that they were here at the invitation of the government, to protect them-
selves against these issues. While this is definitely true, it also highlights the broader issues
at stake.
15. Interview, humanitarian actors, 6 July 2021.
16. Interview, UNHCR official, 14 January 2019.
17. Interview, local analyst, 1 July 2021.
18. Indeed, the funding for UNHCR Uganda increased from $63 million in 2015 to $125 in 2016 and
$205 million in 2017 (UNHCR 2020). Source: UNHCR. “Global Focus, Uganda.” http://reporting.
unhcr.org/node/5129 Accessed May 4 2020.
19. Interview, journalist, Kampala, 3 November 2004.
20. Austria, Belgium, Denmark, the European Union Delegation, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland,
Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Republic of Korea, Sweden, UK and USA.
21. Joint Local Statement on the Uganda Refugee Response | Kampala, 14 December 2018. https://
ug.usembassy.gov/joint-local-statement-on-the-uganda-refugee-response-kampala-14-de-
cember-2018/
22. Omondi Walter was taken to the anti-corruption court in December 2019 (Inspectorate of
Government 2020).
23. A 2018 judgement by Uganda’s anti-corruption court on corruption with refugee money by
OPM officials – dealing with the 2013–2014 time period, before the current scandal broke out
– is an earlier illustration of this. The judgement describes how the concerned OPM officials
were forced to send back a percentage of the refugee money to Commissioner Kazungu, and
the judge expresses dismay at the fact that Kazungu is not on trial. Anti-Corruption Division
Uganda, ‘Uganda v Moses Papa & 3 Ors (Criminal Session Case-2017/4) [2018] UGHCACD 10 (17
December 2018)’.
24. Two points were emphasised. First, that the UN money was never stolen: it had been promised
by UNHCR, but had never arrived. Second, that the scandal was the result of a turf war with
other ministers working on the refugee issue and who wanted him out. This turf war falls out-
side the scope of this paper. (interview data 2018-2021)
25. Interviews, and also this online article: Mulengera News (2020), ‘OPM Refugee Bosses Fight for
Office as Hillary Onek, Ecweru Defy M7 Directive’, 16 September 2020, https://mulengeranews.
com/opm-refugee-bosses-fight-for-office-as-hillary-onek-ecweru-defy-m7-directive/
26. His return led to tensions with the acting commissioner, who initially refused to leave. It
reached the point where both were occupying opposite ends of the same desk until the acting
commissioner finally left office (Mulengera News 2020).
27. Interview, international actor, 2 July 2021.
28. In the initial meetings, a compromise was suggested by the Ugandan actors that he would be
reshuffled to another position. The general understanding was that he would be appointed an
ambassador (Interview data 2021).
29. Interview, international actors, 3 July 2021.
30. Interview, local analyst, 30 June 2021.
31. Interview, local analyst, 30 June 2021.

THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY 17
32. Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions ‘DFID Hands over Vehicles to ODPP (U) and CID’,
https://www.dpp.go.ug/index.php/media-center/news-and-announcements/item/33-dfid-
hands-over-vehicles-to-odpp-u-and-cid, accessed 30 June 2021.
33. The refugee commissioner was contacted (on 29 October 2021) for his part of the story. He
confirmed to be back in position, and emphasized that he was innocent. He refused to answer
any other question.
34. Interview, international actor, 1 July 2021.
35. Interview, international actor, 1 July 2021.
36. ‘I don’t think the international community – UN or bilaterally – have pushed very hard for
Kazungu to leave’ (Interview, international actor, 20 June 2021).
37. Interview, international actor, 24 June 2021.
38. Interview, local analyst, 30 June 2021.
ORCID
Kristof Titeca https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2003-2053
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