A quiet unease is bubbling at the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) following the extension of contracts for the top executives until 2031 and beyond, respectively.
There had been high hopes for natural succession, the proactive human resource strategy of identifying and grooming key talent from within to take over from the current leadership, some of whom have served 10 years, or will clock 10 years next year. The mid-level managers who thought they were in the leadership queue will now have to wait longer. UNOC is the statutory body, co-supervised by the Ministries of Energy and Finance, charged with the commercial aspects of the country’s petroleum industry, including holding licences in the upstream ventures; the Tilenga oil field straddling Nwoya and Buliisa districts is operated by the French TotalEnergies EP, and the Kingfisher oil field bestriding the districts of Kikuube and Hoima is operated by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) Uganda Ltd.
In midstream, the company operates a 15 percent stake in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) that will transport crude oil from the oil fields in mid-Western Uganda to the Indian Ocean Tanga Port for exportation, and a 40 percent stake in the Kabaale Refinery Company Ltd, the holding company for the proposed refinery. The latter remains a long shot, but according to internal documents, pre-construction activities are ongoing with sights on Final Investment Decision (FID) set for February 2027. On the downstream side of the chain, the company in late 2023 waded into sole importation of refined oil products and by January 2026, with their broker Vitol Bahrain E.C., had hauled in an estimated 1.75billion litres of petroleum products; Premium Motor Spirit (PMS)-petrol, Automotive Gas Oil (AGO)-diesel, HouseHold Kerosene, and Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK)- for aviation.
With the petroleum products hauled into Uganda via infrastructure operated by the Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) at Mombasa, Nairobi, Eldoret, and Kisumu, in February this year, UNOC acquired 20.15 percent in the former through its Initial Public Offering. The decision was billed as meant to reinforce Kampala’s security of supply. The company also manages the Kabalega Industrial Park, for petroleum value addition, manufacturing, logistics, and agro-processing in Hoima district, and for which Cabinet approved borrowing $120m (Shs448b) to kick start its development. With such a plateful of work, but with the contracts of most top executives ending at varying periods in 2026 and 2027, knowledgeable sources told Daily Monitor that a section of senior management, backed by some members of the board frantically pitched to President Museveni extension of their contracts for the sake of ‘stability’ and more so at such a critical juncture when commercial oil production is about to start.
Why the fear? Accordingly, sources revealed that in late January, the President guided the Ministry of Energy to work with the UNOC board to extend the contracts by another five years on the grounds of specialisation and stability. The decision applied to the heads of departments, headed by the Chief Executive Officer, Ms Proscovia Nabbanja. UNOC has five departments, in addition to the two subsidiary companies: the Uganda Refinery Holdings Company Ltd, headed by Mr Michael Mugerwa, and the National Pipeline Company Ltd, headed by Mr John Bosco Habumugisha, currently on secondment to the EACOP Ltd, where he is the Deputy Managing Director. However, inadvertently, the contract extension applies to the entire senior management comprising 10 members:
Ms Nabbanja, a seasoned geologist, first joined the company in November 2016 as Chief Operating Officer for Upstream, and assumed the CEO office on August 12, 2019, succeeding Dr Josephine Kasalamwa Wapakabulo, who quit earlier in May. Others are, the two general managers of the two subsidiary companies; the Company Secretary, Mr Peter Muliisa, one of the first two employees hired in 2016, and was technically bound exit by now; the human resource mandarin, Ms Catherine Tumusiime; the Chief Commercial Officer, Mr Gilbert Kamuntu; the Chief Finance Officer, Mr Emmanuel Mugaga; and Mr Philips Obita, the General Manager, Upstream.
Ms Samantha Muhwezi, the Chief Operating Officer, and Mr Tony Otoa, the Corporate Affairs Officer, who are also part of senior management, only joined the company in 2024. UNOC and its sister agency, the Petroleum Authority of Uganda, the regulatory body of the oil sector, are established by the Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Act, 2013. Unlike in PAU’s case, where the Act provides for a five-year, two-term tenure for the Executive Director but currently there is a Mexican standoff over the replacement of the current officer holder, the law is silent on UNOC executive management. Nonetheless, the company’s HR policy provides for five-year contracts for top management.
Section 44 of the Act provides for the company’s seven-member board of directors appointed by the President with the approval of Parliament.
Both the Ministry of Energy officials and the UNOC board chairperson, Mr Mathias Katamba, were non-committal on discussing the matter.
Inside the cloistered walls of UNOC’s offices at Plot 15 Yusuf Lule Road, Kampala, the general mood of a positive work atmosphere belies the quiet resentment, deep frustrations and what some mid-level managers see as ‘unfairness’-the dim prospects of climbing the corporate ladder, at least not soon as they had anticipated.
A catch-22
Two officials involved in UNOC affairs, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter freely, described the extension of the contracts ‘as a double-edged sword.’ On one hand, there is the desire to have a parastatal have robust corporate government structures, including a structured human resource system of identifying and grooming employees with the potential to fill key leadership or critical roles. ‘That is the general thinking initially, of building a dynamic company with such dynamic corporate governance metrics,’ one official said. On the other hand, another official explained, as the case was made to the President, the oil sector is at a critical juncture, and there is a need to ensure stability.
‘Of course, it can be argued that below every UNOC executive whose contract was expiring, there are mid-level managers equally competent. But again it’s a matter of perspective.’ For instance, early this year the company management opened a dollar currency account in Stanbic Bank Ltd as endorsed by the board meeting in December 2025 to manage the $2b (Shs7.4trillion) credit facility from Vitol Bahrain E.C to implement several activities including partaking the KPC IPO, the proposed Kampala Storage Terminal in Kiringete sub-county, Mpigi district and enhancement of the Jinja Storage Terminal (JST), established in the 1970s by President Amin as the country’s reserves for petroleum products but was rundown under the current regime until revival recently.
Ms Nabbanja, as the CEO, is the principal signatory, alongside three co-signatories. ‘And that is just one piece of the puzzle, but untangling all the other pieces would not be that easy. It might seem like a weak argument, but no law was necessarily broken to extend the contracts; only HR policies were bent,’ the second official said. The oil sector is at a critical juncture, with commercial oil production expected to commence later this year pending completion of works on key infrastructure; EACOP is at 87 percent, Tilenga at 75 percent, and Kingfisher at slightly over 80 percent.