Category: Daily Monitor

Uganda’s democracy does not begin in Parliament. It begins in the village – at the borehole, in the trading centre, at the meeting held under a mango tree to resolve a boundary dispute.

This is why the recently concluded Women Council and Local Council I elections matter beyond the numbers they produced. On July 23, 2026, Ugandans elected Women Council leaders from the village level, where the National Resistance Movement (NRM) registered a strong performance across the country.

That momentum continued on July 28, 2026, when voters elected Local Council 1 chairpersons.

According to the NRM’s interim results compiled from districts countrywide, the party won 51,093 of the 68, 925 villages where results had been received by the time of compilation, with 13,861 independent candidates and 3, 971 Opposition candidates elected, while results from 2, 289 villages were still pending. These outcomes are both encouraging and humbling.

The support our flag bearers received in the two grassroots elections is a clear vote of confidence in the party’s ideology, its leadership, and its record of improving the lives of ordinary Ugandans. But victory at the grassroots is not primarily a political trophy. It is a mandate handed over at the shortest possible distance between a leader and the people – and therefore the mandate hardest to hide from.

Grassroots leadership is in the NRM’s DNA. From the Resistance Councils established during the liberation struggle to today’ s Local Councils, our Movement has always believed that meaningful democracy and sustainable development begin with empowered communities. Long before the NRM assumed the responsibility of leading government, President Museveni and his colleagues understood that transformation is built upward from the household, not dispensed downward from the centre. That is why we treat these village elections not as routine electoral exercises, but as reaffirmations of the values upon which the Movement was founded. An effective LC 1 chairperson is far more than a village administrator. He or she is the first point of contact between the citizen and the State.

These leaders resolve disputes before they escalate, help maintain security, mobilise communities for development, protect public resources, and ensure that government programmes reach the households they were designed to benefit.

The same applies to Women Council leaders, who play a critical role in mobilising women, strengthening families, promoting community participation, and ensuring that women remain active partners in Uganda’s development agenda. Their election reinforces inclusive leadership at the grassroots and strengthens the structures through which communities engage with government.

That role grows more consequential by the year. As government deepens implementation of the Parish Development Model, Emyooga, agricultural extension services, infrastructure expansion, and youth and women’s empowerment programmes, delivery increasingly depends on leaders who know every homestead and enjoy the confidence of the people they serve.

To every NRM candidate who emerged victorious, I offer my congratulations-and a caution. Your election is not a reward for personal ambition. It is a call to greater responsibility. Leadership begins with listening.

Whether a resident voted for you or against you is now irrelevant; every household deserves the same attention and respect. I also commend those who contested and were not declared winners. Internal competition has now served its purpose. The time has come to close ranks.

We are one NRM family, one village and one country pursuing one national objective: a peaceful, prosperous and self- reliant Uganda.

I thank the Electoral Commission, security agencies, election officials, candidates and above all the voters for ensuring generally orderly Women Council and LC1 elections.

Our task now is not to celebrate, but to deliver. The true measure of leadership has never been the winning of elections; it is whether people’s lives are measurably better afterwards.

The Capital Markets Authority (CMA) wrote Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) rules in 2017. It is the legal structure letting property owners sell shares in buildings the way companies sell shares in themselves. The need was that real estate is illiquid, capital-starved, and financed mostly through short-term bank loans ill-suited to assets that take decades to pay off.

REITs promised patient capital, pooling pension contributions, insurance premiums, and retail savings into property, and giving ordinary savers access to an asset class usually reserved for the wealthy. Nine years later, the rulebook sits unused. Not one REIT has listed on the Uganda Securities Exchange. Kenya, working from equivalent 2013 regulations, now has five REITs worth a combined Ksh30.3b (about $235m) as of March 2026, modest by global standards, but real.

Its newest, a green, dollar-denominated income REIT built around a commercial tower at Nairobi’s Two Rivers development, closed its public offer 103.3 percent oversubscribed in June 2026, raised $30.8m, and jumped 23 percent on debut. Rwanda looks closer to Uganda than it seems. Its capital markets authority introduced REIT regulations only in 2024, and by mid-2026, none had listed on the Rwanda Stock Exchange. This means Uganda isn’t the region’s only laggard, just the one that’s been waiting longest.

An old problem

Dickson Ssembuya, who heads research and market development at CMA, says one of the problems Uganda’s REITs market faces is the absence of precedent. ‘I think there is lack of proof of concept. And, of course, in the absence of other property owners either issuing a REIT to raise capital to develop property, you find that there is a bit of hesitancy. So, we need some sort of proof of concept around real estate investment trusts,’ he notes. But beyond this, he says, patchy valuation standards, thin technical skills among practitioners who have never structured such deals, a land tenure system still catching up to modern registry standards, and low awareness among property owners still present challenges.

And this is why, partly, nine years of inertia in a market badly needing an alternative to bank debt have gone by. However, a new valuation act and adoption of international ‘Red Book’ standards have begun standardising how Ugandan property is priced, long a sore point, since owners habitually inflated asking values beyond what institutional buyers would accept. The Landlord and Tenant Act has made it easier to enforce lease terms and evict defaulting tenants, addressing investors’ worries about weak legal recourse.

Land registry modernisation, while incomplete, has reduced, though not eliminated, the risk of duplicate or contested titles. The scaffolding, in other words, is largely built. What’s missing is a tenant to move in. A regional market pulling ahead Kenya is moving ahead. But its REIT market didn’t succeed on the first attempt. Two earlier vehicles, Stanlib I-REIT and ILAM Fahari I-REIT, both launched around 2015, traded thinly for years, hampered by minimum investment thresholds so high they effectively locked out retail investors and left the securities with almost no secondary-market liquidity.

It took roughly a decade, and a redesigned product with a $1,000 minimum subscription instead of the six-figure entry points that sank the earlier funds, before Kenya produced a REIT investors actually wanted to trade. That is a genuinely useful data point for Uganda. The lesson from the region’s most advanced market isn’t simply ‘REITs work,’ but REITs work once the product is designed for investors you actually have, a more specific and actionable finding than the regulatory-optimism version. Rwanda’s experience cuts the other way.

Its REIT framework looks similar to Uganda’s and Kenya’s on paper, and its land administration is, by regional consensus, considerably more advanced because the Land Tenure Regularisation Programme completed a nationwide systematic land registration exercise years ago and is widely cited as a model for East Africa. Yet, no REIT has listed in Kigali either. That is genuinely surprising, and it complicates any theory that land-title clarity alone is sufficient to produce a REIT market. Rwanda suggests good land administration is close to necessary. Uganda and Kenya’s early years suggest it’s nowhere near sufficient. Something else like market depth, product design, investor education, or simply time has to be present too.

The land question

Much of the technical conversation around Ugandan REITs eventually returns to a more basic problem: title. Property here sits across a genuinely complicated tenure system where freehold, leasehold, mailo and customary land coexist, sometimes overlapping on the same parcel, a legacy of colonial-era land policy no government has fully rationalised. When Uganda began digitising its land registry in 2013, only about 20 percent of land in the country was officially registered at all.

A decade and a $100m World Bank-financed modernisation programme later, registering a title still officially takes two weeks and, by local reporting, no one has yet managed to complete the process entirely online. For an ordinary sale, that friction is an inconvenience. For a REIT, which depends on thousands of dispersed investors trusting a prospectus they cannot independently verify, it’s closer to disqualifying. This problem, and what it would actually take to fix it, is worth its own examination, but the short version is that registry modernisation has narrowed the risk without eliminating it. Thus, the most REIT-suitable assets still sit disproportionately in the urban areas where old paperwork is thickest.

Compounding this is a shortage of people who have done this before. Structuring a REIT requires valuers trained to institutional standards, licensed fund managers, lawyers versed in trust law as applied to listed securities, and auditors comfortable certifying property income to capital-markets standards. Uganda has professionals in each field individually, but almost none with REIT transaction experience, because none has yet happened, a chicken-and-egg problem common to any market’s first structured-finance product. Regional firms with Kenyan or South African transaction experience are, in effect, importing that missing expertise, which may prove more durable than waiting for local talent to catch up organically.

What ‘REIT-ready’ actually means

Moses Lutalo, who runs Broll, a property management firm which manages a property portfolio worth more than $200m, argues the test is more commercial than legal. Does the asset behave the way institutional money expects it to? ‘Every time we have had a conversation with property owners, it has boiled down to: are they ready for the sort of scrutiny that capital-markets expectations look out for?’ he says. Importantly, he says, developers must be ready for questions like: are your cash flows underwritten properly, do you have audited financial books, and are you ready for disclosure expected within the listed property market.

This is echoed by Matthew Rukaari, who manages a $400m real estate portfolio at National Social Security Fund (NSSF), the country’s most obvious anchor investor for any future REIT. ‘The first thing I would like to see, assuming a REIT is being proposed, is the quality of the underlying assets. They have to be what you would want to call institutional grade with a clean title, in fantastic locations that have prospects for appreciation’

But beyond this is the issue of governance, which Rukaari says must ensure there is an independent trustee, experienced management, transparent reporting, credible valuation, and a clear alignment between the sponsors and investors. None of this is unusual by global standards. Yet Uganda’s property owners have, on the whole, run their projects as private businesses, not as regulated investment products. Converting one into the other is a cultural exercise more than a legal one.

The tax that kills deals

If there is a single obstacle worth watching, it’s tax.

Moving a property into a REIT trust currently triggers a stamp duty of 1.5 percent of the asset’s value under the Stamp Duty Act. Government grants targeted stamp-duty exemptions, but only in strategic cases such as large-scale industrial park developers meeting a $50m investment threshold. Fredrick Murimi Ngari, managing partner at Centum Capital Partners, points out that Kenya and South Africa both built their REIT markets on exactly this kind of exemption. Ssembuya confirms the issue is under active discussion between CMA, Uganda Revenue Authority and Ministry of Finance, but no resolution has been reached.

Who might actually go first?

Two candidates stand out, for different reasons. The first is NSSF, which occupies an unusual dual position. NSSF manages roughly Shs26 trillion (about $7.4b) in total assets, of which real estate accounts for around 7 percent. The Fund, in its 2024 annual report, indicated that more than 40 percent of its real estate allocation, such as 469 acres at Temangalo and 423.6 acres at Nsimbe, is undeveloped land, held partly for future development and capital appreciation.

That land, packaged into a development REIT, could bring in outside capital rather than tying up the fund’s own balance sheet for years before a project generates returns. NSSF’s real estate portfolio has, by its own disclosures, delivered underwhelming returns of around 5.6 percent in recent years, sharpening the case for a more capital-efficient use of that land. Whether NSSF’s dual role as both prospective anchor investor and issuer creates a genuine governance problem is a separate question worth its own scrutiny.

The second candidate is the private sector, involving developers already active in high-end residential and mixed-use projects who have watched Kenya’s REIT market mature and are beginning to ask whether their own unbuilt phases could be financed the same way. However, none of these point to a single fix, and that may be the real lesson. Kenya needed a decade, and a redesigned product before its REIT market found investors who wanted in. Rwanda has cleaner land records than either country and still has nothing listed. Uganda, meanwhile, has spent years narrowing its own list of obstacles like the valuation standards, lease enforceability, and registry risk, without producing an issuer.

The Civil Division of the High Court has ordered the attachment and possible auction of prime city property valued at more than Shs1b to recover Shs173m. The ruling, delivered last month by Assistant Registrar Samuel Kagoda Ntende, arises from an Execution Application, itself stemming from a Civil Suit, and directs Springs International Hotel, the debtor, to pay Shs173.36m to a group of judgment creditors within 30 days or face execution through the attachment and sale of its high-value real estate assets in Kampala. The judgment creditors in the matter include Angella Katatumba, Rugiirwa Katatumba, Charles Odere, Benson Tusasirwe and Julius Turinawe, who successfully obtained the decree against Springs International Hotel.

The targeted properties include two condominium units on Plot 2, Colville Street, which are understood to be valued at more than Shs1b. It was not immediately clear whether Springs International Hotel would or had already appealed the ruling. Phones calls to known mobile numbers of Mukesh Shukla, who controls Springs International Hotel under the Shumuk Group, went unanswered. The stark disparity between the value of the debt and of the attached properties was a central issue in court, with lawyers for Springs International arguing that allowing execution against such high-value assets would amount to excessive and unjust attachment.

The lawyers contended that the applicants had not furnished court with a valuation report to justify the attachment and had also failed to produce certificates of title to prove ownership of the properties they sought to attach, omissions which rendered the application legally defective and premature. They further argued that attaching property worth more than Shs1b to recover a debt of Shs173.36m would constitute ‘over-attachment,’ a practice generally discouraged in execution proceedings unless properly justified. However, the applicants maintained that the execution process had been lawfully initiated and that the absence of valuation reports at this stage did not invalidate their application.

Their lawyers told court that valuation is ordinarily conducted as part of the auction, under the supervision of court-appointed auctioneers, rather than as a prerequisite to attachment. They also argued that the respondent’s refusal or failure to avail title documents should not be used as a shield against execution, especially where a property search had already been conducted to identify attachable assets. Another major point of contention in the case was the existence of encumbrances on the disputed properties, with Springs Hotel International arguing that the targeted condominium units were subject to prior financial interests, including mortgages, which legally take precedence over claims by judgment creditors.

This raised the possibility that even if the properties were sold, the proceeds might first be used to settle outstanding obligations to secured creditors, leaving little or nothing to satisfy the applicants’ claim. In response, the applicants relied on established legal principles governing execution against mortgaged property, arguing that while a mortgaged property cannot be sold free of the mortgagee’s interest, the judgment debtor’s equity of redemption remains attachable. The argument, which the registrar agreed with, means that court can lawfully order the sale of a debtor’s residual interest in the property, with the proceeds distributed in order of priority.

Secured creditors are paid first, followed by judgment creditors, with any surplus returned to the debtor. Thus, court accepted this reasoning, affirming that the existence of a mortgage does not automatically shield property from execution proceedings. A case spanning multiple courts Beyond the immediate dispute, the matter is notable for its long and complex procedural history. Court records indicate that the same properties are the subject of ongoing litigation before the Court of Appeal under Civil Appeal No. 83 of 2015, involving the same parties. This overlap has effectively turned the case into a multi-layered legal battle spanning more than a decade, with proceedings running concurrently in different courts.

Lawyers for Springs International argued that the pending appeal should bar execution, warning that allowing the sale could prejudice the outcome of the appellate process. However, court rejected this argument, citing established jurisprudence that an appeal does not automatically operate as a stay of execution unless a specific stay order has been granted. Relying on precedent, court emphasised that execution proceedings may continue in the absence of a stay, even where an appeal is pending. This position reflects a broader principle aimed at preventing litigants from using appeals as a tool to indefinitely delay enforcement of court decrees.

Court directed Springs International to pay the decretal sum within 30 days from the date of the ruling, which effectively places the respondent on a tight timeline, with significant financial consequences should it fail to comply. The ruling highlights several critical issues, key among which include the tension between debt recovery and asset protection, particularly in cases where the value of attached property far exceeds the underlying liability. It also underscores the complexities associated with mortgaged property, where multiple layers of financial interest can complicate execution proceedings.

For thousands of women tilling small plots in Uganda’s refugee settlements and host communities, a failed harvest or a sudden hospital bill has long meant one thing: sell the goats, borrow at high interest, or pull children out of school.

A new pilot launched in Kampala this week is designed to change that calculus by putting money in women’s hands within hours of a shock, not months.

Women’s World Banking announced this week a partnership with Ripple to test a stablecoin-enabled insurance product for about 3,000 women smallholder farmers.

The initiative, Harnessing Stablecoins for Women’s Financial Resilience in Uganda, uses Ripple’s US dollar-backed stablecoin, Ripple USD, as the settlement engine behind the policy.

When a predefined shock occurs, such as drought, crop loss, or a health emergency, the system triggers an automatic payout that lands in local currency on a beneficiary’s mobile money account. There are no forms to file, no adjusters to wait for, and no trips to a distant office.

On the frontline of risk

For the women at the center of the pilot, the difference is practical and immediate. Most depend on rain-fed agriculture with little room to absorb risk.

Climate shocks are no longer rare. Uganda has seen more frequent droughts and floods in recent years, and between 2018 and 2020 alone, climate disasters displaced an estimated 334,000 people.

Crop failures have become more severe and less predictable, hitting subsistence farmers hardest. Women, refugees, and host communities bear the brunt because they often lack savings, credit, or insurance to fall back on.

Global research by Women’s World Banking shows that more than 800 million women worldwide have no reliable way to receive relief payments after a climate emergency.

In Uganda, that gap translates into households being forced to liquidate productive assets, cut farm investment, and take on debt just to survive a bad season. Those choices erode progress that may have taken years to build.

‘Women farmers are already managing thin margins,’ said Stephen Ambore, Policy Director for Africa at Women’s World Banking.

‘A single shock, such as a failed harvest or a health emergency, can erase years of progress. Financial resilience powers economic empowerment.

When payouts arrive in hours instead of months, women can absorb shocks without selling assets or taking on debt, allowing them to stay invested in their farms, businesses, and families and continue building long-term financial security.’

The tech behind it

The mechanics behind the speed are what make the pilot notable.

Traditional insurance in rural Uganda is slow and costly to administer.

This model combines parametric insurance with blockchain settlement.

Parametric means the payout is based on an objective trigger, like rainfall falling below a set level or a verified health event, rather than on an individual loss assessment.

Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin sits on the back end to move value instantly and transparently. Beneficiaries still receive Uganda shillings through mobile money, the channel most women already use, so the technology remains invisible to the end user.

‘As we continue exploring how stablecoins like RLUSD can support new real-world use cases, we’re excited to partner with Women’s World Banking,’ said Jonathan Perri, Director of Social Impact at Ripple.

‘This pilot demonstrates how the programmability of RLUSD can help automate insurance payouts for farmers in Uganda when predefined conditions are met, improving speed and efficiency.’ He added.

Partners on the ground

To design and deliver the product, Women’s World Banking is working with insurance technology firm Pula and with humanitarian actors already operating in refugee and host communities.

The goal is not only to pay faster, but to pay more predictably and at lower cost. By removing manual claims processing, the partners hope to reduce overheads that usually make micro-insurance unaffordable.

Beyond the payout itself, the pilot will measure whether faster money actually changes how women manage risk.

Using the Economic Empowerment Barometer developed by Women’s World Banking, researchers will track women’s ability to cope with shocks without distress sales, their confidence in making financial decisions, and their control over household resources.

Three tests, one goal

The project sets out to achieve three things in practice. It will deliver predictable, shock-responsive support covering agricultural, health, and life risks to women who currently have no access to insurance. It will demonstrate that stablecoin-backed settlement can cut payout times and increase transparency in both humanitarian aid and financial services.

And it will generate real-world evidence on whether the model can be scaled beyond Uganda to other systems facing similar climate and displacement pressures.

Women’s World Banking brings decades of experience to the effort. For more than 45 years, the organisation has worked to bring the 700 million women excluded by the formal financial sector into the economy.

As both an NGO and an investor, it partners with financial institutions and policymakers to design products for women, and since 2018 it reports having reached 118 million women and 76 million men.

Ripple, founded in 2012, provides blockchain-based enterprise solutions for payments, custody, and treasury management. Its stablecoin and related infrastructure are being tested here not as a speculative asset, but as plumbing for faster, cheaper transfers in a context where timing matters.

Why it matters now

In refugee settlements in northern Uganda and in surrounding host communities, where a dry spell can wipe out a season’s maize or a bout of malaria can drain a family’s savings, that timing is everything.

If a woman knows that support will arrive within hours of a verified shock, she is less likely to sell her last cow at a loss. She is more likely to replant, to keep her business running, and to plan beyond the next crisis.

The pilot will run with 3,000 women to start, a modest number against Uganda’s millions of smallholders. But its significance lies in the precedent.

If automatic, stablecoin-enabled payouts prove they can reach women quickly, transparently, and affordably, the model could be adapted for floods in Kasese, drought in Karamoja, or health emergencies in settlements across the country.

For the women in the program, the promise is simple: when the next shock comes, they will not have to choose between survival today and the farm they are trying to build for tomorrow. The money will come faster, and with it, a little more room to stay in control.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has defended Uganda’s decision to declare the end of its Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak before completing the conventional 42-day waiting period, saying the country prioritized stopping transmission over procedural timelines.

Uganda discharged its last confirmed Ebola patient from the National Isolation and Treatment Centre in Mulago on July 16, 2026, and officially declared the outbreak over on July 28, less than two weeks later. The move sparked debate, with some observers questioning why the country did not wait the standard 42 days after the last confirmed case.

Responding to journalists on Tuesday, WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Mohamed Yakub Janabi, said Uganda’s response should be judged by results, not timelines.

“Uganda’s actions should be judged by the effectiveness of its response rather than strict adherence to procedural timelines,” Dr Janabi said.

Dr Janabi, who is in Uganda with a delegation from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) led by Director-General Dr Jean Kaseya, noted that while Uganda had declared its outbreak over, the wider regional response was ongoing.

He said Uganda remains actively involved in efforts to contain the outbreak in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where authorities had confirmed 3,605 cases and 1,587 deaths by Monday.

Although Uganda and the DRC declared their outbreaks on the same day in May, Uganda registered only 20 confirmed cases. Fifteen of those were imported infections involving Congolese nationals who had crossed into Uganda seeking medical care.

Health Minister Dr Chris Baryomunsi said Uganda has since shifted focus to supporting the response in eastern DRC. “As of Monday, 58 Ugandan health specialists had been deployed to Kasenyi, on the western shores of Lake Albert in Ituri Province, as well as Aru Territory, which borders Uganda’s Arua District,” Dr Baryomunsi said.

Both WHO and Africa CDC described Uganda’s handling of the outbreak as a model for other countries. They noted Uganda recorded a case fatality rate of about 10 per cent, compared to approximately 44 per cent in the DRC, where nearly half of confirmed patients have died.

Despite the international praise, Uganda’s response faced criticism domestically. Some officials questioned whether an outbreak needed to be declared at all, arguing it would damage the economy.

Allan Kasujja, Executive Director of the Uganda Media Centre and the government’s communications lead during the outbreak, repeatedly argued that Uganda was being unfairly grouped with the DRC in announcements despite dealing largely with imported cases and a handful of infected health workers.

Asked about the concerns, Dr Janabi said WHO had been clear on Uganda’s situation. “WHO had consistently communicated that Uganda was responding to imported cases and rejected suggestions that the organisation had misrepresented the country’s situation,” he said.

Meanwhile, Africa CDC Director-General Dr Jean Kaseya criticised the United States for maintaining travel restrictions on Uganda despite the successful containment. Kaseya described the restrictions as unnecessary and accused the U.S. of applying double standards. “France had also reported an imported Ebola Bundibugyo case from the DRC but had not faced similar travel measures,” Dr Kaseya said.

Annual headline inflation rose to 4 percent over the 12 months to July, driven largely by increased costs of housing, water, and electricity. The increase marks the highest inflation level recorded since September 2025, reflecting a steady rise in the cost of goods and services across the economy.

Ms Juliet Nakyenga, the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (Ubos) principal statistician for price statistics, said the increase was mainly influenced by rising prices in key consumption categories.

‘ … the main driver of the 4 percent inflation was housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, which rose by 6.7 percent in the year ending July, compared to 4.9 percent recorded in the same period June,’ she said.

The Classification of Individual Consumption According to Purpose framework enables economists to measure price changes across different categories of household consumption, providing critical data for policy formulation aimed at maintaining price stability. Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels carry a weight of 104.1617 in the Consumer Price Index, making it the second most influential category after food and non-alcoholic beverages, which has a weight of 270.5390. During the same period, food and non-alcoholic beverages inflation rose to 3.1 percent, up from 2.6 percent recorded in June.

Transport costs also continued to climb, with inflation in the sector increasing to 9.3 percent in July 2026 from 8.8 percent the previous month. Transport inflation reflects rising costs of moving people and goods, often driven by higher fuel prices, public transport fares, and freight charges. Ubos data further shows increases in other categories, with furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance recording a rise to 2.9 percent in July from 2.5 percent in June. Alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics inflation increased slightly to 1 percent from 0.6 percent, while clothing and footwear saw a marginal increase to 1.3 percent from 1.2 percent in June.

Education services inflation remained unchanged at 5.7 percent, while insurance and financial services inflation eased to 10.1 percent from 12.6 percent in June. Recreation, sports and cultural services recorded a slight decline to 0.7 percent from 0.9 percent, while restaurant and accommodation services inflation edged down to 3.2 percent from 3.3 percent. Health sector inflation dropped to 1.6 percent in July 2026 from 1.8 percent in June.

Information and communication services inflation remained relatively stable at 1.0 percent, compared to 1.1 percent in June. Personal care, social protection and miscellaneous goods and services inflation stood at 1.8 percent in July 2026, slightly down from 1.9 percent recorded in June. Despite the increase in headline inflation, annual core inflation, which excludes volatile items such as food and energy, remained unchanged at 3.2 percent. Bank of Uganda relies on core inflation as a key indicator for monetary policy decisions, targeting an inflation rate of 5 percent to ensure economic stability.

Every entrepreneur plans for growth. Few plan for the day the business cannot open its doors.

Yet disruption rarely gives notice. A landlord sells the building, as tenants across Kampala’s downtown arcades have learned. Roadworks cut off access.

A trusted employee resigns. A regulator changes the rules. As the pandemic reminded us, circumstances beyond management’s control can bring even a thriving business to a standstill.

The lesson is not that every disruption can be prevented. It is that resilience cannot be built after a crisis begins.

Too many businesses mistake an operation for an institution. An operation depends on people, relationships, and routine. An institution depends on systems that survive change.

Hospitality has offered me the clearest illustration. A business that remains closed for almost a year does not simply pause. Customers develop new habits. Employees find new opportunities. Supplier relationships weaken.

Costs change. Owners often imagine they are reopening the same business. In reality, they are building a new one. Sometimes, without the name, assets, and lessons of the old.

Some businesses never recover at all. Research using Uganda Bureau of Statistics business records puts average business survival at under five years. A major disruption is often the event that exposes weaknesses already present.

Those weaknesses usually have little to do with markets and everything to do with systems. Many businesses rely on a handful of individuals.

One employee knows every supplier. Another controls customer records. One manager understands the accounts. The owner approves every important decision. It appears efficient, until one of those people becomes unavailable.

A resilient business spreads knowledge instead of concentrating it. It documents critical processes, cross-trains employees and ensures that essential information belongs to the organisation, not to one person’s phone, notebook or memory.

The same principle applies to procurement. Businesses should not depend on one supplier or one employee’s personal relationships.

Strong systems compare prices, document purchases, establish approval limits and identify alternative suppliers before they are urgently needed.

Every enterprise should periodically ask itself a simple question: Could this business continue if the people, premises or routines we depend on today suddenly changed?

If the answer is no, the business has identified a risk while there is still time to reduce it. Whether the business is a restaurant, medical practice or media house, the challenge is the same.

Its value should not exist only in a building or in the owner’s head. It should exist in the systems, knowledge, relationships and culture that can survive disruption.

Growth without institutional strength simply creates a bigger fragile business.

The real test of a business is not whether it can operate on an ordinary Monday. It is whether, after the doors close unexpectedly, enough of the business remains to open them again.

Governments often embrace signature projects. Uganda’s mandatory monthly National Cleaning Day, however, revives an older model of state-directed mass mobilisation. Mirroring Rwanda’s Umuganda, it raises fundamental questions about liberty, civic responsibility, and the expanding reach of government. Clean cities are desirable.

Cleaner politics would be even better. The real question is not whether Uganda should be clean. It absolutely should.

The question is whether government should clean Uganda by commandeering the labour of every citizen or by creating an economy capable of employing people whose profession is keeping Uganda clean. That distinction is the difference between a market economy and a command economy.

Older East Africans have seen this movie before. In the 1960s and 1970s, President Julius Nyerere advanced Ujamaa-African socialism-as Tanzania’s development philosophy. Villagization schemes encouraged or compelled citizens into collective organisation under the belief that the State could better direct production and communal life than markets. The intentions were noble.

The economics were not. History remembers Ujamaa less for prosperity than for inefficiency, declining productivity, shortages, and excessive state control over ordinary life. Today’s Uganda is not Tanzania of the 1970s. Nor is a monthly cleaning exercise equivalent to Ujamaa.

Yet ideas matter because governments often reveal their governing philosophy through seemingly small policies. When government increasingly believes that national problems are solved by directing citizens rather than enabling enterprise, one begins to see echoes-not replicas-of the paternalistic state that characterised many post-independence socialist experiments.

The broom is only symbolic. The governing philosophy behind it deserves scrutiny. Economists have a simple observation. Whenever government can obtain labour for free, it has less incentive to build institutions that provide it professionally. Suppose one million Ugandans spend three hours cleaning.

That is three million labour-hours every month. Imagine instead if even a fraction of that effort were converted into paid employment. Thousands of sanitation companies could emerge. Youth-owned garbage collection firms. Community recycling businesses. Waste-to-energy startups. Private drainage maintenance contractors.

Urban landscaping companies. Environmental technology enterprises. Entire industries. Instead, Uganda has chosen the cheaper political option. Free labour. Nothing creates the illusion of governmental efficiency quite like persuading citizens to perform government services themselves. The roads remain unrepaired. Drainage remains poorly designed. Municipal waste management remains underfunded.

The countries admired for their cleanliness are rarely clean because citizens periodically receive orders to sweep. They are clean because markets function. Waste collection is an industry. Recycling is an industry. Environmental services are an industry.

Cleaning employs people. Garbage generates revenue. Innovation reduces waste. Entrepreneurs compete to provide better sanitation services. Government regulates. Businesses deliver. Citizens pay taxes. Everyone wins. That is how mature capitalist economies solve sanitation-not by temporarily converting lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants and entrepreneurs into municipal employees one Saturday every month.

Uganda should aspire to become a corporate republic, where sanitation itself becomes an economic sector capable of employing tens of thousands of Ugandans. Imagine if government offered tax incentives to sanitation companies. Procurement opportunities to youth cooperatives. Municipal service contracts to startups.

Investment incentives for recycling plants. Innovation grants for waste management technology. The result would be cleaner cities, higher employment and increased tax revenue.

Capitalism, unlike compulsory civic labour, pays people to solve public problems. Uganda’s Constitution protects liberty, movement, and economic activity.

Any recurring nationwide restrictions must satisfy constitutional standards of legality, necessity, and proportionality. Governments should not normalise emergency-style governance for ordinary administration. Civic participation is strongest when inspired by trust, not enforced compliance. This is not an argument against civic responsibility.

Communities should care for their surroundings. Neighbours should organise, schools should teach environmental stewardship, religious institutions should encourage service. Voluntary community action strengthens democracy and compulsory civic labour strengthens the State. Those are different constitutional philosophies.

A confident republic builds institutions that make cleanliness ordinary. An insecure one periodically mobilises citizens to compensate for institutional failure.

Uganda deserves the former. Uganda needs a clean economy, not merely a cleaning day. Create sanitation jobs, strengthen municipalities, and reward innovation.

Young leaders from across Africa have called for greater investment in youth-led solutions, arguing that the continent’s future will depend on empowering young people to influence policy, create jobs and drive innovation rather than treating them as passive beneficiaries of development.

The message dominated discussions at the opening of the 2026 Billi Now Now (BNN) Youth Summit in Kampala today (Wednesday), where hundreds of young entrepreneurs, innovators, policymakers and development partners gathered to explore practical solutions to Africa’s development challenges.

Opening the three-day summit, Reach A Hand Africa Chief Executive Officer Humphrey Nabimanya said Africa’s greatest resource is not its vast natural wealth but the energy, creativity and resilience of its young population.

“Our future is not something we wait for; it is something we build,” Mr Nabimanya said, referring to this year’s theme, “Africa Recharged: Youth Power. Bold Voices. Real Change.”

He said despite making up the largest share of Africa’s population, many young people continue to be excluded from decisions that shape their future.

“For too long, young people have been invited into conversations after decisions have already been made. Too often, youth engagement has been symbolic instead of meaningful. Young people are not beneficiaries of development; they are the architects of Africa’s future,” he said.

Mr Nabimanya said the Billi Now Now Movement was founded to connect young Africans who are already solving problems through entrepreneurship, technology, community organising, advocacy and innovation.

According to him, the movement aims to strengthen collaboration among youth leaders while promoting locally driven solutions to challenges such as unemployment, poor access to education, climate change and limited economic opportunities.

The summit also marked the transition of Reach A Hand Uganda into Reach A Hand Africa, a move that expands the organisation’s work to Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and Burundi.

Mr Nabimanya said the expansion reflects the reality that young Africans face similar challenges regardless of national borders.

“We are creating partnerships that allow young people to learn from one another and build solutions that respond to local realities across the continent,” he said.

He said that the summit was deliberately designed to move beyond speeches by encouraging participants to develop practical ideas that can be implemented within their communities.

“This is not another conference. We are here to build partnerships, influence policy and turn ideas into action. What starts as a conversation here should become lasting impact,” he said.

Mr Nabimanya added that the BNN Movement is entering a new phase following the exit of Planned Parenthood Global, creating an opportunity for African organisations to build a locally owned and sustainable youth movement.

Over the next three days, delegates will discuss six priority areas: health, education, climate action, entrepreneurship, creative and cultural industries, and responsible technology to produce practical solutions that can be adopted across the continent.

“We want every participant to leave with more than inspiration. We want them to leave with partnerships, mentors, opportunities and concrete commitments to improve their communities,” he said.

Hardy Ruremesha, Executive Director of Spring Communities in Burundi, said that African youth should view local challenges as opportunities to innovate rather than obstacles to progress.

He shared how his organisation transforms plastic waste into environmentally friendly products, creating jobs while tackling environmental degradation.

“We are not the leaders of tomorrow; we are the leaders of today. When young people are trusted and supported, they create jobs, improve education, protect the environment and inspire hope,” Mr Ruremesha said.

He urged delegates to return home determined to turn their ideas into practical solutions capable of improving lives within their communities.

The summit is expected to produce youth-led action plans and policy recommendations aimed at strengthening young people’s participation in governance, entrepreneurship, climate action and technological innovation across Africa.

Kenyan youth leader Rasheed Mutaha said that Africa’s young people must remain adaptable and embrace emerging technologies to remain competitive in a rapidly changing world.

“Our voices are here to create change. We are not simply participants; we are helping shape the next chapter of the BNN Movement,” Mr Mutaha said.

He described artificial intelligence and digital platforms as powerful tools for learning, innovation and civic participation, urging young people to use them responsibly to address community challenges.

Mr Mutaha cited consultations conducted in several African countries, which found that 85 percent of young people want greater access to resources and decision-making, while 84 percent believe technology and digital platforms are shaping their economic and social opportunities.

He said ideas generated during the summit would be developed into community projects, linked to funding opportunities and translated into policy recommendations.

About Bill Now Now

The Billi Now Now (BNN) Movement is a pan-African youth platform that connects young leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs and civil society organisations to co-create solutions to Africa’s development challenges. The 2026 summit, held under the theme “Africa Recharged: Youth Power. Bold Voices. Real Change.

Officials of the Opposition People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) party have welcomed a move by Uganda Law Society (ULS) leaders to join the search for its mobiliser and political activist Sam Mugumya, who went missing about a year ago.

Mr Harold Kaija, the PFF deputy secretary general, told Monitor that ULS made the right decision because Mr Mugumya deserves to regain his freedom.

‘We are optimistic that this search will yield results and have our comrade regain his freedom because he has suffered for almost a year detained in a place no one knows,’ he said.

Mr Kaija was moved to comment barely a day after Mugumya’s mother, Ms Edinansi Katungwesi, petitioned the ULS president to intervene in the matter.

Ms Katungwesi, in an August 3 letter to ULS president Isaac Ssemakadde, through his deputy, Mr Anthony Asiimwe, requested the law body to help her find her missing son.

‘My son Sam Mugumya was abducted on August 26, 2025 in Mbarara…from that day I have never seen him until recently when I saw a video and photo of him struggling to get up, and I got hope that he is still alive,’ the letter read in part.

It added: ‘When he disappeared, I reported the case to the police, but I have never gotten assistance to date. I don’t know where he is, I have never heard from him. That is why I am pleading with the Uganda Law Society to help me find him.’

The desperate mother handed over this letter to Mr Asiimwe, who had led a delegation of ULS officials to visit her at her Rukungiri-based home on Monday, August 3.

Mr Asiimwe told Monitor yesterday that ULS has already kicked off the process of fighting for Mr Mugumya’s freedom.

‘We have started by calling upon the relevant authorities who may be holding him to present him to court if he has any case to answer, or release him; and if that fails, we shall write to relevant authorities and use all other means to ensure that he regains his freedom,’ he said.

Mr Asiimwe added: ‘We call upon whoever is responsible to respect dignity and the rule of law, and to release Sam Mugumya. If he committed offences, let him be produced in court because he has rights.

But he is being mistreated, which is very bad.’ Mr Mugumya, a former Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) mobiliser, was reportedly abducted on August 26, 2025, while having breakfast at NIM Hotel in Nyamitanga, Mbarara City. Witnesses said armed men believed to be security operatives, bundled him into a van and drove away.

His family has since pursued habeas corpus applications, but authorities have neither produced him in court nor publicly acknowledged holding him. His disappearance came less than three years after his return from the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he spent more than eight years in detention after his 2014 arrest on allegations of plotting rebellion against the government.

He was never formally tried and was released in October 2022.

Mr Ssemakadde recently wrote to Security Minister Gen Jim Muhwezi demanding the immediate release or presentation of Mr Mugumya in court in case he has a case to answer. This was after the Opposition National Unity Platform NUP) party president Robert Kyagulanyi on July 31 posted on his official X platform a video that appeared to show a person who looks like the missing Mugumya.

‘Here is a leaked video of comrade Sam Mugumya, who remains missing since his abduction in August last year. The video was apparently leaked from an unknown detention facility where he is held incommunicado,’ Mr Kyagulanyi said.

He added: ‘He appears crippled; unable to walk without a walking frame — evidence of the effects of the torture he has suffered since abduction.

Meanwhile, the regime continues to deny any knowledge of his whereabouts! But one day, those responsible for these crimes will be held accountable.’ Gen Jim Muhwezi, when contacted yesterday, declined to speak to Monitor about the matter during the phone interview.

‘I cannot discuss this sensitive security matter on the phone…,’ Gen Muhwezi said and hung up the call. President Museveni on Monday said he has never at any point ordered the torture of any of his opponents.

Mr Museveni, in a statement he wrote in response to journalist Andrew Mwenda’s claims that one of the informers of the President was a fraudster, said some elements in the country’s security organs have made it a habit to torture people, yet his government does not support that.

The President, in the Monday statement, described torture, maiming and extra-judicial killings as contrary to the ideals upon which the National Resistance Army (NRA) fought during the liberation struggle. ‘Coming back to torture, let alone maiming, these are immoral, counter-revolutionary, not strategic and not necessary for we the freedom fighters,’ Mr Museveni wrote.

He added: ‘In the last 56 years I have been fighting, I have never tortured, or ordered anybody to torture, an opponent.’

The President said the NRA and later the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) had always defeated opponents without resorting to torture, warning that security personnel should not commit abuses while enforcing the law.

‘Nevertheless, the UPDF and the other security forces, in fighting impunity, should not commit their own crimes, such as torture, extra-judicial killings, etc. As already said, those mistakes are not moral, ideologically correct or strategic.’

Legal experts and political players have now asked the President to walk the talk on torture and abductions.

‘I condemn the way security men abduct people and keep them with no whereabouts. I urge the government, through ULS, to help and produce Sam Mugumya,’ said Mr Mugyeni Gashom, the PFF Electoral Commissioner for Rukungiri District.

Mr Asiimwe said ULS is also demanding the release of other political prisoners being held without trial. Mugumya’s mother, Ms Edinansi Katungwesi, engaged with the ULS vice president, Mr Anthony Asiimwe, in Rukungiri District.