The Ministry of Works and Transport asked Parliament in early December for a supplementary payment of Shs422b to ‘secure’ 10 aircraft for Uganda Airlines.
What the public document and the parliamentary scrutiny that followed did not make clear was that the Shs422b is almost certainly a pre-delivery deposit, not the purchase price.
That deposit buys the right to a production slot, it does not tell taxpayers how large the full purchase obligation will be months or years from now.
Approving a supplementary appropriation for a deposit on aircraft without a transparent, parliamentary discussion of the ultimate price, payment schedule, and financing risk is exactly the sort of budgetary theatre that leaves our country exposed. Parliament’s Budget Committee discussed and voted on the deposit. It did not, as far as public reporting shows, discuss the scale of the final liability or the tradeoffs that will follow when the full purchase invoices arrive.
The ministry sought a Shs1.7 trillion supplementary package, of which Shs422b was singled out as the initial payment required to secure the order for four Airbus narrowbodies, four Boeing wide-bodies and two Boeing converted freighters. Ministry officials framed the deposit as necessary to ‘secure the slot’ in tightly stretched production lines.
Ministry figures also referenced pre-delivery payments (PDPs) in two tranches: roughly Shs247b at signing and another Shs275b due in January 2026. Those PDPs, typical in aircraft deals, are real cash outflows before any aircraft flies. But PDPs are measured against a purchase price that will be negotiated, and that purchase price is the number most taxpayers should know.
Manufacturers publish list prices, but no airline pays up those numbers. Still, list prices give an anchoring point. Crucially, real world purchase prices are discounted heavily from list prices. Public reporting and industry analysis show discounts frequently in the 40-60 percent range on major orders, PDPs historically represent something like 15-30 percent of the gross purchase price. In short, a list price balloon is not the final answer, but neither is the deposit. Both must be presented to Parliament and the public before final signatures bind taxpayers.
Using conservative, transparent assumptions allows us to estimate the likely total fiscal exposure. Airbus narrowbodies – using the A320neo list price of $113.5m (Shs401b). Assume 50 percent discount – net price per aircraft = $56.75m (Shs200b). Four aircraft = $227m (Shs802b). Boeing wide-bodies – using Boeing 787-9 list price of $292.5m (Shs1 trillion). Assume 40 percent discount – net price per aircraft = $175.5m (Shs700b). Four aircraft = $702m (Shs2.5 trillion). Two converted freighters – using conversion / used-airframe benchmark of $45m (Shs159b)each = $90m (Shs318b). Adding the three buckets totals up to $1.02b (Shs3.6 trillion).
So, under plausible commercial terms, the 10-aircraft package that Parliament was asked only to put a deposit on could cost the Ugandan taxpayer on the order of $0.8-1.2b (Shs4.2 trillion), with a mid-point near $1b Shs3.5 trillion).
Those are the numbers that Parliament should have had before endorsing the initial payment. A PDP is an irrevocable cash outflow. If the full price exceeds expectations, finishing payments will either require more supplementary requests, re-allocation of funds, or additional borrowing, all of which have consequences for other public priorities. This order did not appear out of nowhere. Uganda Airlines issued tenders for advisory services and public reporting shows negotiation activity for more than two years.
The parliamentary debate suggests the government brought taxpayers the deposit before a transparent final package was presented. The approved deposit is the first chapter of a contract that could shape Uganda’s aviation footprint for a generation.