Category: Daily Monitor

Ugandan football has been plunged into mourning following the tragic death of Sports Club Villa captain David Owori, who succumbed to severe injuries on Wednesday morning following a violent assault by unidentified assailants near his residence in Makindye, Kampala.

The 27-year-old utility player passed away at Case Clinic in Kampala, where he had been fighting for his life in critical condition following the Tuesday night ambush. Owori was initially rushed to the medical facility while conscious by his close friend and former Villa teammate, Nicholas Kabonge, before his condition deteriorated rapidly.

“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the untimely passing of our captain, David Owori, who had been receiving treatment at Case Clinic following an attack by suspected thugs,” SC Villa announced in an official statement released on Wednesday, August 5, 2026. “Our deepest condolences and prayers are with his family. Rest in peace, Captain.”

Elaborating on the horrific incident, SC Villa Spokesperson Asan Kasingye confirmed that the player was targeted just outside his home.

“The player was ambushed by thugs around 8:00 PM as he approached his home, leaving him with life-threatening injuries before he was rushed to the medical facility,” Kasingye stated.

Owori’s tragic death highlights a worrying surge in urban criminality across Kampala and surrounding areas, where athletes, public figures, and ordinary citizens have increasingly fallen victim to violent street gangs and home invasions. The incident has renewed public outrage over safety concerns for local sports personalities who often navigate vulnerable residential neighborhoods without personal security details or adequate protection.

Born on September 23, 1998, in Tororo to Eriasaf Osinde and Bena Nyadio, Owori’s football journey began at Nsambya Young Stars Academy before moving through Wembley Soccer Academy and Lukuli United.

He launched his senior career at Vipers SC in 2016 and briefly featured for Proline FC before securing his initial move to SC Villa in 2018. Owori spent three years with the Jogoos before taking his talents to Europe, where he enjoyed stints with Spanish outfit Vélez CF (2021-2022) and Swedish side Utsiktens BK (2022-2023).

Renowned for his tactical discipline, exceptional work rate, and ability to feature across midfield, defense, and attack, the versatile player rejoined SC Villa in February 2023 as the club’s longest-serving squad member across his two spells. Owori played a pivotal role as the team ended a two-decade title drought to claim their 17th Uganda Premier League crown in 2024.

His stellar leadership and consistency led the club to reward him with a contract extension through January 2027. Owori was also a regular feature in the national team setup, having been summoned for the Uganda Cranes’ AFCON 2021 qualification campaign and widely tipped for further senior caps.

Owori’s final appearance for the 17-time league champions came just days ago on Saturday, August 1, when he captained Villa to a 1-1 draw against Maroons FC in the first leg of the FUFA Super 8 quarterfinals.

The SC Villa executive management is expected to address the media regarding funeral arrangements and press law enforcement authorities for a swift investigation to bring his killers to justice.

Companies and individuals not registered on the government’s electronic procurement platform will no longer be eligible to bid for public contracts as the government accelerates the rollout of its digital procurement system across public entities.

The shift to the Electronic Government Procurement (eGP 2.0) platform is expected to eliminate manual paper-based procurement, reduce procurement timelines and curb opportunities for corruption by moving the entire process online.

Under the new system, suppliers will submit bids, receive notifications, sign contracts and complete procurement transactions electronically from any location with Internet access.

Speaking on Monday, the Acting Accountant General in the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, Mr Godfrey Ssemugooma, said registration on the platform is now mandatory for all firms seeking government business.

Warning

‘Suppliers who are not enrolled on the electronic platform will automatically be kicked out of government,’ Mr Ssemugooma said, urging all prospective contractors to register on the system.

He said the digital platform will replace manual procedures that have long characterised public procurement, including newspaper advertisements, physical submission of bid documents, in-person bid openings.

‘Currently the accounting officers are publishing tenders in the newspapers, issuing and receiving bid documents manually, doing bid opening in person, and signing contracts manually. All these processes are going to be electronic,’ he said.

According to Mr Ssemugooma, the reforms will reduce procurement timelines by as much as half, with some processes expected to fall from 10 days to five days, while also cutting administrative costs and eliminating opportunities for bid document tampering.

He added that the system is integrated with the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) and the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), allowing automatic verification of suppliers’ compliance records. ‘This automation will minimise human contact.

All suppliers not on the system will not be able to work with the government. In the manual environment, people could attach forged documents, but in the electronic system, submission is done at once,’ he said.

However, Mr Ssemugooma acknowledged that the success of the reforms will depend on continued investment in internet connectivity, computer infrastructure, cybersecurity and data protection.

The Ministry of Finance and the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) rolled out eGP 2.0 to another 100 public entities on July 20, bringing the total number of institutions using the platform to 136.

The latest phase covers 46 government agencies, eight cities, nine districts, two ministries, seven municipal councils, 12 public universities and 16 regional referral hospitals, among other institutions.

Government plans to onboard at least 100 public entities every financial year, with the goal of migrating all 441 procuring and disposing entities to the electronic platform by 2029.

Manual system blamed for delays

For years, suppliers have been required to print bulky bid documents, transport them physically to procuring entities, attend bid openings in person and follow lengthy approval procedures involving multiple offices before contracts could be awarded. Officials say the process increased costs and delayed service delivery.

Ms Hermieon Nakabugo of the Capital Markets Authority said the manual system was particularly inefficient for urgent procurements. She explained that procurement requests had to pass through user departments, procurement and disposal units, procurement committees, evaluation committees and accounting officers before a contract could be awarded.

‘In some cases the procurement could take a minimum of six weeks, which is a long time, especially if the procurement is urgent,’ she said.

Greater transparency

PPDA officials say the electronic system will improve transparency by giving suppliers automated updates throughout the procurement process.

Ms Mariam Baluka, the senior officer for procurement and disposal capacity building at PPDA, said the platform would make procurement more open and predictable.

‘Now we don’t have to print procurement plans, bid documents, or evaluation committee paperwork; we shall not be getting complaints from suppliers on why their bids are not successful,’ she said.

She added that public entities already migrated to the system are no longer permitted to advertise tenders in newspapers.

‘The entities rolled out to the digital systems are not allowed to advertise in the newspapers. Bidders interested in doing business are urged to register on the system, advertise on the system, and submit,’ Ms Baluka said.

Schools across the country are entering the final bend of the penultimate term of the 2026 academic year.

As learners prepare to write their second term papers, the report card that has been stitched together thus far makes for grim reading. It has been an eventful, if not challenging, year for learners as much as those who put them through school.

This is no small part thanks to the litany of trips and other such events stacked across a term that, perhaps unsurprisingly, come at a fee widely described by different schools-private or public-as modest. The consequences are anything but.

The unfortunate episode that played out when a contingent from King David Junior School made what turned out to be an ill-fated trip to the sleepy eastern district of Kapchorwa has placed a welcome spotlight on a pain point. To be clear, this is one of many pain points known to have subsisted for a protracted spell amidst the commercialisation of education in the country.

After scores of pupils from King David Junior School perished in the ghastly accident on Chekwatit Hill last month, the Government of Uganda (GoU) announced a temporary ban on school trips.

This, it added, is until an investigation into the matter reaches a logical conclusion. While the intervention is welcome, it pretty much underscores the GoU’s long-standing tradition of playing the proverbial ostrich: the head is always buried in the sand.

There is no great secret to, or difficulty in, understanding why a growing number of schools in the country are opting to turn trips into an out-and-out cash cow. It is precisely the reason why learners will, in the coming days, break off from school a couple of weeks before the second term officially ends.

This modus operandi has been normalised so much so that parents/guardians of learners have stopped complaining.

Such overt actions help the sheer number of schools that dot the country to balance their ledgers. It should not be hard to figure out that a school can save an astronomical amount of money when learners take their second term break earlier than usual. Money that would have been spent on energy, water and food bills, to mention but three, ends up going to the school’s piggy bank.

This is no small beer, especially if it is taken together with what is typically saved after keeping operating costs during school trips dangerously low. This tacit knowledge has been accessible to the GoU for as long as one can remember.

The non-response has always been blamed on the fact that since the early 1990s the GoU liberalised the economy. This, the excuse further proffers, makes any intervention from the GoU that much difficult. It has taken the editable deaths of pupils whilst on a school trip for the GoU to have a change of tack.

Even then, no one is holding their breath. Many, in fact, are convinced that responsible authorities will do no more than paper over cracks since they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. We can only hope that the doubting Thomases will be left eating humble pie.

If this turns out to be the case, it will no doubt be a win-win. For now, it remains on a slippery slope. Much like the one at Chekwatit Hill.

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.

On July 25, Ugandans from all works of life participated in the inaugural National Cleaning Day. The National Cleaning Day will be held on the last Saturday of the month. The cleaning activities conducted countrywide are scheduled to take place from 7am to 10am.

We commend the government for this initiative because cleanliness is next to godliness, and we call upon everybody to embrace it because it is for the public good. A clean environment and observing personal hygiene keeps diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and dysentery at bay.

A healthy population is able to contribute better towards the social and economic development of the nation. When citizens are constantly falling sick because of preventable sanitation-related diseases, money that should have been spent on other pressing issues is diverted, leading to stagnation of individual and community growth. Cleanliness must always be observed at a personal and community level. The government must use all communication channels to constantly sensitise the populace about the National Cleaning Day and the importance of cleanliness.

To maintain a clean environment, we call upon residents of urban areas to stop dumping garbage in drainage canals. Littering, which is rampant in urban towns and cities across the country, must also stop henceforth. Garbage must be placed in waste bins, and the authorities in urban areas must ensure that these are placed in strategic places that can easily be accessed by the public.

Those who litter should be penalised to deter others from engaging in this vice. The government must also diligently implement the law that compels operators of public transport vehicles to equip them with waste bins. Passengers on buses and taxis are key contributors to littering, throwing rubbish out of vehicles because there is nowhere to put waste in the vehicles.

Buses and taxis without waste bins should be stopped from transporting passengers. When filled up, the authorities must ensure that the garbage bins are emptied without delay, and the garbage is disposed of in a manner that does not endanger the health of the public and does not degrade the environment. The government must also ensure that cities and towns have enough garbage trucks to enable the authorities in these areas to manage waste properly. Furthermore, the authorities in urban areas must build enough public toilets and ensure that the cost of using them is affordable to stop the habit of open urination and defecation.

From the launch of the National Cleaning Day campaign to strengthen disease prevention efforts, to the Minister of Health declaring Uganda Ebola virus-free after months of surveillance and response, the month was marked by key milestones in the health sector.

National Cleaning Day launched

The government launched the National Cleaning Day Programme on July 25, a fresh initiative which has attracted praise for cleaner streets in several areas while exposing deep systemic gaps in urban garbage collection and management.

While launching the initiative in Kampala last week, Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja said this would be essential in preventing common diseases and ensuring a productive population.

Around 75 percent of diseases in the country are preventable, according to statistics from the government. ‘A clean Uganda cannot be achieved by the government alone,’ Ms Nabbanja noted, adding, ‘it requires commitment of every citizen.’

The Prime Minister said: ‘Let us embrace this initiative and make responsible waste management a national culture. Together, let us build a cleaner, healthier and more productive Uganda.’

Ms Nabbanja also announced that the National Cleaning Day will be observed every last Saturday of each month, with the activity running from 7am to 10am across the country.

All movement and non-essential activities in the country, except emergencies, are stopped, and this is enforced by security (Police).

But leaders of the Seventh Day Adventists (SDA) say the government should reconsider the earmarking of Saturday because it’s their day of worship.

The leaders say the scriptures do not permit them to engage in such activities, yet they also wish to participate in the cleaning event.

‘I wish to assure you (SDA members) that the Church leadership is actively engaging the government in a spirit of mutual respect to seek an amicable solution that upholds both the national objective and our constitutional freedom of worship,’ Pr Samuel Kajoba, the president of Uganda Union Mission, SDA, said in a July 24 statement.

‘Among the proposals presented is that Seventh Day Adventist members participate in the cleaning exercise on either Friday or Sunday, as may be agreed upon by both parties,’ he added.

But the government has not yet issued any formal statement to indicate an adjustment.

The government says on cleaning days, the members of the public are encouraged to take part in the cleaning exercise and resume normal activities at 10am.

The cleaning can be done around homes, on roads (unblocking drainage channels and sweeping the roads), clearing overgrown grass, cleaning markets and places of worship, among others.

Logistically, the government seemed ill-prepared for the event as heaps of cabbage were abandoned after the exercise was concluded, with some blocking roads and disrupting traffic in many parts of Kampala.

Uganda declared Ebola-free

On July 28, Health minister Dr Chris Baryomunsi declared Uganda Ebola free. The minister explained that the declaration was made after the mandated 42 days elapsed without registering any new infection from the time of the last discharge of a Ugandan Ebola patient from hospital on June 16.

The country had for the past over three months faced several international travel bans due to the deadly virus.

Information from the Ministry of Health indicated that a total of 20 Ebola cases were registered in Uganda since the outbreak in May.

Fifteen of the cases were imported into the country from the neighbouring DRC, according to the Ministry. Of the 20 cases, there were two deaths, while 18 of the patients recovered after successful treatment.

Health experts say the 10 percent case fatality rate is an indication of advancement in quality of treatment when compared to the previous two outbreaks of the Ebola Bundibugyo strain in Uganda and DRC.

In the previous outbreaks, death rates were between 30 and 50 percent among infected people.

Field visits

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Local Government started conducting unannounced visits to public health facilities and other infrastructure sites.

These visits, which are often accompanied by altercations between the Ministry officials and the health workers and videos being shared on social media platforms by State minister of Local Government Justine Nameere, have attracted mixed reactions in the general public and among health professionals.

Members of the public on social media said the initiative will address critical gaps in the sector like staff absenteeism and corruption, especially in health facilities, which increase waiting times and affect access to care.

Drug shops licensing row

A bitter regulatory battle between the Ministry of Health and the Allied Health Professionals Council (AHPC) over the legal mandate to license drug shops operated by dispensers.

The row stems from a ministry directive requiring AHPC to stop licensing drug shops, arguing that the National Drug and Health Products Authority Act, 2026, gives the National Drug Authority (NDA) exclusive powers to license premises dealing in medicines.

‘AHPC must cease and desist from licensing drug shops or premises dealing in drugs. Any allied health professional intending to operate a drug shop must first obtain approval from NDA,’ The Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary, Dr Diana Atwine, stated in a June 11 letter.

The ministry further warned that facilities found stocking medicines without NDA approval would be considered to be operating illegally. However, AHPC rejected the directive.

In its response by the chairperson, Prof John Charles Okiria, the council said it did not seek guidance from the ministry and insisted that its legal mandate to license dispensers’ health units remains intact.

AHPC argued that the Allied Health Professionals Act, Cap 296, and the National Drug and Health Products Authority Act 6, 2026, should not be interpreted as competing laws but as complementary legislation that assigns different responsibilities to different regulators.

‘Section 28(a) and other sections of the founding law remain operational because Parliament did not repeal them when enacting the new drug law,’ said Prof Okiria.

Masaka District is on verge of losing the opportunity to host a regional industrial hub due to failure to provide suitable piece of land for the project.

According to Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives officials, the piece of land identified at Mazigo Village in Bukakkata Sub-county where President Museveni laid a foundation stone in 2015 was found to be waterlogged and unfit for the project.

“There is no reason why Masaka should be excluded. Let leaders do their part by identifying a suitable site as we requested them then other steps will follow,”

Mr Deogratious Masagazi, the undersecretary at the Trade ministry said last week. This was while he addressed a trade symposium in Masaka City to sensitise stakeholders from the 10 districts of the sub-region about the ministry’s responsibilities and available business opportunities.

This followed complaints raised by leaders led by Mr Vincent Kasumba, the chairperson of Masaka City Development Forum, that the government has sidelined Masaka in many development projects.

‘For long, we have been wondered why this sub-region was left out on the issue of industrial parks yet the site was launched by the President? How then will we fight unemployment in the area?” Kasumba noted

Mr Andrew Musoke, a senior planner at the ministry explained that since the ministry wrote back to the district over queries about the land at Mazigo, no response has been given.

‘Shifting the blame to us [government] is unfair. We responded with clear issues that make the proposed site unfit but since then they have fallen silent. It’s the leadership that has not played its part,’ he added.

Mr Kasumba insisted that the only hurdle is lack of proper coordination, not failure to get appropriate land. ‘It’s really absurd that leaders haven’t accorded this issue maximum attention yet the area is grappling with high rates of youth unemployment. The project can be a game-changer and I believe it’s high time to resurrect it,’ he said.

In 2023, government resurrected this idea during President Museveni’s wealth creation tour in the sub-region.

Later, the then state minister for Investment, Ms Evelyn Anite, during a public rally at Masaka Liberation Square in Masaka City, said the President had instructed them to relocate the project to Sango-Bay estate land in neigbouring Kyotera District. But since then, no extra steps were taken to actualise this idea.

Save the foundation stone laid by President Museveni on June 18, 2015, the piece of land at Mazigo Village has remained idle for 11 years.

Proposed terms The grand project was initially spearheaded by Chinese investors through China African Friendship Association Uganda in partnership with Chinese Schuan Province who were expected to inject $300m with an anticipation to benefit over 40,000 locals.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding signed between Masaka District and the Chinese under the above consortium, the former was required to provide free land for the industrial park.

Mr John Kakande, the Masaka District chairperson, pledged to revisit this proposal, saying they can get another public land in the district or partner with private people with large chunks of land.

‘The industrial park is one of the key items on my agenda being one of the major opportunities for curbing rampant unemployment,’ he said during a phone interview.

In the same meeting, business operators led by Mr Edrisah Mugerwa, a manager at Kabonera Coffee Growers’ Cooperative Society asked the ministry to support them to access value addition equipment to enable them export processed goods.

Mr Masagazi urged business operators and cooperatives’ leadership to always approach the ministry so as to benefit from the wide range of services ranging from affordable capital and support to access both local and international markets, among others.

Greater Masaka previously hosted several factories and processing plants, predominantly established by the Asians. However, the old factories depreciated and eventually collapsed following the Asians’ expulsion in 1972.

The political insurgencies that followed led to the collapse of even the few that had remained. Some of these include Victoria Tea Factory (Mukungwe Sub-county), Cannery Bottling Plant (Kimaanya/Kyabakuza Division) plus a tea factory and coffee processing plants (Bukomansimbi and Kalungu districts, respectively).

The Bunyala Cultural Institution in Kayunga District has dismissed as “mere drama” a recent move by a section of Ssabanyala Maj (Rtd) Baker Kimeze’s family members to elect another cultural leader.

Last month, some offspring of the late Nathan Mpagi, the first Ssabanyala and father of the reigning Ssabanyala Baker Kimeze Byarufu II, convened a meeting in Kyerima Village, Kitimbwa sub-county, during which they elected Fred Sseruzi, Kimeze’s elder brother, as the “new Ssabanyala”.

The election marked the peak of a long-standing land dispute between Ssabanyala Kimeze and some family members, who claim he illegally sold off about 570 acres of family land in Bbaale.

Mr Kimeze has dismissed the claims. He says the land had been used by his late father for grazing but did not belong to the family.

“The land was entrusted to our father by a friend who remained with a title deed,” Ssabanyala Kimeze said during an interview in June. The land was later sold by Ms Sarah Nanyonga to a sugar cane growing company.

A fortnight ago, some of Mpagi’s family members announced they had passed a vote of no confidence against Ssabanyala Kimeze and subsequently appointed Mr Fred Sseruzi as the “new Ssabanyala”.

But Bunyala Cultural Institution spokesperson Samuel Bukenya said the alleged election had no basis in the institution’s constitution.

“They [family members] are just acting and we are treating their acts as mere drama. None of the clan leaders was involved in the alleged election of the cultural leader as the Bunyala constitution stipulates,” Mr Bukenya told journalists last week.

He added: “One is free to call himself any title or name. In the 1990s many football players used to call themselves Maradona or Pele the football legends, but they were not the ones.”

Mr Bukenya stressed that family grievances should be taken to court instead of confusing the Banyala community.

“As far as I know the Ssabanyala is still Maj Baker Kimeze Byarufu II and we are in preparations of his 16th coronation anniversary which will take place this August,” Mr Bukenya said.

However, Livingstone Miya, mobiliser for the breakaway Ssabanyala faction and former minister of lands in the Bunyala cabinet, dismissed claims that the Ssabanyala is elected by all Banyala clan heads.

“Kayunga is a multi-ethnicity area and people of all the tribes are involved in the election of the cultural leader. At an appropriate time the Ssabanyala Sseruzi would be shown to the public,” Mr Miya said.

Mr Bukenya called on Ssabanyala’s subjects to remain calm, noting that Kimeze was still on the throne.

Unconfirmed reports indicate that some of Mpagi’s family members opposed to the Ssabanyala had sought in vain to meet President Museveni.

Background of tensions The ethnic Banyala have been at loggerheads with Buganda Kingdom since Baker Kimeze took over the throne from his late father, Nathan Mpagi, in 2008.

Kimeze has undermined the authority of the Kabaka, claiming that Kayunga is not part of Buganda and that the Kabaka has no authority over his subjects in Kayunga – a claim Mengo has always dismissed.

In 2009, this dispute led to riots in Buganda after the Banyala protested Kabaka Ronald Mutebi II’s planned visit to Kayunga District, demanding he first seek permission from the Ssabanyala, which Mengo refused to do.

The Banyala constitute only 2.7 per cent of the population in Kayunga District against Baganda who stand at 32 per cent. Bunyala, also known as Bugerere or Kayunga District, is constitutionally part of Buganda and therefore under the Kabaka’s control.

In 2010, Kimeze’s mother told the Daily Monitor that she is a Muganda and related to the Kabaka.

‘My grandmother lies buried in the Kasubi tombs. Therefore, my family harbours no ill will for Buganda and Mengo. This whole mess with Mengo is unfortunate. We would want nothing more than co-operation and respectful recognition from them.’