Category: Daily Monitor

Uganda, like many African countries, has committed itself to a range of regional and international frameworks designed to strengthen investment in key sectors such as agriculture, health, and education.

These commitments include the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), the Maputo Declaration, the Abuja Declaration, and the Dakar Framework for Action, each of which sets specific spending targets intended to promote sustainable development and improve service delivery.

Despite repeatedly endorsing these commitments, Uganda’s actual budget allocations have consistently fallen short of the agreed benchmarks.

This gap between policy commitments and budgetary priorities raises important questions about the government’s ability and willingness to translate development pledges into tangible financial investments.

Across Africa, the gap between policy commitments and implementation remains persistent. Under the Maputo Declaration, governments committed to allocating at least 10 percent of public expenditure to agriculture; the Abuja Declaration set a target of 15 percent for health; and the Dakar Framework for Action called for a minimum of 20 percent investment in education. Yet many countries have struggled to meet or sustain these spending thresholds, even decades after adopting them.

The recent World Health Organisation (WHO) and the 2024 4th Biennial Review Report by African Union assessments show that the core concerns identified a decade ago largely persist. Most African countries remain below the Abuja target of allocating 15 percent of government expenditure to health, and the African Union’s 2024 Biennial Review concluded that the continent is not on track to meet the Malabo Declaration’s 2025 agricultural financing and productivity goals.

Uganda’s persistent failure to meet international spending commitments is rooted in a fiscal reality that leaves policymakers with little room to maneuver.

A large share of the national budget is pre-committed to debt servicing and externally financed projects before sector allocations are made, leaving limited fiscal space for the government to fund agreed priorities in health, education, and agriculture.

Much of this spending is also non-discretionary, tied to fixed obligations and project-specific financing arrangements that cannot be redirected to other sectors, meaning the government has little flexibility over how the money is spent, even when funding gaps emerge.

In the 2026/27 financial year, the government plans to finance approximately Shs12 trillion through domestic borrowing, equivalent to about 14 percent of the Shs84.3 trillion national budget.

Unlike domestic revenue, external funds are tied to predetermined projects and expenditure categories, limiting the government’s flexibility to redirect resources in response to emerging priorities or changing budgetary needs.

‘Government cannot reallocate it to health, education, or agriculture because it is tied to predetermined projects,’ explains Hilda Tumuhe, programme officer for Debt and Aid at SEATINI-Uganda.

The result, she says, is a growing mismatch between national priorities and available flexible funding. Once debt servicing and project-tied financing are deducted, the government is left with about Shs47 trillion in discretionary resources.

‘This is the money available for the government to flexibly allocate across programmes. But when you compare it to the competing priorities and expenditure demands, the fiscal space becomes very tight,’ she notes.

That pressure is now being amplified by the government’s ambitious tenfold growth strategy, which prioritises productive sectors and key enablers meant to drive economic transformation. At the same time, Uganda must still meet its debt obligations-something that is consuming an increasingly large share of the budget. In FY2026/27 alone, debt servicing is projected at Shs38.4 trillion out of Shs84.39 trillion.

‘We have a shrinking fiscal space in Uganda,’ Tumuhe says.

At the heart of the strain is a domestic revenue base that has not grown fast enough to match rising expenditure needs. While the government continues to set higher tax targets, experts warn that taxation must move in step with economic performance.

Uganda Revenue Authority is expected to collect Shs45.96 trillion in the next financial year 2026/27, up from Shs37.5 trillion this year.

‘You cannot tax an economy that is not doing well. Growth and revenue mobilisation have to move hand in hand,’ she says.

But Uganda’s tax structure adds another layer of complexity. A large share of revenue comes from indirect taxes-such as fuel levies and consumer goods taxes-which cut across all income groups. These taxes are often met with public resistance, especially when citizens feel service delivery does not reflect what they pay.

Beyond this, questions persist over tax exemptions and incentives granted to investors, with critics arguing that some may be costing the country more than they deliver in return. Tumuhe says closing these leakages and rationalising tax expenditures could unlock significant resources without increasing the burden on ordinary citizens.

Attention is also turning to emerging revenue streams, particularly oil. Government expects about Shs1.4 trillion from the Petroleum Fund in FY2026/27-modest in comparison to overall spending needs, but potentially significant if directed strategically. Yet experts caution that revenue growth alone will not fix Uganda’s fiscal challenges.

According to Tumuhe, the real test lies in how efficiently public resources are used. Persistent delays in project implementation, procurement bottlenecks, weak oversight, and corruption continue to drain value from public spending especially in debt-financed projects.

‘Improving public investment management could create additional fiscal space without necessarily increasing revenue collection,’ she argues.

Education

Government has allocated Shs6.66 trillion to the education sector, prioritising the strengthening of STEM and vocational education, improving teacher welfare, and expanding access to Universal Primary Education (UPE) amaong others.

To enhance service delivery, government rolled out the National Costed Service Delivery Standards, a framework aimed at improving budgeting, accountability, and monitoring.

However, stakeholders argue that implementation remains weak, with many schools still receiving funding below the levels required to effectively deliver quality education. Reports suggest government often falls short of minimum service delivery standards. Under the framework, the capitation grant is set at Shs23,000 per pupil and Shs123,000 for learners with special needs.

‘There is growing public frustration over government priorities, particularly in social service delivery,’ says Jenice Ishimimaana, head of advocacy and communications at Uganda Debt Network.

She argues that despite government’s characterisation of the budget as a people’s budget, many Ugandans expected greater investment in essential services such as education and health.

She further notes that although funding for UPE has been increased over the years, many schools are yet to receive the promised allocations, while the current funding levels remain insufficient to effectively deliver free and quality education.

Health

The health sector has been allocated Shs5.23 trillion, targeting maternal and child health, nutrition, immunisation, prevention of non-communicable diseases, and provision of essential medicines.

Despite the funding, the sector receives only about 6.2 percent of the national budget, well below the 15 percent Abuja Declaration target, leaving households burdened with out-of-pocket healthcare costs and the system dependent on donor support.

Agriculture

The government has allocated Shs2.26 trillion to the Agro-Industrialisation programme to support agricultural research, innovation, extension services, irrigation, agro-processing, value addition, and market access.

While the funding reflects government’s commitment to agricultural transformation, analysts question whether it is sufficient given the country’s fiscal constraints.

Economist Fred Muhumuza argues that many international spending targets were set decades ago under different economic conditions.

‘Many of these commitments were made over 20 years ago. A lot has changed, and even countries that made such pledges are struggling to meet them because the realities on the ground have changed,’ he says.

According to Aloysious Kitengo, programme coordinator at SEATINI, many of the gaps begin at the negotiation stage, where weak representation undermines the ability to effectively domesticate international commitments.

‘This all starts from negotiations. Most of our negotiators are not present in these discussions, which is why it is hard to domesticate these commitments,’ he says.

He adds that even where budget allocations appear aligned to agreed thresholds, questions remain over whether they translate into real sector outcomes.

‘When you say you’re supposed to allocate 10 percent according to the Maputo Protocol, they will tell you, ‘We have money here, we have money this side.’ When we calculate, it looks like the percentage is met on paper, but the question is: are they delivering on the objectives of the sector? Are they responding to the real needs that would actually help achieve that target?’

Elsewhere

Christina Namubiru, a Research Associate at the Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group, says while some countries are gradually improving, most are still falling short of their commitments.

‘Countries like Rwanda allocate about six percent or so, but for us we have never even gone beyond five percent. So that puts us at a disadvantage. Every time we go for those meetings and commit that we shall allocate 15 percent to health or 10 percent to agriculture, back home when we plan, it doesn’t come out as expected,’ she says.

She adds that while international commitments remain important, stronger domestic prioritisation is urgently needed.

The East African grain trade is expanding in volume, but struggling with a quieter crisis of trust, where a single inconsistency in quality can decide whether consignments move smoothly across borders or lose value before reaching the market.

As Uganda and Kenya deepen trade ties in maize, beans, sorghum, rice and pulses, the real test is no longer production capacity, but whether standards, financing systems and logistics can keep pace with a fast-growing regional market.

During a high-level business engagement between traders, cooperatives, and policymakers, stakeholders described a sector at a turning point, where traditional trading practices are colliding with new regulatory frameworks, digital systems, and cross-border harmonisation efforts aimed at reshaping how grain moves in the region.

From the policy front, Uganda is framing grain not just as a commodity but as a strategic development pillar shaping regional resilience and long-term economic planning.

Mr Cleopas Ndorere, the Commissioner for External Trade at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, anchored the discussion in a historical context and policy direction, stressing that grain remains central to development, storage systems, and regional stability.

He said, ‘Those of you who do not know the importance or the critical importance of grain, I invite you to reflect on its long-standing role in food systems and resilience planning. It is critical in nutrition, storage capacity, longevity, and regional stability.’

Staples in regional trade

Mr Ndorere emphasized that maize, beans, sorghum, rice, soybeans and groundnuts remain the dominant staples in regional trade, but quality gaps continue to undermine competitiveness and trust between markets.

He noted, ‘What is happening in the trade of grain across our countries is that the quality has been lacking. If you are drying on the ground or on the road, that means there is a compromise on standards.’

He explained that governments are responding through stricter quality systems, harmonised standards, and trade facilitation measures aimed at reducing duplication and improving efficiency.

He said, ‘If the grain is certified in Uganda, it need not be certified again in Kenya. That cuts down the cost of doing business and reduces turnaround time for traders.’

Mr Ndorere also pointed to reforms at border points, including simplified trade regimes for small traders and the gradual shift toward digital clearance systems that reduce delays and congestion.

He added, ‘We are introducing smarter border systems where vehicles and goods are pre-cleared… You simply move through after scanning, reducing unnecessary stops.’

He further noted that small cross-border traders are being formally integrated through simplified documentation systems and trade information desks designed to support informal operators transitioning into structured commerce.

From the market facilitation side, regional grain traders say the biggest challenge is not production, but coordination, aggregation, and predictable markets.

Mr Herbert Kyeyamwa, the country director of the East African Grain Council, framed the sector as both economically vital and structurally fragmented, calling for deeper integration between enterprises across borders.

He said, ‘We are here because of a shared vision of a more integrated, competitive and resilient grain sector in East Africa… the grain sector is not just an agricultural sub-sector, it is the lifeblood of our region.’

Mr Kyeyamwa pointed to ongoing collaborations bringing together Ugandan and Kenyan enterprises to build structured trade relationships and improve market access through business-to-business engagements.

He explained, ‘The Business to Business (B2B) sessions are the engine for trade and collaboration designed to start conversations, concrete trade linkages and eventually sign deals.’

He emphasized that success will not be measured by meetings alone, but by sustained partnerships and improved livelihoods for actors across the value chain.

He said, ‘The success of this mission will be measured not just by the number of trade agreements we sign, but by the long-term partnerships we forge.’

Collective marketing

At the cooperative level, Kenyan farmer organisations say aggregation systems are helping farmers survive volatile prices while improving access to inputs and finance, though structural inefficiencies persist.

Mr Nahashon Kagiri, the chairman of Ngarua Cereals and Produce Cooperative Society in Kenya, described a model built around collective marketing and post-harvest discipline to protect farmers from exploitation at peak harvest periods.

He said, ‘We assist small-scale farmers and medium-scale farmers in production and marketing. The purpose of aggregation is to wait a bit for the market to mature so that farmers can benefit.’

Mr Kagiri explained that cooperatives are increasingly acting as financial intermediaries, providing advances to farmers against stored grain, reducing reliance on high-cost credit sources.

He noted, ‘We can advance up to 60 percent of what the farmers have stored at the current market price. During sales, we recover what we advanced at a small interest of 6 percent.’

However, he raised concerns about inconsistent grain quality across borders, particularly aflatoxin contamination in some consignments sourced from Uganda, which affects market confidence despite strong demand.

He said, ‘In some periods, the maize from Uganda has aflatoxins. Not always, but it happens.’

Despite these challenges, he acknowledged Uganda’s central role in regional food supply, especially during shortages in Kenya’s semi-arid producing zones.

He added, ‘Even if we grow maize, it is hardly enough; that is why most of the maize comes from Uganda.’

On the supply chain and export side, Ugandan private sector actors are increasingly positioning themselves as structured exporters leveraging warehousing, logistics, and compliance systems.

Why transition remains uneven

Ms Oliver Akullo, the quality assurance officer at Erymags Enterprises Limited in Lira City, described a growing export-oriented operation dealing in grains and pulses such as soya, sesame, millet, sorghum, pigeon peas and chia.

She said, ‘We have a warehouse capacity of 2,000 metric tons and a twin warehouse of 4,000 metric tonnes… and a fleet of trailers with about 35 metric tonnes capacity each, meaning our logistics are highly efficient.’

Ms Akullo noted that while export potential is strong across multiple markets including Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and beyond, operational gaps remain in documentation and trade information flow.

She explained, ‘The limited communication makes it very hard, people do not have enough information on procedures, but if communication improves, we shall be on the same page.’

She also pointed to a shift from manual contracting systems to digital trade platforms that allow buyers and sellers to express interest and formalise agreements more efficiently.

She said, ‘Previously, people used physical paper communication, but now we are going more digital; we can express interest and enter into contracts.’

Across the region, the grain sector is being reshaped by four forces operating simultaneously: policy harmonisation, cooperative aggregation, private sector scaling, and digital trade systems.

‘Yet the transition remains uneven, with quality standards, financing access, and market coordination still defining who benefits most from the growing regional grain economy,’ said Ms Akullo.

As East Africa pushes toward deeper integration, the sector is no longer just about harvest volumes, but about whether systems can reliably move grain from smallholder farms to structured regional and global markets without losing value along the way.

The East African Business Council estimates that trade restrictions cost the region roughly $10 billion every year in lost opportunities. At the continental level, the World Bank’s 2020 report: The African Continental Free Trade Area: Economic and Distributional Effects projects that eliminating non-tariff barriers could increase intra-African exports by more than 80 percent and raise incomes by up to $300 billion by 2035.

Halimah Nakaayi felt at home and largely relieved after she produced a season best (SB) performance at the Wanda Diamond League (DL) leg in Doha, Qatar on Friday night.

On the back of a disappointing day in California, USA during the previous weekend, Nakaayi bounced back to post a third-place finish over the women’s 800 metres in the Suheim bin Hamad Stadium in Doha.

‘I am so very happy to be competing here!’ Nakaayi said after posting a time of one minute and 58.41 seconds.

‘I have the best memories from Doha, because being here always reminds me of the world title I won back in 2019. Whenever I am here I feel as if I need to defend my title, but finishing in the top three is okay too,’ Nakaayi added.

The result sparked huge confidence in Nakaayi considering she has spent a greater of the build-up to her season with strategic focus on endurance.

A lover of the inside lane, Nakaayi was tucked in early behind pace setter Dutch Lisanne de Witte, who took the field through 400 metres in 56.56 seconds.

Upon the bell, eventual race winner American Addison Wiley got ahead of Nakaayi and the duo surged forward. It was inside the home stretch that Ethiopia’s Tsige Dugume came through lane 2 to beat Nakaayi to second place in 1:58.08.

Already ahead, Wiley had won her first outdoor two-lap race of the season in a time of 1:57.98.

The result for the 2019 world champion Nakaayi came moments after Uganda Athletics (UAt) named her as part of the athletics team that will represent the country at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland next month.

Nakaayi is among the eight female athletes in a 17-member group named by UAt. The cast also includes two-time 3000 metres steeplechase Olympic medalist Peruth Chemutai and impressive long-distance runner Joy Cheptoyek.

Kenya-based Cheptoyek picked a silver medal at the World Athletics Cross-Country Championships in Florida, USA in January.

The more experienced Oscar Chelimo will lead the men’s group that comprises a bunch of rising stars like Keneth Kiprop, Dan Kibet and long jumper David Berkham Otim.

DOHA DIAMOND LEAGUE

WOMEN’S 800 METRES RESULT

1 Addison Wiley (USA) 1:57.98

2 Tsige Duguma (ETH) 1:58.08

3 Halimah Nakaayi (UGA) 1:58:41

UGANDA ATHLETICS TEAM TO COMMONWEALTH GAMES

Women: Maureen Banura and Shida Leni (400 Metres), Halimah Nakaayi (800 Metres), Knight Aciru (1500 Metres), Peruth Chemutai (3000 Metres Steeplechase), Rebecca Chelangat and Esther Chebet (5000 Metres), Joy Cheptoyek (10000 Metres)

Men: Haron Adoli and Kenneth Omuka (400 Metres), Silas Chemutai (Mile), Oscar Chelimo, Dominic Kiprop, Dan Kibet and Keneth Kiprop (5000 Metres), Harbert Kibet (10000 Metres), David Berkham Otim (Long Jump)

Officials: Paul Okello (Coach / Manager), Jimmy Issamat (Coach), Quinto Oding (Coach / Physiotherapist), Suzan Laker (Administrator)

The ongoing process that requires national sports organisations to be registered by National Council of Sports (NCS) will come with extended challenges.

Suddenly federations that have been operating just within Kampala “will need a countrywide structure (to meet the elements of the law that require them to have operations in at least 50 to 75 percent of the districts in Uganda),” according to Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC) president Donald Rukare.

However, questions linger on whether the existing sports ecosystem has enough know-how within to handle this growth.

Meanwhile, the sector still struggles with untrained administrators and elite athletes retire with no pathway into the life after. Also, since sports is not considered a viable career sector, a lot of employable talent goes to serve in other sectors.

It is from this background and more that UOC, a convening authority for organizations and individuals in the sports sector, is partnering with human resource firm NFT Consults to pilot a National Sports Employment and Talent Development Initiative (NSETDI).

“This is a timely concept. Call it an internship programme on positive steroids that will create a pathway for national sports employment.

“NFT wants to help us identify (employable) talent, develop it, and look for the requisite placement in the work market. Our people, say in marketing and sales, would like to have that one year of help to develop their talent and we would also like to leverage on NFT’s expertize, knowledge, and connections,” Rukare said.

UOC and Uganda Athletics general secretary Beatrice Ayikoru added that “many of us serving in sports are volunteers and would like to beef up our human resource to help with the day-to-day tasks of the federations. We are open to see how best we can work with each other.”

NFT Consult brings 21 years of deep expertise in talent placement, training design, stakeholder engagement, and programme management across public and private sectors in 12 countries.

“Uganda stands at a pivotal moment. With one of Africa’s youngest populations, a rapidly expanding sports sector, co-hosting rights for Afcon (Africa Cup of Nations) 2027, and deep connections to the global Olympic movement, the country has every ingredient needed to transform sport from an activity into an industry. NSETDI is designed to make that transformation real,” Elizabeth Ntege, the chief executive officer of NFT Consult, said.

Opportunities

The initiative, they believe, could create 5,000 meaningful careers for young Ugandans in the sports economy by 2030.

Those targeted include; transitioning athletes, sports-adjacent graduates, those not in education or employment, women in sport, sports administrators, plus refugees and displaced youth.

NSETDI maps nine career pathway domains in which these jobs can be created. These include; sports development which would target sports officers and the media, business and managements targeting agents and other professionals in sport, elite performance support designed for nutritionists and analysts among others, events and hospitality, leisure and fitness industry, integrity and anti-doping, technology and data, media and content economy, e-sports and gaming.

NFT and UOC – which provides internship, sports administration and management courses, plus athlete career development programmes – also believe that Afcon 2027, which will be co-hosted by Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, could create time-bound demand for thousands of trained sports professionals.

The Olympic movement (IOC, Anoca, Olympic Solidarity, and the Olympic Refuge Foundation) also has active funding programmes targeting career development initiatives and, according to NFT’s proposal “are also actively seeking models for sports workforce development that can be scaled across Africa.”

UOC is a proven employer as it retains some of its best interns. Imagine if the whole sports sector had the capacity to do the same.

“Uganda’s sports sector is trapped in a paradox. It produces world-class athletes but cannot produce the workforce needed to sustain, professionalise, or economically develop the sector. In other instances, employers take advantage of people in sports because they have passion and are willing to serve for anything. We need to professionalize,” Ntege said.

The spate of abductions Ugandans have witnessed since 2016 has now reached alarming proportions. People are living in fear, especially those supporting the Opposition. While social media has created the illusion of free speech, those speaking out sometimes have to use fake names. They know the chances of facing dire consequences are high. At first, many believed abductions targeted individuals posing a threat to national security. The State could argue, with reason, that it was resorting to extreme measures to protect everyone.

But as the government continues to lose popularity, abduction has become a tool to silence the Opposition. It now seems anyone who dares challenge those wielding real power risks being abducted. Worryingly, security forces have inflicted physical and mental torture on victims, sometimes leading to death. Several cases have been documented. The most recent involved a 22-year-old woman named Irene Nakibuuka. She was reportedly abducted on election day in January, tortured and later released – only to die weeks later. The alleged abduction and torture exacerbated her underlying conditions.

On Monday, it was former Kampala Mayor Erias Lukwago’s turn. He is one of the senior lawyers representing Dr Kizza Besigye, who was abducted in Nairobi, Kenya in November 2024 along with his aide, Obeid Lutale, and transferred to Uganda to face treason charges. The case against Dr Besigye now looks highly questionable because nearly every Ugandan capable of independent judgment is asking why the State has failed to conduct a proper trial if, as it claims, it has incontrovertible evidence against him and co-defendants.

Mr Lukwago has worked tremendously hard to ensure Dr Besigye gets justice, but to no avail. There is nothing he has done that contravenes the law. In fact, it is the government that has used questionable means in its handling of the case, including arraigning him before a military court, a move his lawyers successfully challenged in the Supreme Court. Even if Mr Lukwago had committed a crime, the government would be obliged to use lawful means of arrest. Instead, armed men believed to be operatives of the Special Forces Command (SFC) abducted him.

A pertinent question many Ugandans are asking is why a lawyer or any law-abiding citizen should be abducted instead of being arrested. The abductions we have witnessed are intended to humiliate those targeted. Mr Lukwago’s wife told reporters that when she tried to stop the armed men from abducting her husband, her arm was twisted and she was kicked to the floor. Her story is reminiscent of what happened to Barbie [Barbra Kyagulanyi], the wife of Opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine. When security forces stormed their home in January, they smashed doors, climbed into the ceiling, pulled her hair and partially undressed her. The couple have since fled the country and is currently living in the United States.

Individuals ordering these abductions appear to operate above the law. When Mr Lukwago was abducted, the Commander of the Defence Forces, Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba, posted humiliating photos that he claimed are of Lukwago on his X page. Some have cast doubt on the authenticity of the images, but even if they are fake, the intent appears to have been to humiliate him. The real problem for Mr Lukwago and dozens of Ugandans languishing in illegal detention centres is that they have no effective recourse to justice. In Kitalya, many Opposition supporters, especially those backing the National Unity Platform, have been held without trial, some for years.

This impunity should worry every Ugandan. If a lawyer and prominent Opposition figure can be abducted in broad daylight and held illegally, then ordinary citizens are at a much bigger risk. We claim to be a democracy. But the truth is we are an autocracy with a capital A.

In the recent vetting process in Parliament, the provisions of Uganda’s law on dual citizenship were tested to the core. Appointed by the President as Minister of State for Internal Affairs, Dr Lawrence Muganga (PhD), the vice chancellor of Victoria University, was turned down by Parliament’s Appointments Committee on citizenship grounds, specifically that the academic held dual citizenship, and perhaps more.

Ongoing public commentary on social and print media has since framed the matter in starkly different lights: legal purism versus ethnic discrimination, strict statutory compliance versus presidential prerogative, national security versus regional affiliations. Dr Muganga himself alleged that ‘what I experienced in that Committee was not parliamentary oversight. It was hatred. It was discrimination. It was racism.’

Many Ugandans of Rwandan descent probably saw in his rejection the shadow of historical prejudice of Banyarwanda, who are a cross-border ethnicity, being made to feel like outsiders in their own country. But before we rush to label this as xenophobia, we must separate the law from sentiment and identity from eligibility.

Does Uganda’s legal framework provide for dual citizenship or multiple citizenship?

Our Constitution, as amended in 2005, permits dual citizenship, the simultaneous possession of two citizenships, one of which must be Ugandan, as explicitly defined in the Uganda Citizenship and Immigration Control (Amendment) Act of 2009. Not three, not more. A person holding three passports, as was alleged of Dr Muganga (Uganda, Canada, and Rwanda), would, therefore, fall outside the legal provisions Parliament designed.

Is the Fifth Schedule enshrined a barrier?

Article 15(7) of the Constitution empowers Parliament to prescribe which State offices a dual citizen is not qualified to hold. Parliament exercised that power through the Fifth Schedule of the 2009 Amendment Act, which explicitly lists the President, Vice President, Prime Minister, and Cabinet ministers among the positions barred to dual citizens.

The reasoning behind this restriction, captured in the 2009 parliamentary Hansard, revolved around loyalty and security. Then Chua County Member of Parliament (MP) Livingstone Okello Okello asked a question that still echoes today: ‘I wonder what would happen if I belonged to two countries and the two countries went to war. Which one will I support?’ Charles Angiro of Erute North warned of persons ‘who will be recruited to spy either in Uganda or outside.’ These anxieties, however imperfect as predictors of individual conduct, shaped a law that simultaneously expanded citizenship rights and drew boundaries around the most sensitive organs of State.

So, did Parliament’s Appointment Committee act lawfully by red-flagging Dr Muganga?

Whether one agrees with the Fifth Schedule or not, it is the law. The Uganda Law Society (ULS) emphasised that eligibility for high public office must be assessed strictly within the constitutional framework.

Four other ministerial nominees who faced dual citizenship issues were approved after providing proof of renunciation. Dr Muganga, by contrast, was reportedly unable to satisfy the committee on the status of his Canadian and alleged Rwandan citizenships.

Moreover, the Internal Affairs ministry to which he was appointed oversees immigration and citizenship, the very docket in which dual allegiances raise the most concerns.

What I would fault the vetting process on is their failure, at the outset, to ask the basic question: Is there a legal barrier? Not having done that, they missed the wood for the trees. In the event, the Appointments Committee applied the law as written. The rejection was not fundamentally based on xenophobia toward his Rwandan heritage, but on a strict statutory bar against dual and a fortiori multiple citizens holding such ministerial office.

Is the capacity to serve about character of the individual?

Character and qualifications are the true test of fitness for office. Even sole Ugandan nationals can harbour conflicts of interest, to the extent of betraying the country. The vetting process exists precisely to assess the integrity, judgment, and loyalty of nominees.

If a dual citizen, or even a triple citizen, were it legal, can satisfy that scrutiny, why should the law bar him or her? Remember, Dr Muganga, as vice chancellors of one of our universities, was at the helm of an institution trusted and expected to contribute to strategic national interests.

The 2009 Parliament, in my opinion, took a legal-come-constitutional sledgehammer to what might have been addressed with a vetting scalpel. The result is a law that captures many who are not of the ilk the drafters feared. The barrier to ministerial appointment for dual nationals is a blunt instrument.

The character of the nominee, as vetted by the appointing authority, is a far better metric. The vetting tools at the disposal of the appointing authority far exceed the anxieties and suspicions, entrenched in the Fifth Schedule, in screening out individuals who pose a threat to national security and self-interest.

As our nation is increasingly acquiring in its stock dual nationals, especially among the elite, we deprive ourselves of their contribution to governance if we are punitively restrictive to their participation by identity rather than competence.

What about the regional dimension and the hurdle to integration?

The Muganga case raises a question far larger than one man’s appointment. It forces us to confront the awkward gap between our regional integration project and our national instincts. The East African Community Common Market Protocol guarantees free movement of persons, labour, and capital. We aspire to an East African Political Federation, invoking the vision of our founding fathers from independence. Yet when a highly qualified Ugandan of Rwandan descent is nominated for ministerial office, the public response reveals a nation still deeply entrenched in national insulation. Will the same level of suspicion fall on Ugandans whose second nationality is that of a former coloniser as that of another colonised regional neighbour with whom we are pursuing a political project of federation?

The mere fact of a Rwandan name was enough to fuel suspicion, regardless of the legal status of his passport. This is the deeper tragedy of the Muganga affair. Parliament acted within the law, but the societal fallout-the ethnic polarisation, the wounded sense of belonging among Ugandans of Rwandan descent-reveals that East Africans are not yet psychologically ready for the integration we claim to want. Free movement of persons is not the same as free access to political power. The former is an economic convenience; the latter is a profound transfer of sovereign trust. That transfer, as the Muganga case demonstrates, remains a bridge too far for many. If the East African Political Federation is to become more than a summit communiqué, we must cultivate a genuine East African identity that renders the national citizenship of a sister state unremarkable and not threatening.

Should we think deeply about remoulding the blunt instrument then?

The solution is not to ignore the law. Parliament was right to apply the Fifth Schedule as it stands. But the deeper question is whether the Fifth Schedule should stand at all, at least as it applies to citizens of EAC partner states. If we are serious about regional integration, we must eventually ask whether a Ugandan with dual citizenship and cross-border ethnicity, additionally holding the citizenship of a sister EC country, is truly a greater threat to national security than a Ugandan of purely indigenous heritage who chooses to betray his country.

The due diligence of the appointing authority should prevail, given the efficacy of the vetting process for issues of national security. The legal barrier to appointing dual nationals in ministerial office should be re-examined and perhaps repealed. To do this, we must look beyond the letter of the law and draft a new framework that more fairly delivers the spirit of the law, to be enshrined in the vetting tools of the appointing authority, and used for screening all appointments, dual citizen or not.

But until the law changes, we must apply it faithfully and be honest about its implications for our unfinished journey toward a truly united East Africa.

There is a particular kind of confidence that settles on a man who has already won the arguments that matter. Mr Francis Kamulegeya carries it well. At the Fairway Hotel in Kampala on a recent evening, he sits before a room of young tax professionals, comprising of lawyers, accountants, people with MBAs and fresh ambitions, and tells them, without any drama, that credentials will open a door, competence will earn you a seat, but it is character that makes you stay in the room.

To understand where Mr Kamulegeya ended up, you have to start where he began: Masaka, 1967, in a home where his mother Josephine ran a licensed Enguli gin distillery. He grew up in the shadow of Idi Amin, with the military barracks so close they complicated his childhood. He left at eleven, just after the war that ended that particular chapter of Uganda’s misery. He went to Namasagali College, then Makerere University, to study agriculture from 1987 to 1990. Botany. Crop science. Entomology. He can still walk into a room, spot a plant, and tell you it’s Lantana camara. These are not skills that appear on any tax advisory brief.

They are, however, the skills of someone trained to read a system, to understand what something actually is, not just what it’s called. That habit of mind would travel everywhere with him. After graduating, he became a maize trader in Mbiriizi, a town in the southern part of the Central Region of Uganda (Lwengo District). His edge was that he could bite through a grain with his front teeth and tell you the moisture content. He did this for six months. Then he left for England. Between 1991 and 1992, Mr Kamulegeya did a tour of what he calls ‘every job that exists in this hotel’. He cooked potatoes. He cleaned toilets.

He drove a minibus. He worked as a lifeguard. One afternoon when a colleague didn’t show, he put on a white apron and white hat and served lunch to schoolchildren as the dinner lady and got paid double for the double shift. He was raising £5,400 (currently about Shs26.37 million) to enrol in college. Within 18 months, he had more than he needed. ‘For young professionals, it’s very, very important that you get into the habit of distinguishing who you are from what you do, so that when what you do changes, you do not lose your identity,’ he says.

He enrolled in college, qualified as an accountant in 1994, joined PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) London in 1996, and encountered a reform to the UK tax system called self-assessment. Something in his brain lit up and never quite went off again. He sat the exams of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, passed them, and became the first Ugandan ever to qualify as a UK Chartered Tax Advisor.

The poor cousin of audits

In 2000, PwC sent him to Uganda. The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) had only been created in 1991. Value Added Tax (VAT) had been introduced as recently as 1996, replacing a patchwork of sales taxes, and was barely four years old. Many staff had simply been transferred from customs when the institution was set up. The big accounting firms in Kampala called themselves auditing firms. Tax, as Mr Kamulegeya puts it, was ‘a poor cousin of audits.’ He had seen something different. He had lived in a system where tax consulting was its own serious profession and the relationship between advisor and revenue authority was one of adversarial respect.

He walked into Uganda and saw, simultaneously, a problem and an enormous opportunity. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s late partner and one of the more formidable minds in American finance, spent decades warning against what he called ‘man with a hammer syndrome’, who is the specialist who interprets every problem through a single lens. His antidote was a ‘latticework of mental models,’ drawing from biology, physics, psychology, and law simultaneously. Munger built a multi-billion-dollar fortune on cross-disciplinary thinking. Mr Kamulegeya built Uganda’s modern tax profession on something very similar, and arrived at it via botany, maize trading, and dinner lady shifts in Croydon.

‘Tax sits at the interface of almost everything,’ he says. ‘If you look at it just from a technical perspective and you stay in that very narrow lane, you are going to miss out.’ He built the PwC Uganda tax practice from seven people into a dominant market force, sending specialists abroad for years before the market knew it needed them: Crystal Kabajwara to the UK for transfer pricing, Pamela Natamba for oil and gas, and Trevor Bwanika to South Africa for international tax and mergers. Then he turned his attention to the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) itself. In 2004, a new Financial Institutions Act required banks to raise their minimum capital.

Mr Kamulegeya saw a solution URA had never encountered: issue bonus shares, using retained reserves to capitalise the banks. Legal under company law, standard in the UK, completely new in Uganda. The Revenue Authority said: bonus shares are dividends, and dividends are taxable. Mr Kamulegeya said: No; retained reserves already belong to the shareholders. Reissuing them as shares changes the form, not the substance. He won. URA promptly amended the Income Tax Act to define dividends to include bonus shares. Look at Section 2 today; it is there because of this fight. When the other side changes the law in response to your argument, it means your argument worked.

In 2010, Zain International BV, a Netherlands company, sold its pan-African mobile operations to Bharti Airtel in a deal worth $10.7 billion (Shs39.04 trillion). URA raised an $85 million (Shs310.16 billion) capital gains tax assessment on Zain’s Ugandan interests. Mr Kamulegeya took the other side. His instrument was surgical: the Uganda-Netherlands double taxation treaty, he told them, means no capital gain arises here.

You do not have the right to tax this. ‘A few of them,’ he says, with characteristic restraint, ‘that was the first time they knew about the treaty’. The case became one of the most-watched tax disputes in East African history, permanently changing how Uganda thinks about double taxation agreements and how multinationals structure investment through offshore holding companies.

Inclusion

In 2003, Mr Kamulegeya was a senior manager appearing on television to analyse the national budget. Then he ran into Moses Kirangwa (now deceased). Mr Kirangwa was a childhood friend from Masaka. They had grown up in the same village, played Gogolo (also known as the Rainbow Slide) as barefoot boys. Then Mr Kamulegeya left for Kampala, for England, and for PwC. Mr Kirangwa stayed. He was had an hearing impairment. He had never gone to school, not because he couldn’t learn, but because the system had decided there was no place for him. He was a cobbler, working from a bench on a street in Masaka.

When they reconnected after 25 years, communicating through an interpreter, Mr Kirangwa told Mr Kamulegeya something he has been acting on ever since: the difference between us is education. ‘Here I was, senior manager on the TV analysing the budget and people thinking I’m important, and this guy who I grew up with in the village told me that basically, if I didn’t go to school, I could be like him. He told me that because he had never seen me for the last 23 years, he had also assumed that I’d died.’

In 2005, Mr Kamulegeya co-founded the Masaka School for the Deaf with his late sister, Sophia Kafeero, with teachers, classrooms, a curriculum, and a plan. More than 1,200 deaf learners have since passed through it. Seventeen have graduated from university, according to his narration. There is now a vocational training institute alongside it, and a coffee farm where students are taught agriculture.

The man who once bit through maize grains to read their moisture content is now teaching deaf children to grow coffee. He also runs Time to Play, a children’s centre he opened in 2009 after his daughters visiting from England asked their house help, Annette, to take them to ‘the park’, and Annette, interpreting this sensibly for Kampala, offered them a tour of taxi parks. The misunderstanding, Mr Kamulegeya felt, was actionable. For years on Sundays, he would slip into the SpongeBob costume and work the floor. Nobody knew it was the Country Senior Partner of PwC Uganda inside the foam suit.

Retirement

In 2022, after 27 years at PwC, 12 as Country Senior Partner, eight on the PwC Africa Governance Board, the first Ugandan to serve on that body, Mr Kamulegeya left. He refuses to call it retirement. ‘I never ever wanted to be pushed out by a system simply because of a number. At 60 years of age, that’s the retirement age at PwC. But what happens to me at 60? I’ve been doing very, very well. So, I’m not going to just sit there waiting for the clock to tick.’

He left at the height of it. This is, among people who build careers, almost impossibly rare. He went to Thailand, came back looking 10 years younger, and built what he calls his second half; five board roles, including Chairman of IandM Bank Uganda, and a memoir, ‘And Then What? Reflections on Life, Leadership, and Meaning Beyond Success’, launched in April 2026. The question in the title is the most demanding one you can ask yourself. It prevents you from mistaking a milestone for a destination. You get the degree, and then what? You get the promotion, and then what?

More importantly, it is the question you ask once you have, by any reasonable measure, already succeeded. You’ve changed the law multiple times, built a school, mentored a generation. And then what? ‘If everything you’re doing is for yourself, it’s likely to end with you. And that would be very unfortunate. But if you do things that are going to endure, because your time is finite, it’s going to be long, but it’s very finite; you’ll continue.’ Back at the Fairway Hotel, the young professionals are still in the room.

This is one of ‘The Tax Nights’ organised by Edwin Echiba, a tax lawyer, on the first Thursday of the month. All of them have been in the presence of something increasingly rare: a man who built something significant, knows what he built, and is not confused about why. He wants to be remembered, he says, as the person who made a positive difference in whoever he met. ‘There’s no point holding knowledge without sharing it,’ he says. ‘Nobody knows what you know until you share it. And whenever you play it forward, it keeps going.’

The High Court has ordered a Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) staff member to pay a fellow employee Shs100 million in damages for defaming him through messages posted on a URA Senior Management WhatsApp group.

In a judgment delivered on June 17th, Justice Isaac Bonny Teko found that James Abola, a senior officer in URA’s Staff Compliance Department, defamed customs officer Nicholas Jjengo by circulating unverified allegations linking him to a shooting incident and suggesting he had pursued and attacked another man over a woman.

‘A declaration is issued that the defendant’s (Abola) publications of September 18, 2022, concerning the plaintiff (Jjengo) on the URA senior management WhatsApp forum were defamatory of the plaintiff (Jjengo),’ ruled Justice Teko.

Adding, ‘The defendant shall pay the plaintiff general damages for libel in the sum of Shs70m. The defendant shall pay the plaintiff exemplary damages in the sum of Shs30m.’

The court awarded Jjengo Shs70 million in general damages and Shs30 million in punitive damages, bringing the total award to Shs100 million. Abola was also ordered to issue a written apology within 14 days of the judgment on the same WhatsApp platform and was permanently restrained from making similar defamatory statements against his colleague.

‘The defendant (Abola) shall, within fourteen days from the date of this judgment, issue a written apology to the plaintiff (Jjengo), and publish the same on the URA Senior Management WhatsApp forum,’ the judge held.

The dispute arose from messages posted on September 18, 2022, in the URA Senior Management WhatsApp forum. In one of the messages, Abola informed senior managers that police in Kasangati were looking for Jjengo Nicholas, a Customs Officer who had allegedly fired three bullets at victims the previous night.

A second message went further, claiming that Jjengo had followed another man’s vehicle and opened fire after a woman allegedly chose to ride in the victim’s car instead of his following a social outing.

The judge explained that, however, qualified privilege protects responsible communication made in good faith; it does not protect reckless embellishment, sensationalism, or publication made with indifference to truth.

” The defendant’s (Abola) first message may have been closer to a preliminary management alert. The difficulty arises with the second message. The Defendant moved from reporting that police were looking for the Plaintiff (Jjengo) in relation to a firearm incident to circulating a narrative that the Plaintiff had pursued a victim over a woman from an outing and shot at the victim’s car. That narrative was grave, colourful, sensational and personally destructive,’ Justice Teko held.

Jjengo sued, arguing that the statements falsely portrayed him as a criminal, a violent individual, and an immoral person, thereby damaging his reputation among URA’s top leadership.

In his defence, Abola had noted that he had received the information from a police officer attached to the Staff Compliance Division and shared it in good faith as part of his official duties. He argued that the communication was made on an occasion of qualified privilege because it concerned a matter of legitimate interest to URA management.

However, Justice Teko held that while senior management had a legitimate interest in receiving information about serious allegations involving a staff member, the protection of qualified privilege did not extend to reckless and sensational publications.

“The natural and ordinary meaning of that message is that the Plaintiff was wanted by police for shooting at victims. That is a serious imputation of criminality and violence,” the judge held.

The court further observed that the second message portrayed Jjengo as immoral, reckless, violent, and unfit for trust by suggesting that he had acted out of jealousy involving a woman described in the publication as a skirt.

Justice Teko noted that evidence showed Jjengo’s supervisor, James Malinzi, had contacted the plaintiff to verify the allegations and subsequently forwarded his telephone number to Abola so that he could establish the facts directly. Despite this opportunity, the court found that Abola failed to carry out meaningful verification before circulating the damaging narrative.

“The fact that investigations were ongoing should have made him more cautious…,” Justice Teko said.

He added that although Abola repeatedly stated that the matter was merely alleged and still under investigation, that disclaimer did not excuse the publication of serious accusations to an influential audience.

“Defamation may be committed by repetition of allegations. A person who republishes defamatory allegations cannot escape liability merely by saying that the matter is alleged,” the judge ruled.

The court found that Abola’s conduct demonstrated malice in the legal sense through reckless disregard for the truth and indifference to the impact of the statements on Jjengo’s reputation.

In assessing damages, Justice Teko acknowledged that the allegations were grave because they accused Jjengo of criminal conduct, violence, and moral impropriety. He also considered the fact that the statements were circulated among URA’s highest-ranking managers.

At the same time, the judge noted that the publication was limited to a restricted management forum and that there was no evidence Jjengo was dismissed, demoted, or denied promotion as a result of the allegations.

The judge further held that the defamatory messages caused sufficient harm to warrant substantial compensation and vindication.

Stanbic Black Pirates survived a spirited Heathens fightback to secure their place in the 2026 Uganda Rugby Premiership final after edging through on 36-30 on aggregate after a tense semifinal second leg at King’s Park Arena on Saturday afternoon.

Holding a 15-3 advantage from the first leg and unbeaten in Bweyogerere for two seasons, Pirates appeared firmly in control heading into the return fixture.

But record 17-time champions Heathens arrived determined to overturn the deficit and pushed the Sailors all the way before falling agonizingly short.

The day had begun with a heavier purpose. Pirates spent the mid-morning and early afternoon in discussion about mob violence, an issue that was brought into sharp focus by the death of their big shirt.7 Sydney Gongodyo a fortnight ago.

By kick-off, grief had turned to purpose as the squad went in determined to write a fitting chapter for a player whose career was cut short at 27.

Heathens struck first, winning a turnover penalty after overpowering Humphrey Tashobya at the breakdown. Mathew Musasizi’s effort drifted wide but he made amends minutes later to open the scoring.

Pirates hit back through Roy Kizito who finished off a slick move started by Conrad Wanyama and carried on by Timothy Kisiga, who found Kizito on the blindside for a diving try under pressure. Musasizi kept Heathens ticking with another penalty after they opted for the posts over a maul.

Heathens came close to a try soon after, only for Alex Aturinda to hold up the ball over the line. Kisiga’s loose restart fell kindly for Joseph Oyet, who composed himself for a drop goal from inside his own half. A string of Pirates errors then gifted Musasizi a fifth penalty, sending Heathens into a 12-5 lead at the break.

Kisiga returned sharper after the interval, slotting two penalties to narrow the gap before converting a Haruna Muhammad try. Pirates surged further when Aturinda exploited space off the restart, and Haruna produced the score of the match, slicing through five defenders with a dazzling burst.

Heathens responded through Patrick Okello, converted by Malcom Okello, before Jude Jjuuko crashed over deep in injury time. Malcom’s conversion made it 27-21 on the night, with Pirates’ aggregate lead trimmed to single figures. Heathens threw everything at the line in the closing exchanges, but Pirates’ defence held until Kisiga booted the ball into touch to settle the contest.

Pirates now turn their attention to Saturday’s final against Buffaloes at King’s Park, a fixture they will carry into with both heavy hearts and renewed purpose.

UGANDA RUGBY PREMIERSHIP

Semifinal results

Pirates 21-27 Heathens

(Pirates won 36-30 on aggregate)

Final: Pirates vs. Buffaloes, Kings Park Arena

Jinja Regional Referral Hospital is set to establish a modern medical imaging and diagnostic centre in a bid to improve healthcare services and curb the overwhelming number of patient referrals to Mulago National Referral Hospital.

The initiative was announced by Dr Gerald Mutungi, the Assistant Commissioner in charge of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) at the Ministry of Health. The project is a collaborative effort between the Health Ministry and the Smart African Village Development Consortium (SADO).

According to Dr Mutungi, the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Affairs, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, has been one of the key pillars driving the establishment of the imaging centre in the region.

The diagnostic centre will be equipped with advanced medical technology, including:

A standard 64-slice CT scan machine from Germany

A Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner

Advanced X-ray equipment

Modern laboratory diagnostic tools

“These facilities will support doctors and medical consultants in making accurate diagnoses and prescribing effective treatment for patients without guesswork,” Dr Mutungi said.

He added that the Ministry of Health, SADO, the Jinja hospital management, Jinja City Council, and the Office of the President have already secured space within the hospital premises for immediate construction.

Dr Mutungi expressed grave concern over the growing burden of NCDs, describing them as “silent killers” affecting children, youths, and adults across the Busoga sub-region.

“There is a significant increase in non-communicable diseases in Busoga communities due to poor nutrition, excessive alcohol consumption, substance abuse, lack of physical exercise, and limited awareness about regular medical check-ups,” he said, noting that many patients only seek help when conditions are severe after self-medicating.

Dr Alfred Yayi, the Senior Executive Consultant at Jinja Regional Referral Hospital, revealed that the development coincides with the approval of the hospital’s new master plan designed to align the facility with modern healthcare technologies.

Dr Yayi explained that much of the hospital’s existing infrastructure was constructed in the 1950s and can no longer support the installation of sophisticated modern medical systems.

He added that while the hospital boasts qualified consultant medical doctors across all departments, the lack of advanced diagnostic equipment has historically hindered specialized services, forcing them to refer patients to Mulago.

Dr Nelson Muzira, the Executive Director of SADO, stated that the broader project aims to transform healthcare delivery by providing accessible and affordable imaging services across five hospitals and 76 health centres in the East and Central sub-regions.

Welcoming the initiative, Jinja City Health Officer Dr Fredrick Isabirye noted that the centre would save countless lives.

“Many non-communicable diseases present symptoms similar to other illnesses, making them difficult to diagnose without advanced laboratory and diagnostic equipment. This centre will greatly improve early detection and treatment,” Dr Isabirye said.