power sector debt Uganda

For more than a decade, Uganda’s energy sector—under the political stewardship of Ruth Nankabirwa Ssentamu since 2021—has ranked among the government’s top priority sectors, consistently absorbing trillions of shillings in taxpayer funding and, in several budget cycles, commanding well over 5% of the national budget.  Anchored on mega hydroelectric projects, oil and gas development, and ambitious transmission and distribution expansion, the sector has been positioned as a cornerstone of industrialisation and long-term economic transformation. Yet the latest Auditor General’s Annual Report to Parliament for the year ended June 2025 reveals a sector struggling to convert scale into performance.  The report…