Uganda’s watchdog charged with policing the quality of goods and services is flush with cash yet dangerously hollow in capacity. Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) closed the 2023/24 financial year with record revenues—UGX73.9 billion in non-tax revenue. This was far above its UGX54.4 billion target and sharply higher than the UGX60 billion recorded the previous year. Import inspections also crossed 293,000, well beyond the 200,000 goal. On paper, the regulator looks stronger than ever. But the picture on supermarket shelves tells a different story. More than half of locally produced goods—including food, drinks, and cosmetics—slip through the cracks, entering…
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In pictures, Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) had promised a grand plan and a blend of class for a VIP Lounge that truly speaks to the beauty that Uganda is. But what was delivered yesterday is a contrast and a broken promise. And for delivering what some have called low-budget work for billions of shillings, UCAA is facing pushback. On Friday, UCAA unveiled the newly refurbished Karibuni Lounge at Entebbe International Airport, but critics did not wait for the chairs to warm. A wave of comments was quick to describe the facility as “bland,” “tasteless,” and “unworthy” of the country’s…
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If Uganda Property Holdings Limited (UPHL) were a building, it would be a grand structure – spacious, magnificent on the outside, and centrally located. But get in and you notice…
As the sun prepares to set on the Uganda Microfinance Regulatory Authority (UMRA), a withering report by the Auditor General lays bare a sobering truth. In just 12 months before…
“Counting people should never cost a country its ability to make people count.” These words, first voiced during a 2015 keynote address by South African statistician Pali Lehohla at a UN Data Forum, warned of a dangerous paradox in national planning. In essence, Lehohla meant that the act of collecting statistics—however important—should not compromise the delivery of essential services that those statistics are meant to improve. Uganda’s 2024 national census embodied this contradiction. For instance, UGX1.61 billion meant for the Parish Development Model (PDM)—a programme targeting 39 percent of households stuck in subsistence—was diverted to plug funding gaps in the…
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Behind the gleaming figures of a clean financial audit and commendable regulatory performance, the Uganda Retirement Benefits Regulatory Authority (URBRA) is grappling with internal cracks. URBRA regulates a sensitive sector…
When the authority responsible for procurement and disposal of public assets falters in its duties, the impact doesn’t just stay within its walls – it ripples dangerously through the economy, governance structures, and public trust. Procurement is the engine room of public service delivery, powering everything from roads and hospitals, schools, and critical infrastructure. The crack in compliance So when oversight breaks down, mismanagement, corruption, inflated costs, and outright theft aren’t far behind. Without rigorous inspection and monitoring, procurement processes become a fertile ground for collusion between suppliers and government officials. Why? Because contracts start getting awarded not on merit…
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Uganda’s grand industrialisation project, fronted by the Uganda Development Corporation (UDC) under the stewardship of its Executive Director Patrick B. Birungi, is facing a reckoning. A forensic review of UDC’s books for the financial year 2023/2024 reveals a sobering pattern: over UGX 1.089 trillion invested in 17 companies, yet more than UGX 10.5 billion in loans remain uncollected, UGX 92.5 billion sits unspent, and core projects are stalled by legal ambiguities, poor governance, and delayed decision-making. At the heart of this financial quagmire is a leadership vacuum: for the better part of three years, UDC has operated with an incomplete…
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Umeme Limited has officially declared a dispute with the government of Uganda over the buyout amount, signaling a potential legal proceeding, if the issue is not resolved within 30 days. Government and Umeme have 30 days – from 11 April, 2025 – within which they must resolve the dispute, failure of which the matter will head into arbitration in London. The Concession Agreement, under which Umeme had distributed electricity in Uganda until 31st March, 2025, provides for arbitration in the event that government and Umeme fail to agree on the final buyout amount. Thus, the public notice issued on Monday,…
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Uganda Parliament Speaker, Anita Among has today received the Auditor General’s report on Umeme which recommends a USD 118 (UGX 433 billion) Buyout amount for the unrecovered investments. Speaker Among…
