Facilitation

The Largest Currency in Uganda -- Worth $20

Lots of things frustrate me in Uganda – the lack of chocolate chips in this country, the lack of access to basic hygiene among a substantial portion of the population, the length of time it takes to get even the most simple tasks accomplished, etc.  But the most frustrating thing I have encountered here is “facilitation.”

In the United States, “facilitation” means “the act of making easier.”  In Uganda, however, “facilitation” means something entirely different.  As mentioned in an earlier post, Uganda is largely a cash-based society.  While the advent of Mobile Money (electronic transfer of funds via cell phone) is starting to make an impact on this, most transactions still use cold, hard cash.  Unfortunately, this includes transactions involving the government.  Accordingly, the opportunities for corruption are ubiquitous.  In fact, nearly one-third of the articles in yesterday’s local newspaper directly or indirectly concerned corruption and/or unaccounted for governmental funds.  Children are unable to attend school, starving, and dying of malaria because there are “insufficient funds” to provide basic services.  And don’t get me started on the two fighter jets that were recently purchased by the Ugandan government, which represented an embarrassingly high percentage of the government’s annual budget.

But “facilitation” is not corruption, at least not in the usual sense that word is used.  When government officials insist on being paid cash they keep themselves for tasks included in their job descriptions, that is corruption.  This type of corruption is rampant in various governmental departments, particularly the police.  For example, in order for the police to investigate the burglary of the Gregston’s apartment last month, the hotel management had to pay the officers to come out to the hotel.  It was extra to bring Rover, who supposedly could follow the scent of the burglar.  The hotel just learned on Thursday that the investigation was complete, but, alas, the hotel would have to pay another 280,000 Shillings to get the report.  This is corruption, plain and simple.  More subtle, however, is facilitation.

At Pepperdine, employees – from the top to the bottom – are reimbursed for expenses incurred in the course of their duties.  So when, for example, I travel to a conference on behalf of the University, I am reimbursed for my airfare, hotel room, rental car, etc.  I must, however, produce receipts (or an explanatory memorandum if I don’t have a receipt) for the expenses incurred.  I am given mileage reimbursement (approximately $.50 per mile) for the distance I need to travel to get to the airport.  This rate approximates the cost of fuel and wear and tear on the car, and is equivalent to a rate set by the government for governmental employees.  These same rules and rates apply to every single person in the University.

Things are quite different in Uganda.  Many government officials are provided a “facilitation” allowance for travel associated with their jobs.  Since receipts are exceedingly difficult to come by, and since most Ugandans don’t have either credit cards (governmental or personal) or extra cash to pay for expenses in advance of reimbursement, this facilitation is usually provided in advance.  And the amount of the facilitation is not tied to actual expenses incurred, and it varies (quite dramatically) depending upon the level of the governmental official.  So, for example, if a clerk needs to travel to Jinja (two hours away) to attend a conference and stay for a night, that clerk will receive a much smaller facilitation allowance that would, for example, a judge.  And, of course, no receipts are necessary, so some officials sleep in their cars in order to supplement their salaries.  Since the facilitation allowances are actually quite generous in relation to the officials’ salaries, there is a huge incentive to attend conferences and other official gatherings for all governmental officials.  This, in turn, leads to a breathtaking loss in productivity because officials are traveling at every opportunity.

I am not saying, however, that this type of facilitation is corruption.  It isn’t.  The law provides for a certain level of payment for a certain type of activity, so it all legal.  It is incredibly inefficient and terrible policy management, but it is not corrupt.

Another type of facilitation is, however, corrupt to the core, and it is both driving me crazy and threatening to have a serious impact on the long-term future of international adoption in Uganda.

I don’t want to get too deep into the intricacies of Ugandan family law, so suffice it to say that to get an order from the court allowing an international family to gain custody of a Ugandan orphan, a Ugandan official has to complete an investigation and prepare a report.  That official is paid a salary by the government and these investigations and reports are a recurring part of the official’s job.  In order to properly (and honestly) conduct the investigation, the official will be required to travel various places, including to the orphanage and to interview family members to ascertain to the true status of the child.  For this type of work, however, there is no government facilitation allowance, no government vehicle to use, and no government credit card to cover the out-of-pocket expenses associated with this travel.  This leaves the officials only a few options – pay the expenses out of their own pocket (ain’t happening), lie about making the visit (happens sometimes), or charge the adopting families via their Ugandan lawyers a facilitation fee in order to perform the necessary work (happens frequently).  Herein lies the problem. Money is being paid to government officials to perform tasks contained within their job descriptions that otherwise wouldn’t be performed.  No receipts are provided.  No mileage rates are used.  And the facilitation costs are completely unstandardized and seemingly unrelated to actual expenses incurred – official X charges 100,000 shillings ($40), and official Y charges 300,000 shillings for what seems to be the exact same work.

Would-be adoptive parents from the US (or elsewhere) don’t have any sense of any of this and pay what they are told to pay because the necessary investigation work otherwise won’t be completed.  Out of this quite distasteful scenario emerges claims that children are being “trafficked” because unjustifiable money is changing hands in conjunction with international adoptions.  For the record, this activity (in and of itself) doesn’t even remotely rise to the level of legitimate use of the “trafficking” terminology, but it is raising questions in lots of people’s minds about the whole international adoption arena in Uganda.  (To be fair, there are other questions being raised by some that are more serious than this facilitation problem, but the jury is still out on level of fraud in the system).

All of this is to say that there is still much work to do in this realm and I am gratified to be increasingly included and consulted in conjunction with challenges related to international adoption.  Many of the meetings and much of the work are taking place behind the scenes, so I won’t be writing about such meetings here.  I will say, however, that if you are considering (or if someone you know is considering) international adoption in Uganda, then please, please ask lots of questions of your lawyers and insist on doing everything honestly.  Do not pay any bribes at all, and do not pay facilitation fees beyond that which is reasonable.  Your Ugandan lawyers will be glad to answer your questions and will be glad to stand by your refusal to give in.  Don’t tell your lawyers to get it done, whatever the cost.  Every time an official is bribed or improperly facilitated, then the next family will be put into a worse position because the official will be expecting such a payment.  If things get out of control, then the whole process could be shut down.  It has happened in country after country recently.

And another thing, don’t come to Uganda and begin caring for the orphan child until all of your paperwork has been completed.  And if anything goes wrong, you may be here for a while, so count the cost in advance.

There are 2.5 million Ugandan orphans.  Last year, about 200 of them were taken back to the United States with their new families.  All indications are that this number could potentially double, or even triple, this next year.  While this represents only a tiny fraction of Ugandan orphans, each individual child is precious to God and deserves to have a loving family.  Things need to be done right or these kids will continue to languish in orphanages and never know the love of a family.

Sorry to be preachy, but there is quite a bit at stake here.  I will try to be funny in my next post.