Shillings & Cents

THE GASHUMBA-KAYANJA FEUD: PERHAPS CHRISTIANITY NEEDS THIS RECKONING

2026-10-18T12:56:34.617+03:00

The most remarkable thing about Frank Gashumba's Shs500 million challenge to Uganda's miracle-working pastors is not the money. It is how quickly a question about healing became a confrontation over religious authority.

Last week, the outspoken social commentator challenged pastors, prophets and apostles who claim miraculous healing powers to accompany him to a hospital and demonstrate those powers on critically ill patients. He initially offered Shs200 million before raising the stakes to Shs500 million.

Gashumba did not initially name any particular pastor. Nevertheless, the backlash was swift, most notably from Pastor Robert Kayanja of Miracle Centre Cathedral, who publicly warned Gashumba of dire consequences, including death. Gashumba's family subsequently accused the pastor of extending curses to four generations of their descendants.

"What began as a challenge to substantiate extraordinary claims has degenerated into an ugly exchange involving spouses and children...

Beneath the noise lies an opportunity to examine Christianity, particularly the relationship between believers, pastors and God.

Perhaps this controversy is precisely what Ugandan Christianity needs.

Christians must distinguish faith in God from faith in those who claim to represent Him. Pastors are human beings, subject to the same weaknesses and failings as everyone else. Their calling, eloquence, wealth, popularity or ability to attract large congregations does not confer infallibility or prove divine approval.

Christianity has grappled with false prophets and religious opportunists since its earliest days. Jesus warned in Matthew 7:15 against false prophets who disguise themselves as sheep but are inwardly ravenous wolves, saying believers would recognise them by their fruits.

The implication is clear:

"Christians have a responsibility to scrutinise their religious leaders, not surrender their judgment to them...

The Apostle Paul reinforced this principle in 1 Thessalonians 5:21, urging believers to test everything and hold on to what is good. Questioning a pastor is not necessarily questioning God; discernment may be an expression of genuine faith.

This distinction seems to have been lost in the present controversy.

Gashumba says his criticism concerns people he considers fraudulent religious leaders, not God or Christianity. Pastor Kayanja maintains that the miracles associated with his ministry are genuine and come from God. His son has also emphasised that pastors themselves do not heal; only Jesus does.

That is an important theological distinction. If the power belongs to God, no pastor should feel personally threatened by questions about its exercise.

Gashumba's challenge nevertheless has limitations. Faith cannot be reduced to a laboratory experiment, and God cannot be summoned to perform miracles for a cash reward. Nor should seriously ill patients become props in a public spectacle...

But claims of miraculous healing, particularly where desperate people are encouraged to part with money or abandon medical treatment, should not be beyond reasonable scrutiny. There is a world of difference between believing that God can perform miracles and accepting that everyone who claims to perform them is telling the truth.

History offers a powerful lesson. In 1517, Martin Luther challenged the sale and promotion of indulgences, through which believers were offered remission of punishment for sins in exchange for payments. His Ninety-Five Theses helped ignite the Protestant Reformation, challenging entrenched authority and transforming the relationship between believers, Scripture and religious institutions.

The irony should not escape us. Some Protestant traditions that emerged from a rebellion against abuses of religious authority now face similar questions about money, power and accountability.

Where medieval Christians encountered indulgences, today's believers sometimes encounter promises of breakthroughs, deliverance, healing and prosperity tied to financial contributions. The language has changed; the temptation to commercialise people's relationship with God has not.

This is not to suggest that all pastors are charlatans or that churches should not receive financial support. Many religious organisations provide valuable education, healthcare, counselling and humanitarian assistance. The Kayanja ministry, for example, points to its humanitarian activities and says it maintains financial records subject to tax-authority scrutiny.

Such contributions deserve acknowledgement. However, good works do not place any institution beyond legitimate questioning.

Jesus himself drove merchants and money changers from the temple when commercial activity corrupted its sacred purpose. Christianity has never been comfortable with reducing God's blessings to merchandise.

The controversy also raises questions about how religious leaders respond to criticism. In Luke 6:28, Jesus instructed his followers to bless those who curse them and pray for those who mistreat them.

It is telling, therefore, that some pastors responded to Gashumba by cursing him and invoking death or misfortune. Even allowing for the emotions generated by his provocations, such responses seem difficult to reconcile with Christ's teachings on forgiveness and love. A pastor's moral authority is tested most clearly when challenged, not when addressing a receptive congregation.

In some ministries, the pastor's word becomes indistinguishable from God's word. Questioning the pastor is portrayed as rebellion against God, while loyalty to the leader becomes a measure of spiritual commitment.

This creates fertile ground for manipulation, encouraging believers to outsource their judgment, financial decisions and even medical choices to religious authorities. Christianity is fundamentally about a personal relationship with God, not unquestioning dependence on a spiritual intermediary. Pastors should guide and empower believers, not make them permanently dependent on a leader.

Perhaps the lasting value of Gashumba's intervention will have little to do with whether anybody collects his Shs500 million. It may instead lie in prompting ordinary Christians to ask:

What exactly do I believe, and why? Does my pastor's teaching agree with Scripture? Am I giving out of conviction or fear? Does my faith make me more compassionate, responsible and independent, or increasingly dependent on another human being?

These questions do not weaken Christianity. They can strengthen it.

Ugandan Christianity may be approaching its own moment of reflection. This need not produce another schism. It could produce a more discerning congregation, more accountable religious leadership and a renewed emphasis on Christ's teachings rather than the personalities of individual pastors.

Ultimately, the greatest danger to Christianity is not Frank Gashumba or anyone else who questions religious leaders. It is the possibility that believers have become so attached to their pastors that they can no longer distinguish criticism of a man from an attack on God.

"God does not need protection from legitimate questions. Nor should a pastor's reputation become the foundation upon which anyone builds their faith....

If this controversy reminds Christians to put their faith in God rather than in those who claim to speak for Him, Gashumba will have performed a valuable public service.

And he will not have needed to perform a single miracle.

SHS4000 TO THE DOLLAR: THE WARNING WE HEARD, THE LESSONS WE IGNORED

2026-10-15T11:35:36.611+03:00

Uganda's exchange-rate debate has a long memory, even if economic policy sometimes appears to have a short one. Every time the shilling comes under pressure, the country revisits familiar arguments: the strength of the US dollar, speculative activity, government spending, central bank intervention and the cost of defending the currency.

Yet the exchange rate keeps moving. From around Shs2,000 to the dollar in the early 2010s, to Shs3,000 in 2015, and now beyond Shs4,000 in October 2026, the direction of travel tells a story about an economy whose appetite for foreign exchange has repeatedly outstripped its ability to earn it.

A review of the exchange-rate debate over the years, reveals a recurring lesson: monetary policy can manage the pace of depreciation, but a lasting solution depends on the productive capacity of the economy.

The warning signs were there

In 2011, the shilling came under intense pressure, provoking complaints from importers and calls for government intervention. The debate was already about more than the price of the dollar. It was about whether the authorities could defend a particular exchange rate when the economy was not generating sufficient foreign currency to sustain it.

In March 2015, when the dollar crossed Shs3,000, this column published “The Shilling Collapse Is Our Fault, Not the Dollar's”. The argument was not that international developments were irrelevant. The US Federal Reserve was moving towards tighter monetary policy, the dollar was strengthening globally, and commodity prices were under pressure.

But Uganda also had domestic weaknesses. Its export earnings were vulnerable to commodity-price fluctuations, while demand for imported fuel, machinery, manufactured goods and other products continued to consume foreign exchange.

The warning was that attempting to hold the dollar at Shs2,000 without the economic fundamentals to support that rate would be futile. The exchange rate could be managed, but not indefinitely divorced from the country's capacity to earn dollars.

Adam Mugume's warning: Act before inflation takes hold

An especially revealing contribution to this debate came in October 2015, when Adam Mugume, then Bank of Uganda director of research, explained the central bank's thinking on depreciation and inflation.

In an interview published by Business Vision on October 12, under the headline “Uganda Bracing Itself for More Inflation”, Mugume explained that the central bank had tightened monetary policy in anticipation of inflationary pressure. The concerns included a deteriorating balance of payments, the prospect of tighter US monetary policy and weakening foreign-exchange inflows.

The interview highlighted pressures across foreign direct investment, workers' remittances, exports and tourism, alongside rising imports. Depreciation would increase the domestic cost of imported goods and eventually feed into inflation. Waiting until inflation had surged would make it more difficult and expensive to contain.

The follow-up discussion in this column's October 2015 archive illustrates the enduring policy dilemma. Higher interest rates can support the shilling and restrain inflation, but they can also make borrowing more expensive, slow investment and constrain economic growth.

Mugume's warning remains relevant. The Bank of Uganda can influence liquidity, expectations and the pace of depreciation, but it cannot determine the country's underlying supply of foreign exchange. That depends on exports, services, investment, remittances and other inflows, set against the economy's demand for dollars.

Depreciation is not a straight line

The subsequent history of the shilling demonstrates why individual exchange-rate milestones should not be mistaken for a permanent trend.

In 2022, the dollar approached Shs4,000 as the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates aggressively to combat inflation. Higher yields on dollar assets encouraged global investors to favour the US currency, putting pressure on emerging-market currencies, including the shilling.

The shilling subsequently recovered some ground. In 2024, stronger foreign-exchange inflows, including those associated with coffee exports, helped support the currency.

These recoveries matter. They demonstrate that exchange rates respond to changing supply and demand conditions and that depreciation is not necessarily a one-way journey.

But temporary appreciation does not automatically mean that the structural problem has been resolved. A good coffee season, a surge in capital inflows or improved investor sentiment can strengthen the shilling without fundamentally changing Uganda's dependence on imported goods and external financing.

From coffee to gold: Uganda's export transformation

The story of the shilling is not one of economic stagnation. Uganda has made meaningful progress in expanding its export earnings and diversifying the range of goods and services it sells abroad.

The historical record in this column's Uganda exports archive documents the expansion of the export basket beyond traditional agricultural commodities. Fish, flowers, cement, manufactured products, electricity and regional trade have created additional sources of foreign exchange.

The transformation has continued. In “When Coffee Ruled the Uganda Shilling”, published in April 2026, this column examined the emergence of gold as Uganda's leading export earner. Coffee receipts were estimated at about $2.5 billion in 2025, while gold earnings reached approximately $6.4 billion.

Official data also illustrate the scale of the expansion. In the first eleven months of financial year 2025/26, merchandise export receipts reached $14.47 billion, up 34.4 per cent from $10.76 billion in the corresponding period a year earlier. The growth was driven principally by coffee and gold. See the Ministry of Finance's March 2026 economic performance report.

This is significant progress. In the past, the timing of the coffee harvest could have a pronounced effect on the supply of dollars in the domestic market. Gold, alongside other agricultural and non-agricultural exports, has broadened the sources of foreign exchange and altered the seasonal pattern of inflows.

It would therefore be misleading to explain the shilling's depreciation simply by claiming that Uganda is not exporting enough or that nothing has changed in the productive economy.

Diversification, however, does not eliminate vulnerability. Gold and coffee prices fluctuate, and export receipts do not necessarily translate into an equivalent increase in dollars available in the domestic market at the moment importers need them. The timing of repatriation, the foreign-exchange requirements of businesses and the movement of capital all influence the exchange rate.

There is also a new concentration risk. Gold's growing importance means that Uganda is more exposed to developments in that market. The destination of exports matters, too: a concentration of gold shipments in particular markets can leave receipts vulnerable to changes in trading arrangements and demand.

The broader discussion in this column's Uganda gold archive is relevant to the currency debate. Gold can provide a powerful source of foreign exchange, but the durability of that benefit depends on the value retained locally, the industry's structure and how the proceeds are used.

Uganda has made progress in earning more dollars. The question is whether those earnings are keeping pace with the economy's total demand for foreign exchange.

The trade deficit: Where the dollars go

The merchandise trade balance provides part of the answer. It measures the difference between the value of goods Uganda exports and the value of goods it imports. When imports exceed exports, the country must finance the gap through other foreign-exchange inflows, such as services earnings, remittances, investment, borrowing or the use of reserves.

Uganda's problem is that import demand can grow just as rapidly as export earnings, sometimes faster. In June 2026, merchandise imports rose by 33.2 per cent year-on-year to $1.88 billion, while exports increased by 11 per cent to $1.28 billion. The monthly merchandise trade deficit consequently widened to approximately $598 million. The figures appear in the Ministry of Finance's July 2026 economic performance report.

The import bill reflects more than consumer demand. Uganda imports petroleum products, machinery, vehicles, chemicals, industrial inputs and equipment needed to expand productive capacity. Some of these imports are essential to future growth and export production. Treating every import as a problem would therefore be a mistake.

The challenge is to ensure that the productive capacity created by these imports eventually generates sufficient additional income, including foreign exchange, to justify the expenditure. Machinery that enables a manufacturer to export more can strengthen the economy's external position over time. An import that produces no corresponding increase in future earning capacity can leave the country more dependent on fresh foreign-exchange inflows.

The merchandise trade balance is not, however, the same as the current-account balance. The latter also includes trade in services, primary income and transfers. Uganda may earn more from exports while paying more for freight, insurance, technical services and income accruing to foreign investors. These outflows help explain why rising merchandise export receipts do not necessarily translate into an equivalent improvement in the country's overall external position.

The IMF's 2026 Article IV assessment of Uganda highlighted the continuing current-account deficit despite strong coffee and gold exports. Investment-related imports, gold imports and a wider services-account deficit were among the pressures.

The distinction matters when explaining the shilling. The exchange rate responds not just to the value of goods crossing Uganda's borders but to the country's entire flow of foreign-currency receipts and payments, alongside capital movements and market expectations.

Uganda has made progress on exports, but the benefits are being offset, at least in part, by a substantial import bill and other external payments. The policy task is not simply to export more, but to improve the net foreign-exchange contribution of economic growth.

Why Shs4,000 now?

The move beyond Shs4,000 should not be interpreted as proof that Uganda's export strategy has failed. Rather, it demonstrates that export growth and currency stability are related but not interchangeable.

A country can earn more dollars than ever before and still experience depreciation if its demand for dollars rises faster, if its other external payments increase, or if investors shift their portfolios towards foreign currencies.

The immediate pressures include international oil prices, geopolitical uncertainty, demand for imports and the timing of foreign-exchange inflows. The longer-term issue is whether Uganda can convert its expanding export base into a sufficiently strong and dependable net supply of foreign exchange.

The shilling traded around Shs3,604 to the dollar in March 2026. By October, commercial bank quotations had crossed Shs4,000. The Daily Monitor reported the record low on October 5.

On October 14, the Bank of Uganda raised its Central Bank Rate by 2.25 percentage points, from 9.75 to 12 per cent, in response to mounting inflation and exchange-rate risks.

Higher interest rates can make shilling-denominated investments more attractive, restrain demand and help contain inflation expectations. If government bond yields rise in response to the new policy rate and market conditions, the additional return could attract demand for shillings and moderate depreciation.

However, this outcome is not guaranteed. Higher borrowing costs can discourage investment, increase the government's debt-servicing burden and constrain private-sector expansion. Nor can monetary tightening create export earnings overnight.

Who pays for a weaker shilling?

Depreciation redistributes purchasing power. Importers pay more for dollar-priced goods, and consumers face higher prices for fuel, medicines, machinery and other essentials. Businesses with dollar-denominated debts face higher repayment costs in shilling terms.

Exporters, tourism operators and recipients of remittances may receive more shillings for every dollar earned. Investors with foreign-currency assets can also benefit from the translation effect when those assets are valued in shillings.

But the benefits are not uniform. An exporter that depends on imported fertiliser, fuel, packaging or machinery may find that rising input costs erode the advantage of a weaker currency.

The deeper question is whether Uganda is becoming better at earning foreign exchange. Coffee and gold have become important sources of export receipts, while tourism and remittances remain significant. Oil production offers further possibilities.

Yet a country cannot sustainably finance an expanding import bill through occasional commodity booms, external borrowing or the sale of foreign reserves.

The real defence of the shilling

The debate has repeatedly returned to the same choices: intervene or let the market work; raise interest rates or protect affordable credit; defend purchasing power today or preserve the capacity to invest for tomorrow.

These are genuine policy trade-offs. The Bank of Uganda can manage liquidity, anchor inflation expectations and respond to disorderly movements in the currency market. It cannot manufacture an unlimited supply of dollars.

Government must complement monetary policy with fiscal discipline, predictable investment rules and productive public expenditure. Businesses must invest in productivity and exports rather than depend indefinitely on preferential access to foreign exchange. Farmers and manufacturers need better infrastructure, reliable energy and affordable finance to compete internationally.

Uganda must also capture more value from what it produces. Processed and branded coffee, agricultural manufacturing, tourism, mineral beneficiation and other tradable services offer opportunities to earn more from each dollar of foreign exchange generated.

Shs4,000 should therefore be treated as a price signal, not automatically as either a national catastrophe or an achievement. It tells us that, under prevailing conditions, demand for foreign exchange is exceeding supply at the previous price.

The lesson from the warnings of 2011, the debate in 2015 and the subsequent recoveries is that defending the shilling cannot be the responsibility of monetary policy alone.

Uganda has expanded and diversified its exports. That progress should be recognised. But the next challenge is to ensure that export growth, domestic production and the wider balance of payments improve fast enough to meet the country's rising demand for foreign exchange.

The strongest defence of the shilling is an economy that earns more dollars, creates more value from its exports and reduces its dependence on imports that it could competitively produce at home.

The dollar may rise or fall. The more important question is whether Uganda will finally address the economic fundamentals that turn every new exchange-rate milestone into another national debate.

THE SHILLING HAS CROSSED 4K, WHAT NOW?

2026-10-13T07:38:19.620+03:00

There are some numbers in an economy that are more than numbers. In Uganda Shs4,000 to the dollar is one of them.

For years, Ugandans watched the exchange rate move around Shs3,500, then Shs3,700, occasionally threatening Shs4,000. Now the psychological barrier has been breached. Last week, the shilling crossed Shs4,000, from about Shs3,604 in March.

So what is happening—and where do we go from here?

There is a useful historical lesson here.

In March 2015, when the dollar first broke through Shs3,000, I wrote in this column that “the shilling collapse is our fault, not the dollar’s.”

The dollar’s global strength mattered. The US Federal Reserve was tightening after years of extraordinary monetary stimulus. But global currency movements were only part of Uganda’s problem.

Coffee exports had fallen by almost a fifth because of drought. Donor inflows had not fully recovered. Meanwhile, demand for imported goods and fuel was growing.

In other words, our supply of dollars was weakening just as our appetite for dollars was increasing.

That sounds remarkably familiar today.

"The immediate explanation for today’s depreciation is straightforward. Manufacturers, energy companies and other importers are buying more dollars. Some businesses are bringing forward foreign-currency purchases ahead of the end-of-year import season. Higher global oil prices are adding pressure...

Oil prices have risen sharply amid the conflict involving Iran and the wider Middle East, raising fears of disruption to supplies and shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

For Uganda, which imports virtually all its petroleum products, this matters twice. We need more dollars to buy the same fuel, while higher fuel costs feed into transport and production costs throughout the economy.

There is also evidence of offshore investors trimming Ugandan debt holdings or buying dollars to hedge those positions.

But underneath all this is the same basic equation: the exchange rate is a price. It reflects the supply of dollars coming into Uganda against demand for dollars going out.

And our demand has grown considerably.

We import fuel, machinery, pharmaceuticals, vehicles, electronics and industrial inputs. We also have foreign debt obligations and a private sector increasingly integrated into global supply chains.

"The question is therefore not simply whether Uganda is earning more dollars. It is whether we are earning them fast enough...

In the late 1990s, you could predict the shilling by looking at the coffee calendar. September was coffee season. Exporters brought dollars into the country, converted them into shillings to pay farmers and meet local costs, and the shilling strengthened.

Coffee was so important that the currency almost danced to its harvest cycle.

But Uganda is no longer that economy.

In the late 1990s, coffee accounted for roughly 58 percent of exports. Today it remains a major source of foreign exchange, but gold has become an even larger export earner. Tourism, remittances, regional trade and other exports have diversified our dollar earnings.

The old coffee clock has not disappeared because coffee is unimportant. It has disappeared because the economy has become much bigger and more complicated.

Coffee earnings in July were 18.2 percent below the previous year, while August shipments fell 13.6 percent in volume and 10.3 percent in value. At the same time, dollar demand from energy, manufacturing and other importers remains strong.

The seasonal pattern is still there. It is simply being overwhelmed.

The lesson from 2015 remains valid.

The Bank of Uganda can smooth excessive volatility, manage liquidity and use reserves when necessary. But it cannot permanently manufacture dollars.

Trying to defend an artificially strong shilling simply requires the central bank to continually sell dollars. Eventually, reserves run down and the market forces the adjustment anyway—potentially more violently.

The answer cannot be to defend a particular number forever.

Did the Sovereignty Bill contribute?

It would be wrong to say the Protection of Sovereignty Bill caused the shilling to cross Shs4,000. There is no evidence for such a simple causal relationship.

But legislation affecting foreign capital does have economic consequences.

When the original bill was before Parliament, Bank of Uganda Governor Michael Atingi-Ego warned that restrictions could discourage foreign investment, portfolio capital and remittances. The legislation eventually passed was substantially amended, with legitimate financial flows protected.

So the final law should not be blamed for today’s depreciation.

"But investors watch more than the final wording. They watch how laws are conceived, debated and implemented. For someone deciding whether to invest $10 million in Uganda for ten years, predictability matters.

That is the confidence channel through which politics eventually becomes economics...

There are winners too

Uganda is predominantly a net importer, so a weaker shilling means higher prices for fuel, machinery, pharmaceuticals, electronics and consumer goods.

But the exporter sees the same exchange rate differently. A coffee farmer, gold exporter, tourism operator or company earning dollars gets more shillings for every dollar.

Consider the Ugandan waiting for a diaspora relative to send $100 for Christmas. At Shs3,600 it bought Shs360,000. At Shs4,000, it buys Shs400,000.

There are also less obvious beneficiaries.

NSSF’s record 22.53 percent interest rate for 2025/26 was driven primarily by strong investment performance, particularly regional equities. But currency movements were part of the story. The Fund invests in assets denominated in regional currencies, and a weaker shilling can increase the value of those assets when translated back into shillings.

Some of the millions celebrating the record NSSF return are therefore, indirectly, beneficiaries of the same currency movement making imported goods more expensive.

The real danger is persistent depreciation that feeds inflation, erodes purchasing power and changes expectations.

The lesson for us remains that there are no shortcuts.

"Uganda cannot permanently protect itself from currency movements by leaning on the central bank. The answer is to produce more, export more and add more value...

A decade later, our export base is more diversified. Coffee is a much bigger earner in absolute terms, gold has emerged as a major source of foreign exchange, tourism and remittances remain important, and oil is approaching commercial production.

But we have also become a much bigger consumer and importer.

That is why Shs4,000 should be treated as a price signal, not a crisis. It is telling us that Uganda’s demand for the rest of the world is, for now, growing faster than its capacity to earn from the rest of the world.

The strongest defence of the shilling is therefore not central-bank intervention, a law or a presidential directive.

It is an economy that earns more dollars than it needs to spend.

AFRICA HAS TOO MANY RICH MEN AND TOO FEW CAPITALISTS

2026-10-05T13:48:12.404+03:00

On Wednesday, Aliko Dangote stood in Lamu, Kenya, alongside African leaders and broke ground on a $16 billion oil refinery. The proposed plant will process 700,000 barrels of crude a day, include a 1,000MW power plant and, if completed as planned, rank among the largest refineries in the world.

Think about that.

Sixteen billion dollars. One African businessman. One African project.

That is why I have long argued that Dangote is a godsend for this continent.

Not because billionaires are saints—the Lamu project already faces legitimate land and environmental questions. But because he represents something Africa has in desperately short supply: indigenous capital willing to make bets at continental scale.

Countries are only as viable as their private sectors.

Governments can publish Vision 2040s and industrial policies. Eventually somebody has to write a cheque, build the factory, hire engineers, organise supply chains and wait years for a return.

Businesses, not governments, create wealth, jobs and goods and services. The role of government is to create an economic and legal environment in which more of those businesses can emerge and grow. We have more examples than I have space in this column to list the failed government businesses even in this NRM administration.

For years this column has argued that Africa is not poor. It is a deep-value play whose people, minerals, land and markets are consistently undervalued by bad politics, weak business skills and foreign risk models.

"Foreign capital sees political risk, currency risk, infrastructure gaps and regulatory uncertainty.

The spreadsheet says: run.

Dangote sees the same risks, but he has skin in the game...

That distinction matters. In 2024, writing about Uganda’s infrastructure financing, I argued that local investors often have a more nuanced understanding of African risk. What looks impossible from a London boardroom may be manageable if you understand the politics, people and terrain.

Dangote is that thesis on steroids.

There is another part of the story we underestimate. His commercial software is multigenerational. His great-grandfather, Alhassan Dantata, was among West Africa’s wealthiest traders. Dangote did not start at zero.

But the inheritance was more than money.

It was software.

How to judge risk. Negotiate. Preserve capital. Talk to bankers. Work through government. Reinvest. Survive reversals. Think in decades.

Wealth may be built in one generation and squandered by the third, but Dangote had flipped the script. Each generation appears to have built on what came before.

"That accumulated commercial intelligence now sits on top of a balance sheet large enough to underwrite ventures that would terrify most African governments—or put enough equity on the table for international money men to take notice.

He also straddles two worlds. He speaks the language of international capital—project finance, technical partners, equity, listings and return on capital, while navigating African governments, bureaucracies and the patronage systems surrounding large projects.

That brings us to an uncomfortable point.

Government support for big business is not automatically corruption.

I argued in 2020 that concessions can stimulate development if they back credible businesses, measurable outcomes and strategic industries. The problem is that support is too often handed to connected individuals with neither the competence nor intention to build anything.

The answer is not to stop backing winners.

It is to stop backing cronies.

Asia understood this better. Its governments helped create industrial champions, but eventually those champions had to export, compete and conquer markets. Africa too often protects rent-seekers instead of builders.

Dangote’s greatest achievement may therefore not be cement, fertiliser or even oil.

It may be confidence.

His Lagos refinery shattered a psychological ceiling. Projects of that scale were supposed to be built by multinationals, Gulf sovereigns or Chinese state companies. An African industrialist was supposed to trade, import, distribute and perhaps put up a respectable factory.

Dangote decided otherwise.

Now he is trying to reproduce the model in East Africa.

Success markets itself. Once investors see Africans successfully executing projects at this scale, they begin imagining steel mills, fertiliser plants, rail corridors and other mega-projects. Capital compounds, but confidence compounds too.

Africa therefore needs more Dangotes.

Not more rich men.

There is a difference.

A rich man wants to show that he has money. A capitalist wants to deploy money so it comes back with friends.

"A rich man measures success in VXs, mansions and little brown girls in tow. A capitalist measures it in productive assets, cashflows, factories and return on capital...

One consumes wealth.

The other reproduces it.

The tragedy of Africa is not that we have too many billionaires. It is that we have too few people whose ambitions have graduated from consumption to production and from national markets to continental ones.

Our governments should align development ambitions with indigenous capital while creating the conditions for larger African balance sheets: predictable policy, property rights, capital markets, patient finance and integrated regional markets.

Dangote will make enormous amounts of money if Lamu works.

Good.

If his billions come alongside jobs, skills, taxes, suppliers, infrastructure and cheaper energy, that is not a contradiction.

That is the bargain.

Capital makes money. Citizens live better.

"Our real failure would be to meet here again in 30 years and discover that Africa still has only one Dangote...

WHEN PAPER DIAMONDS OUTSHINE THE NSSF MAGIC

2026-10-04T16:14:27.390+03:00

For years, the lazy story around Kampala was that the Uganda Securities Exchange (USE) was "dead money." It was seen as a sleepy corporate club where capital went to rust while smart investors stuck to risk-free, double-digit government bonds.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the bank.

Institutional brokerage Crested Capital just released its Q3 2026 Total Shareholder Analysis, and it cuts clean through the stories we have been telling ourselves. Corporate Uganda is quietly experiencing an unprecedented operational awakening.

The baseline for investment success here has never been higher. Just the other night, the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) declared a jaw-dropping 22.53% interest rate for the year ended June 2026, crediting a massive Shs5.44 trillion to workers' accounts. It was the highest return in NSSF history.

Yet against that incredible benchmark, a small clutch of local equities—dubbed the "Black Diamonds"—shone exponentially brighter. Crested Capital defines a Black Diamond as a local listed company returning north of 25% over a specified period, handily thrashing treasury bills, standard unit trusts, and the NSSF.

But this glittering performance comes with a serious warning for individual wealth creators: dispersion on the USE is brutal. Select right, and your capital compounds meaningfully. Select wrong, and you can sit on capital erosion for years.

The Performance Sheet

To see how the elite stack up against each other and the wider market, look at the data from the first nine months of 2026:

Counter / Entity	Price (2-Jan-26)	Price (30-Sep-26)	Capital Gain	Total Shareholder Return (TSR)
NIC Holdings	UGX 5.00	UGX 19.00	280.00%	280.00%
Airtel Uganda	UGX 85.00	UGX 189.00	122.35%	128.12%
Bank of Baroda	UGX 47.00	UGX 90.50	92.55%	105.32%
Stanbic Uganda (SBU)	UGX 60.32	UGX 110.02	82.39%	89.52%
Uganda Clays Limited (UCL)	UGX 5.00	UGX 8.40	68.00%	68.00%
MTN Uganda (MTNU)	UGX 315.00	UGX 446.00	41.59%	47.06%
Quality Chemical Industries (QCIL)	UGX 116.00	UGX 161.88	39.55%	45.07%
NSSF FY 2025/2026 (Benchmark)	—	—	—	22.53%

The New Economic Plumbing

These numbers are not abstract paper tricks. They reflect a deep structural shift we have discussed before: telecoms and financial ecosystems have officially become the indispensable plumbing of modern economic life.

Consider the telecom battleground. MTN Uganda recently became the first company in our history to cross the historic $1 billion annual revenue mark (Shs3.6 trillion). Its fintech platform, MTN MoMo, processed Shs195.5 trillion in transaction value.

MTN's transactional volume nearly matches Uganda’s entire Shs200 trillion GDP, functioning as the financial bloodstream of the nation. While MTN leads in absolute scale, Airtel Uganda has displayed sharper data momentum and operating efficiency, fueling its stock re-rating from Shs85.00 to Shs189.00.

In the banking sector, the story is equally deep. Stanbic Bank has flexed its profit muscle, boosting interim dividends by 57.1% to Shs4.30 per share—returning capital to shareholders twice as fast as its underlying profit growth.

However, market dispersion remains unforgiving. While top counters thrive, others like New Vision (-3.33% TSR), BAT (-13.34% TSR), and Umeme (-73.97% TSR) face severe slumps or terminal regulatory risks, proving that selectivity is vital.

Ultimately, paper gains mean nothing until realized. As the report's parting warning notes, the TSR and capital gains are simply paper gains. You need to exit your position to earn the return, rather than watching the market move while eating your seed.

OPEN THE BOOKS, CHANGE YOUR LIFE

2026-09-29T09:32:42.634+03:00

A few weekends ago, I spent an entire day with a group of young Ugandans examining our financial health.

And I mean examining it properly.

Everyone was required to open their books — incomes, expenses, assets and liabilities — for all and sundry to see. We shared what we had done right, where we had gone wrong, what we had learned and opened ourselves up to both praise and criticism.

It was revelatory.

Money is one of those things we talk about endlessly without ever really talking about it. But numbers have a way of cutting through the stories we tell ourselves.

Here is what I took away.

1. Track your financials — what you focus on expands

Tracking your finances is essential, even critical, to financial health.

You need to know what is coming in, what is going out, what you own and what you owe.

Once you track the numbers consistently, patterns emerge. You see which expenses can be reduced, which habits are quietly draining you and which decisions are actually moving you forward.

Without records, we operate on impressions. We tell ourselves we are saving enough, spending reasonably or investing aggressively. The numbers may tell a very different story.

What you focus on expands.

The simple act of watching your income, expenses, assets and liabilities changes behaviour. You begin looking for ways to increase income, cut waste and redirect money towards assets.

Before you can improve your financial position, you need to know where you stand.

2. Start where you are, with what you have

Do not be discouraged by your current financial position.

Every mighty tree started as a seedling.

The person with Sh500m in assets once had Sh50m. Before that there may have been Sh5m. Somewhere there was a first shilling that was saved rather than spent.

Your current situation is a starting point, not a permanent condition.

Save something. Buy your first share. Start the small business. Pay off the expensive loan. Acquire the first productive asset.

The amounts may look insignificant at the beginning, but the habit is not. Capital compounds. Knowledge compounds. Experience compounds.

Do not despise small beginnings.

3. We have to unlearn a lot about money

One thing became very clear: getting onto the road to financial health requires more than earning more.

We have to unwind a lot of conditioning.

We have laboured under myths about money: debt is always bad; land is the only real investment; shares are gambling; a bigger salary automatically creates wealth; investing is only for people who already have money; looking successful means being successful.

Much of this thinking works against wealth creation.

Our financial behaviour is not just mathematics. It is psychology, culture, family expectations, fear, ego and status.

Unless we interrogate these assumptions, higher income may simply allow us to make the same mistakes on a bigger scale.

Before financial freedom appears on the balance sheet, it often has to begin in the mind.

4. Everyone’s journey is personal

Do not compare your Chapter One with somebody else’s Chapter Five.

They may have started earlier, earn more, inherited something, taken different risks or simply be further along.

Comparison becomes particularly dangerous when it pushes us into consumption.

Someone buys a new car, builds a house or takes an expensive holiday and suddenly we feel pressure to do the same.

But they may be eating their harvest while you are still planting.

One of the worst mistakes you can make is to eat your seed because somebody else is eating their harvest.

There is a season for accumulation and a season for enjoyment. If you are still building capital, protect it fiercely.

Your race is with the person you were yesterday.

5. Shift expenses towards investment — and stay on the compounding curve

The most powerful lesson was seeing compounding working in real life.

Not in Warren Buffett’s portfolio. Not in New York or London.

Here. In Uganda.

This same economy we are always mourning about.

We saw practical examples of young people steadily shifting expenditure away from consumption and towards investment, then giving time a chance to do the heavy lifting.

That is the trick.

Earn. Create a surplus. Turn the surplus into productive assets. Reinvest the returns. Repeat.

Eventually the money starts doing more of the work.

But compounding has one major enemy: interruption.

We interrupt it when every salary increase becomes a lifestyle upgrade, when dividends are consumed, when business profits finance status or when every windfall becomes a new phone, car or holiday.

The compounding effect should sit at the centre of every wealth-creation journey, whether you are a nine-to-five worker, farmer, hustler or downtown businessman.

What struck me most was that many of these kids are not yet 30.

I was in awe.

They are making sacrifices at exactly the age when everything around them screams YOLO and FOMO.

Yet they are quietly building.

Life will interrupt them — job losses, bad investments, family emergencies, illness, business setbacks.

But if they remain committed to the mission, these will be speed bumps, not roadblocks.

I left enormously hopeful about the future.

And, I confess, slightly envious.

Because many of them have understood something I wish I had understood much earlier.

They are already on the journey.

And when it comes to compounding, time may be the most valuable asset of all.

BOOK REVIEW: BLOODSHED FOR POWER: THE ASSASINATION OF MOHAMED HASSAN AND THE DARK ERA OF IDI AMIN

2026-09-26T12:23:53.248+03:00

Bloodshed for Power by Mohsin Hassan provides a poignant, intensely researched accounting of political murder, state terror and the human cost of unchecked ambition. Unfolding through personal tragedy, the narrative confronts one of the darkest chapters of East African political history, offering both a meticulous investigation into the murder of the author’s father—Mohamed Hassan, Uganda’s former Head of CID—and a broader reflection on institutionalised violence during the tragic collapse of a nation.

The Shadow of Idi Amin

To grasp the gravity of Hassan’s account, one must understand the backdrop of the dictator who destroyed much of Uganda’s post-independence promise.

General Idi Amin Dada seized control of the country in a 1971 military coup while President Milton Obote was attending a Commonwealth conference in Singapore. What initially began with populist promises of swift stability quickly deteriorated into an infamous reign of terror. Amin dismantled democratic institutions, subverted the judiciary and turned state security organs into instruments for eliminating people regarded as threats—or who held inconvenient truths—about his regime.

Over the course of eight chaotic years, hundreds of thousands of Ugandans are estimated to have lost their lives through extrajudicial killings, targeted eliminations and ethnic and political persecution.

Mohamed Hassan became a target for Amin precisely because of his commitment to his work as a police investigator. As Head of CID, Hassan led high-profile murder investigations in which evidence implicated Amin prior to his presidency—most notably the January 1970 assassination of Brigadier Pierino Okoya and his wife.

Brigadier Okoya had openly challenged Amin, even mocking him as a coward for panicking and going AWOL following an earlier attempted assassination of President Milton Obote.

When Okoya and his wife were subsequently gunned down at their home, Hassan’s investigation uncovered evidence pointing towards Amin’s involvement. Hassan’s account argues that, once Amin seized power, those who knew too much about such investigations became obvious targets as the new regime sought to neutralise potential witnesses and erase inconvenient evidence.

Amin’s brutal dictatorship destabilised Uganda and the wider region until he was finally ousted by Tanzanian forces and Ugandan exiles in 1979. He lived out his remaining years in exile, dying in Saudi Arabia in 2003 without ever facing legal accountability for the atrocities associated with his regime.

Memory Against Revisionism

It is against this historical canvas that Mohsin Hassan’s work becomes so important.

One of the greatest strengths of the book is its preservation of historical memory. It is a useful addition to the literature on an era that is fast fading from living memory, creating space for revisionists to make increasingly sanitised claims about what happened.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest values of personal accounts such as Hassan’s.

These accounts are, by their very nature, woefully inadequate in capturing the full horror of the Amin era. No single family tragedy, however devastating, can communicate the suffering experienced across an entire country. For every Mohamed Hassan whose story has been reconstructed, there were countless others whose deaths were never properly investigated, whose bodies were never recovered, whose families never received answers and whose stories may never be written down.

Yet that does not diminish the importance of these individual accounts. If anything, it makes them more urgent.

History written only in statistics can become abstract. We hear of hundreds of thousands dead and, paradoxically, struggle to comprehend the scale. But when that history is reduced to one father, one family, one disappearance, one investigation and one trail of unanswered questions, the horror becomes human again.

Hassan's story therefore serves as more than a biography of one victim. It reminds us that behind every statistic from that period stood a person with a name, a family, ambitions and people waiting for them to come home.

As key witnesses age, documentation disappears and memories fade, books like Bloodshed for Power become important bulwarks against historical amnesia. By painstakingly documenting the circumstances surrounding one political killing, Hassan helps ensure that at least part of the record survives rather than being surrendered to nostalgia, revisionism or political convenience.

Gripping Yet Devastating Narrative

While heartbreaking, the book makes for scintillating reading.

Hassan manages to balance the deep emotional weight of personal tragedy with the fast-paced momentum of an investigative thriller. The emotional core of the story lies in the grief and unanswered questions left in the wake of an assassination, yet the author maintains a gripping, highly readable narrative rhythm that keeps the reader engaged through every step of the investigation.

That is no easy achievement. Books dealing with atrocity can sometimes become overwhelmed by their subject matter. Hassan instead lets the investigation carry the narrative, allowing the reader to discover the story almost alongside him.

Methodological Elegance

In this respect, Bloodshed for Power falls into the same broad tradition as The Teeth May Smile but the Heart Does Not Forget in the way personal history is reconstructed through the testimony of others.

Rather than relying solely on family memory, Hassan pieces together police records, eyewitness statements, archival evidence and local accounts to reconstruct the events leading to his father's demise.

This investigative rigour elevates a personal quest for closure into something approaching historical documentation. More than that, Bloodshed for Power is, at its heart, a work of investigative journalism. Hassan follows leads, tests recollections against other accounts, assembles fragments of evidence and reconstructs events from sources scattered across time and geography. He does not merely tell us what he believes happened to his father; he sets out to establish how and why it happened.

There is something particularly poignant about that.

Mohamed Hassan spent his professional life as an investigator, following evidence wherever it led, including when that evidence touched powerful men. Decades later, his son has effectively undertaken an investigation of his own—this time into the fate of the investigator himself.

One imagines that there could be few more fitting tributes.

The patience, persistence and respect for evidence evident in this book may very well have made his father proud.

The mosaic of third-party perspectives also does more than validate the author's conclusions. It gives us glimpses into the atmosphere of fear, silence and complicity within which political violence operated. People knew things but could not necessarily say them. Institutions existed but had been hollowed out. Officials understood the dangers around them but often had few places to turn.

That is how terror ultimately works: not simply by killing people, but by teaching everybody else to remain silent.

The Imperative of Facing the Past

The core philosophical argument running through Bloodshed for Power is therefore the necessity of truth-telling.

It would undoubtedly be easier to sweep this dark era under the rug. Nations, like families, sometimes prefer uncomfortable silence to painful confrontation with their past.

But there is value in airing our dirty linen if only so that we can resolve: never again.

The temptation to "move on" without truth, reconciliation or accountability can be powerful, particularly in societies desperate for political stability. But buried trauma does not necessarily disappear. Unresolved history can continue shaping institutions, political culture and collective memory decades after the events themselves.

Airing these painful truths is therefore not an act of malice or revenge. It is part of understanding how institutions failed, how power became unaccountable and how ordinary people became victims of political struggles over which they had little control.

Only by understanding those failures can subsequent generations hope not to reproduce them.

Final Reflection

Ultimately, Hassan’s work is a sobering reminder of human fallibility and political repetition.

As the saying goes, the thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.

Bloodshed for Power challenges that cynical conclusion by insisting on memory.

Personal histories such as Hassan's will never fully capture the scale of what Uganda endured during those years. They are fragments of a much larger tragedy. But perhaps it is precisely through accumulating these fragments—one murdered official, one disappeared student, one grieving widow, one frightened witness, one family searching for answers—that a country begins to reconstruct the true dimensions of its past.

The great danger comes when those stories stop being told.

Because once the witnesses are gone and the personal accounts disappear, statistics become easier to dispute, atrocities easier to minimise and dictatorships easier to romanticise.

That is why books such as Bloodshed for Power matter.

They remind us that history did not happen to numbers.

It happened to people.

And in Mohsin Hassan’s case, there is one final symmetry that is difficult to miss: the son has used the tools of investigation, evidence and persistence to finish a story that violence tried to leave unfinished.

For a man who devoted his own career to uncovering the truth, Mohamed Hassan may very well have regarded that as the finest tribute of all.

NSSF’S 22.53%: WHEN COMPOUNDING STARTS TO LOOK LIKE MAGIC

2026-09-26T09:16:47.604+03:00

On Thursday night, millions of Ugandans with savings at the National Social Security Fund went to bed considerably richer than they had woken up.

The Fund declared an interest rate of 22.53 percent for the year ended June 2026, the highest in its 40-year history. In money terms, Shs5.44 trillion will be credited to members’ accounts.

For perspective, last year the Fund paid 13.5 percent. Average inflation during the year was about 3.3 percent, meaning members earned a real return of about 19 percentage points. Better still, over the last decade NSSF has credited members with returns averaging about 12.6 percent annually. (NSSF Integrated Report 2026)

That is where the real story begins.

We tend to get excited by spectacular years and ignore the boring years that made them possible. But wealth is rarely built in dramatic bursts. It is built by putting money away, earning a return, reinvesting that return and resisting the temptation to interrupt the process.

NSSF may be Uganda’s biggest practical demonstration of compounding.

Its assets have grown from around Shs5.6 trillion in 2015 to Shs32.87 trillion today. In just the last year, the balance sheet grew 26 percent from Shs26 trillion. (NSSF Integrated Report 2026)

A billion shillings starts with one shilling. The mighty tree starts as a seedling. The trick is staying on the compounding curve long enough for the numbers to begin looking ridiculous.

NSSF’s numbers are beginning to look ridiculous.

Total income jumped 85 percent to Shs6.51 trillion. Contributions increased to Shs2.42 trillion while benefits paid rose to Shs1.55 trillion.

But this year also offers another important lesson in investing: diversification requires patience.

NSSF has substantial investments outside Uganda. That exposes it not only to share-price movements but to currencies.

We saw the ugly side of that in 2022/23, when depreciation of regional currencies, particularly the Kenya shilling, left the Fund nursing foreign-exchange losses of about Shs1.05 trillion. Last year the strengthening Uganda shilling again worked against NSSF, producing forex losses of about Shs274 billion, even as regional stockmarkets performed reasonably well.

This year the pendulum swung the other way.

Currency movements added about Shs173 billion to the Fund’s income. But the real fireworks came from regional equities.

Shares, although only about 18 percent of the portfolio, generated roughly 43 percent of total income

. NSSF’s equity portfolio returned an astonishing 60.8 percent, compared with 25.2 percent the previous year, as banks and telecom shares across East Africa rallied strongly. Holdings including CRDB, NMB, MTN, Airtel and KCB recorded significant gains.

There is a wonderful investing lesson here.

Had NSSF panicked when regional currencies collapsed and markets went against it, sold everything and retreated home, members might never have enjoyed this year’s upside.

Markets move. Currencies move. Yesterday’s dog can become tomorrow’s star.

A long-term investor does not judge an investment strategy on one bad year—or one spectacular one.

Which brings us to the future.

NSSF has revised its Vision 2035 asset target from Shs50 trillion to Shs80 trillion

, while seeking to expand social-security coverage to about 15 million people. That means the informal economy—boda riders, farmers, traders and millions of self-employed Ugandans—will increasingly become central to the Fund’s growth...

But getting to Shs80 trillion creates another problem: where do you put all that money?

Today about three-quarters of the portfolio is in fixed income. Government securities have served NSSF exceedingly well, providing predictable cashflows and attractive yields.

But an Shs80 trillion Fund cannot just keep buying government bonds forever.

Increasingly, NSSF will have to look at infrastructure, private equity, businesses, regional markets and other long-term assets. With scale comes the possibility of becoming one of the most important pools of patient capital in East Africa.

And with that opportunity comes danger.

"NSSF is not a development bank. Members’ savings cannot become a convenient pot for every politically attractive road, hotel or factory. Every investment must pass one overriding test: does the expected risk-adjusted return justify putting workers’ retirement savings into it?

Nobody should expect 22.53 percent every year.

Interest rates will fall. Stockmarkets will retreat. The shilling will strengthen and weaken. Some years regional investments will deliver spectacular gains; in others currency translation alone may wipe hundreds of billions off their Ugandan-shilling value.

That is investing.

The bigger lesson from Thursday night is therefore not really 22.53 percent.

It is what happens when capital is accumulated, diversified, professionally invested and allowed to compound for decades.

Forty years of contributions and reinvestment have created an institution capable of crediting Shs5.44 trillion to its members in one year.

For the individual wealth creator, the instruction could hardly be clearer:

"Start where you are. Invest what you can. Diversify. Reinvest the harvest. And whatever you do, try not to interrupt the compounding...

Given enough time, boring can become spectacular.

NSSF SHIFTS GOALPOSTS WITH SH80TRILION TARGET

2026-09-22T09:56:03.646+03:00

The biggest number in the National Social Security Fund’s (NSSF) latest results is not the Sh6.51 trillion it earned last year. It is not even the Sh32.8 trillion it now has under management.

It is Sh80 trillion.

NSSF has revised upwards the asset target under its 10-year Vision 2035 strategy from Sh50 trillion to Sh80 trillion after its performance suggested the old target would be reached far too early.

“We had to revise this because projections suggested Sh50 trillion was not ambitious enough,” NSSF Managing Director Patrick Ayota said.

Management reckons that at its current trajectory the Fund could reach Sh50 trillion around 2029 or 2030 — several years ahead of schedule.

You can see why.

"Assets under management jumped 26 percent in the year to June 2026, to Sh32.8 trillion from Sh26 trillion. Five years ago they stood at Sh15.6 trillion.

Sometimes numbers become so large that we lose perspective. So it is worth looking backwards.

Forty years ago, NSSF was a tiny institution whose assets were measured in billions, not trillions. Twenty years ago, it was still largely a compulsory savings scheme struggling with weak compliance, cumbersome systems and limited public confidence. By around 2010 it had just over Sh2 trillion in assets, customer satisfaction was below 50 percent and a benefit claim could take more than 100 days to process. About 10 years ago, assets were around Sh5.6 trillion. Today they are Sh32.8 trillion, customer satisfaction is 89 percent and benefits are processed in an average 4.5 days.

And another NSSF story recently almost snuck up on us.

When President Yoweri Museveni opened the new Marriott development in Kampala a few weeks ago, we learnt that NSSF had taken a 30 percent stake in the project, putting the overall project valuation at about Sh500 billion...

Think about that. Ugandan workers’ savings now have the muscle to take a substantial position in a Sh500 billion hospitality development.

The Marriott investment also tells us something about where NSSF’s growing financial muscle may increasingly be deployed.

Traditionally its core portfolio has been government securities, listed equities and real estate. Fixed income still accounts for 76.5 percent of assets, equities 18.4 percent and real estate 5.1 percent.

But management is looking for opportunities beyond these traditional investments.

The Marriott is a good example. NSSF says tourism is one of Uganda’s strategic growth areas. The investment case was based partly on data showing rising visitor arrivals but relatively short stays in Uganda — often two or three days compared with longer stays in neighbouring destinations.

One possible reason is the shortage of internationally recognised facilities capable of keeping high-spending visitors here longer.

So NSSF assessed the investment through both financial and social lenses: returns to members, employment, demand for agriculture and other supplies and the potential to attract conferences and international events.

That distinction matters. NSSF is not a development bank. It is investing workers’ money and every investment must first make financial sense.

But a Sh32.8 trillion Fund can increasingly do both — generate returns while financing productive capacity.

Infrastructure could be another frontier.

NSSF says it has already committed to the Jinja expressway project and is prepared to invest more as projects become investment-ready. Its message to government is straightforward: do the feasibility studies, complete the designs, acquire the rights of way and bring bankable projects to the table. NSSF can then provide long-term finance.

This is what a country with growing domestic savings should eventually look like.

The latest results show the firepower available. Total income surged 85 percent to Sh6.51 trillion. Realised income increased 24 percent to Sh3.88 trillion, interest income rose 21 percent to Sh3.49 trillion and dividend income jumped 55 percent to Sh369 billion...

Member contributions increased 13 percent to Sh2.42 trillion, while benefits paid rose 17 percent to Sh1.549 trillion.

But one number that particularly catches my eye is Sh180 billion.

That is how much Smartlife Flexi, NSSF’s voluntary savings product, accumulated in just 20 months following its November 2024 launch.

That surge in voluntary savings may be an important part of the journey to Sh80 trillion.

Growth can no longer depend only on compulsory deductions from formal-sector workers. There is a vast universe of businesspeople, professionals, informal workers and other Ugandans looking for credible places to accumulate long-term savings.

There will be mistakes along the way. NSSF officials made this point while discussing Uganda Clays, one of the Fund’s difficult historical investments.

No investor predicts the future perfectly. That is why you diversify.

The correct measure is not whether every investment succeeds, but whether the portfolio as a whole consistently grows members’ wealth.

And this is perhaps the bigger story behind the new Sh80 trillion target.

"NSSF has evolved from a relatively modest compulsory savings scheme into the biggest pools of indigenous capital Uganda has ever created...

Now imagine what Sh80 trillion can do.

POWER, MUHOOZI AND THE MAN STILL HOLDING THE CARDS

2026-09-15T23:16:03.173+03:00

Power is the ability to influence people, events and things—to make something happen that otherwise might not happen.

Money is power. Office is power. Information is power. Control of institutions is power. The ability to reward, protect, punish or exclude is power.

But power is rarely an end in itself. It is a means to an end. You need power to implement an agenda, protect an interest, change society or preserve an existing political order.

Which is why the first order of business after acquiring power is usually to keep it.

This is where the world of power separates itself from the ordinary morality by which most of us conduct our lives...

Most people are brought up to think in neat categories: good and evil, right and wrong, loyalty and betrayal. The successful power player has to think additionally in terms of interests, consequences, alliances, timing and survival.

Yesterday's enemy may become today's ally. Yesterday's friend can become tomorrow's liability. One individual may be sacrificed to preserve a much larger coalition. Intentions may be concealed because revealing them prematurely allows adversaries to organise.

This amorality does not mean that everything done in pursuit of power is right or lawful. Far from it. But to understand politics, it can sometimes be more useful initially to ask not whether an action is good or bad, but: What does this action achieve?

Seen this way, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba's recent behaviour deserves examination beyond the outrage it often produces.

There is little doubt that Muhoozi is accumulating power.

He is Chief of Defence Forces. He chairs the Patriotic League of Uganda. He has publicly announced his intention to contest the presidency in 2031. Political and business figures are increasingly organising around him. Reuters describes him as having long been considered a potential successor to his father.

More interestingly, he seems willing to break some of the cosy arrangements that developed during four decades of Museveni's rule.

Museveni's political genius has never simply been coercion. It has also been accommodation.

He brought opponents inside. He balanced factions. He allowed competing networks of influence to coexist beneath his ultimate authority. An opponent today could become a minister tomorrow. A businessman in trouble might know somebody in State House. A politician quarrelling with one security agency might find protection through another power centre.

A political culture emerged in which virtually every important person knew another important person.

It worked.

"Museveni's longevity has been attributed by observers to strategic patience, shifting alliances and firm control of the military alongside his ability to manage competing interests...

An urban political and business elite flourished inside this arrangement.

And this may explain why parts of that elite look so uncomfortable with Muhoozi.

Consider the range.

Kizza Besigye is a former Museveni physician and NRM insider turned opposition leader.

Erias Lukwago is one of Kampala's most established political figures.

Odrek Rwabwogo is not merely a businessman and presidential adviser. He is Museveni's son-in-law.

Anita Among rose to become Speaker of Parliament.

Yet proximity, title and establishment credentials increasingly appear incapable of guaranteeing insulation from Muhoozi.

Following Lukwago's detention, The Observer reported extraordinary reluctance among senior politicians and civil-society leaders to comment publicly. One unnamed NRM legislator told the newspaper that politicians had realised Muhoozi was not bluffing.

"That is an important characteristic of power.

Its highest expression is not when you continuously punish people. It is when people adjust their behaviour because they believe you might...

Then came the almost comic spectacle surrounding a reported celebration for Among.

State Minister Justine Nameere Nsubuga hurried to distance herself from suggestions that she was organising it. The significance was not the party. It was the political body language.

In the old order, powerful people negotiated around one another.

In the emerging order, people appear increasingly careful not even to be mistaken for standing in the wrong place.

That tells us something.

"But what may shock Uganda's traditional elite even more is the apparent absence of widespread public sympathy for its discomfort...

This needs qualification. Opposition politicians, lawyers, human-rights activists and others have certainly spoken against arrests, detention and abuses of due process.

But there has been no obvious national popular mobilisation demanding protection of the old political establishment.

And absence of sympathy does not necessarily mean approval of Muhoozi.

It may simply reflect public alienation from an elite that many Ugandans believe has prospered disproportionately during the last four decades.

For years ordinary citizens have watched politicians accumulate wealth, businessmen cultivate political connections and public servants live lives far removed from the people they administer.

Now some members of that establishment are discovering arbitrariness and asking the country to be alarmed.

A Ugandan struggling to pay school fees might reasonably ask: When the system was working in your favour, where was your outrage?

Muhoozi may understand this instinctively.

Breaking elite networks can therefore serve two purposes simultaneously. It intimidates potential rivals while cultivating the image of a man unwilling to tolerate untouchable insiders.

The elite may call it persecution.

Sections of the public may see an overdue disruption of privilege.

Whether that perception is deserved is a different question. Due process remains due process. Breaking elite impunity is not the same thing as replacing institutions with personal discretion.

But there is an even larger complication.

What if Muhoozi himself is partly a red herring?

Everybody discussing succession—including those rapidly aligning themselves with Muhoozi—would be wise to remember that there remains one supreme practitioner of power in Uganda.

Yoweri Kaguta Museveni.

Museveni is a guerrilla before he is almost anything else politically.

The guerrilla survives through constant vigilance, constant movement and constant suspicion. He does not reveal his position unnecessarily. He keeps several escape routes open. He watches his comrades almost as carefully as his enemies. He allows an opponent to concentrate on one position while manoeuvring somewhere else.

Museveni's political career has repeatedly demonstrated patience, tactical flexibility and an ability to change alliances while retaining ultimate control. His major influence lie in a five-year guerrilla struggle in which mobility, political organisation, intelligence and careful preparation were indispensable.

And Museveni is not famous for telegraphing his intentions.

Which makes the apparent certainty around Muhoozi dangerous.

We have actually seen this movie before.

Ahead of the 2026 election, Muhoozi's presidential ambitions dominated political conversation. His political mobilisation accelerated. His supporters organised. Opponents debated the so-called Muhoozi Project endlessly.

As early as 2022, one remarkably prescient commentary proposed exactly the alternative theory: that Muhoozi might function as a decoy drawing political attention while Museveni quietly prepared for another presidential run.

That is essentially what happened.

Muhoozi had previously declared an intention to run, eventually withdrew, and Museveni returned to the ballot in January 2026 and secured another term.

So why assume 2031 is already settled?

Museveni could genuinely be preparing Muhoozi.

He could be testing him.

He could be allowing him to establish authority while observing which politicians rush to his camp.

He could be using Muhoozi to discipline an elite that Museveni himself cannot easily attack after decades of accumulated relationships.

He could be allowing two centres of power to develop so that every ambitious politician reveals his loyalties.

Or Muhoozi's ascendancy could once again be absorbing everybody's attention while Museveni keeps his own intentions deliberately obscure.

Several of these things could even be true simultaneously.

The guerrilla does not need the decoy to know that it is a decoy.

That is the genius of a good diversion.

Muhoozi can sincerely believe he is building his succession. His followers can genuinely believe they are joining the next administration. His adversaries can genuinely reorganise themselves to confront him.

And all of them can still be serving Museveni's interests.

Think what the current situation gives the President.

Politicians who believe Muhoozi is inevitable expose themselves by rushing towards him.

Those who oppose Muhoozi expose themselves too.

Businesspeople choose sides.

Old political relationships are broken.

The security establishment reveals where its loyalties lie.

Potential alternative successors either surface or retreat.

And Museveni gets to watch.

That is priceless intelligence for a man whose first political instincts were formed in guerrilla warfare.

It may therefore be premature to interpret Muhoozi's increasingly assertive conduct as proof that the succession has been settled.

Indeed, a 2026 examination of Museveni's new Cabinet specifically asked whether its composition might actually be putting brakes on Muhoozi's apparent ascension, illustrating how ambiguous the signals remain even inside government.

Muhoozi unquestionably matters.

His power is real.

His ability to frighten sections of the political class is real.

His network is growing.

His presidential ambition is now explicit.

But there is a difference between being powerful and being the successor.

And there is a difference between Museveni allowing something to happen and Museveni having decided how it will end.

At 81, after four decades in power and more than half a century immersed in politics, Museveni remains extraordinarily difficult to read. His political biography is one of adaptation: Marxist intellectual, guerrilla commander, revolutionary leader, liberal economic reformer, regional security partner and finally one of Africa's longest-serving presidents.

Survival has required constant adjustment.

So perhaps the most interesting question in Uganda today is not whether Muhoozi is demonstrating power.

Clearly he is.

The question is:

Whose power is ultimately being demonstrated?

His?

His father's?

Or both?

Uganda's elite may be scrambling to accommodate the man they believe will succeed Museveni.

They should remember one of the oldest rules of power.

Never declare the battle finished while the old guerrilla is still on the battlefield.

IT DOESN’T PAY TO BET AGAINST THE FUTURE

2026-09-15T09:25:21.510+03:00

I hate sitting in traffic.

I will use any number of back roads and questionable shortcuts to avoid it. Sitting motionless behind another car feels like a criminal waste of time — time I could spend reading, writing, meeting people or doing any number of useful things to improve my life and that of my loved ones.

Of course, I could go analogue and hire a driver. What is the going rate for a driver these days, I wonder?

But my worries may soon be over.

The other week Tesla put its purpose-built Cybercab into limited public service in Austin, Texas. It is a two-seater with no steering wheel, accelerator or brake pedal.

Clutches? Those disappeared from this conversation a long time ago.

You summon the car from your phone, it picks you up, delivers you and goes off looking for its next fare.

Nirvana.

But what really excites me is not the car. It is the productivity.

I know a thing or two about technology improving productivity.

When I started in journalism, we used typewriters — noisy mechanical contraptions where competence was partly measured by how many words you could hammer out per minute.

I would write my story longhand first, then type it. If I wanted to move a paragraph, there was no cut and paste. Sometimes you tore out the page and started again.

Then I got myself a PC.

Suddenly I could type directly onto the screen, edit freely and move paragraphs around. Minutes disappeared from producing every story. Spread that across dozens of stories and hours had been returned to my life.

Because I had no printer, I saved stories onto floppy disks — which were anything but floppy — took them to the office and printed them there.

Then came email. The moment the story was finished, I could send it to my editor.

Then Google arrived and instead of spending hours digging through dusty newspaper files looking for the odd statistic, I could find it in seconds.

Today we have ChatGPT. Apart from helping me organise information faster, I can throw an argument at it and ask it to play devil's advocate before I inflict the argument on you.

And don’t get me started on smartphones.

Believe it or not, there was a time when mobile phones were not only a novelty but were really only good for making voice calls and sending text messages.

That was revolutionary enough...

Then somebody connected the phone to the internet.

Today that little gadget in your pocket is a bank, newspaper, camera, television, map, library, music player, office, marketplace and communications centre.

I can write a column on it, send money, check my investments, hold a meeting, look up an obscure fact, book a hotel or find my way around a city I have never visited.

All from something we still quaintly call a “phone”.

That is what technological progress does. It takes something we understand, adds capabilities we could hardly have imagined and eventually makes us wonder how we ever lived without them.

Every technological leap has essentially done the same thing.

It has given me back time.

That is why autonomous cars excite me.

Elon Musk has long argued that

autonomy could transform a car from a depreciating asset parked for most of the day into a productive asset. At Tesla’s Autonomy Day in 2019 he projected that a robotaxi could generate about $30,000 a year in gross profit under Tesla’s assumptions...

Whether that exact number proves correct is almost beside the point.

A car that can work while you sleep fundamentally changes the economics of car ownership.

And I may not even have to wait for Tesla.

China is coming.

Chinese manufacturers are moving rapidly into autonomous vehicles and robotaxi services and, if their performance in smartphones, solar panels and electric vehicles is any guide, somebody in Shenzhen is probably working out how to give me the same technology at a price I can afford.

That is the beauty of competition.

Tesla asks: can this be done?

China asks: how cheaply can we do it?

Knowing our regulators, however, I suspect a steering-wheel-free Cybercab will not be cruising along Kampala Road anytime soon.

But then again, Uganda Police recently reported that 97 percent of taxis it inspected in Kampala had defects serious enough to qualify as being in Dangerous Mechanical Condition(DMC).

So if our regulatory system can “accommodate” public service vehicles with questionable brakes, tyres, lights, doors and assorted other inconveniences, who is going to ice my perfectly functioning Tesla merely because it insists on driving itself?

I ask only half in jest.

In any case, I probably do not need a full Cybercab.

A conventional Tesla with a steering wheel and sufficiently capable self-driving software would do me very nicely. I could crawl through Kampala’s morning traffic reading, answering emails or working while the machine handled the drudgery.

Full Self-Driving is not yet approved for Uganda, and regulation will inevitably lag the technology.

But that is precisely the point.

Technology keeps moving.

Which brings me to Thomas Malthus and his illustrious company of doomsayers.

Malthus worried that population would grow faster than food production, eventually condemning humanity to recurring famine.

What he could not adequately account for was human ingenuity.

Mechanisation came. Fertilisers came. Better seeds came. Irrigation improved. Refrigeration improved. Logistics improved. Agricultural science improved.

We produced more from the same acre and moved food further at lower cost.

"The recurring mistake of pessimists is to project tomorrow using today’s productivity...

Population will increase — assume crop yields remain unchanged.

Cities will grow — assume transport remains unchanged.

Energy demand will rise — assume energy technology remains unchanged.

Traffic will worsen — assume a human being must continue sitting behind every steering wheel, staring at the bumper in front of him.

That is a dangerous way to forecast the future.

Innovation does not abolish problems. It creates new ones. Jobs disappear, industries are disrupted and regulators scramble to catch up.

But innovation continually expands the number of solutions available to us.

And productivity is the great wealth machine.

If technology allows me to produce in one hour what previously required two days, I have become richer even before my bank balance reflects it.

BOOK REVIEW: BEFORE GOVT BLAMES THE MARKET, UNTIE ITS SHOE LACES

2026-09-08T08:05:36.786+03:00

Book: The Heart of a Cheetah: How We Have Been Lied to about African Poverty, and What That Means for Human Flourishing

Author: Magatte Wade

Imagine entering Usain Bolt in a 100-metre race, tying his shoelaces together, putting a sack of cement on his back and then, when he finishes last, announcing triumphantly that sprinting does not work.

That, in many ways, is what African governments have done to the private sector.

Which is why Magatte Wade’s TheHeart of a Cheetah resonated so strongly with me.

Wade, a Senegalese entrepreneur, is a woman after my own heart. Her central argument is simple: Africa’s best chance of escaping poverty lies not in more aid, more government enterprises or another round of grand development plans, but in unleashing entrepreneurs...

I agree.

Africa is not short of ambitious people. Neither are we short of resources. We have minerals, agricultural land, energy, young populations and increasingly large markets.

What we have consistently lacked is an environment that allows Africans to turn all these advantages into wealth.

And this is where Wade makes one of her most important observations.

Across the continent, governments are creeping back into business, often on the argument that the free market has failed.

But what free market?

Take Uganda.

In the World Bank’s final Doing Business rankings in 2020, Uganda ranked 116th out of 190 economies overall. We were 169th for starting a business and 168th for getting electricity.

Then we turn around and say the private sector has failed.

Failed under what conditions?

"Entrepreneurs operate with expensive electricity, inadequate infrastructure, costly credit, bureaucracy, licences, taxes, unpredictable regulation and delays moving goods.

Then government looks at the resulting weak private sector and declares: “You see? Markets do not work. Government must intervene.”

You cannot tie Usain Bolt’s shoelaces together and then conclude that sprinting does not work.

That argument should make us nervous because we have seen this movie before.

After independence, much of Africa embraced socialism and state capitalism. Governments owned banks, hotels, factories, farms, transport companies and trading enterprises.

The reasoning sounded noble.

The private sector was weak. Local capital was scarce. Government therefore had to step in and lead development.

What followed in many countries was predictable.

State enterprises became centres of inefficiency and patronage. Losses were covered by taxpayers. Jobs became political rewards. Procurement enriched connected insiders.

"Socialism did not abolish elites.

It simply created a different route into the elite...

Instead of creating wealth by satisfying customers, the quickest route to wealth became proximity to government.

And that is what worries about the renewed enthusiasm for government getting directly back into business.

Already, some interventions dressed up as industrial policy look suspiciously like mechanisms for appropriating public money for the benefit of a connected few...

Government announces a project.

Taxpayer money is allocated.

There is a commissioning ceremony, flags, speeches, television cameras and photographs of important people cutting ribbons.

Then come the questions that really matter.

Where are the sales?

Where are the profits?

Where are the exports?

Where is the return on taxpayers’ capital?

Silence.

A private businessman does not have that luxury. If nobody buys his product, he eventually closes shop.

Government can return to Parliament and ask for another appropriation.

This is why Wade believe the free market remains Africa’s best chance of prosperity.

Not because markets are perfect. They are not.

Not because businessmen are saints. They are not either.

But markets impose a discipline that government enterprises rarely face. You must produce something people want, at a price they are prepared to pay. If you do that well, you grow. If you do it badly, someone else takes your customers.

That constant pressure to improve is where productivity, innovation and ultimately wealth come from.

Government has a critical role in this process, but it is a different role.

"Government should protect property rights, enforce contracts, maintain security, educate people, build infrastructure, ensure reliable electricity and maintain macroeconomic stability.

In other words, government should make it ridiculously easy to do business...

Then a virtuous cycle begins.

Businesses grow and employ people. Workers earn incomes and consume more. Companies make profits and reinvest. Government collects more tax from a larger economy without necessarily increasing tax rates.

Those revenues finance better infrastructure and public services, which lower the cost of doing business further.

More investment follows.

The economy expands again.

That is the cycle we should be chasing.

Instead, too often we do the reverse. We tax a small formal private sector more heavily, regulate it more aggressively and then use some of those taxes to finance government businesses that compete against it.

Then we complain that enterprise is weak.

And dare I say it, we should remember where this road can end.

Many African economies travelled it in the 1970s and 1980s.

"Governments accumulated loss-making parastatals. Budget deficits widened. Debt mounted. Foreign exchange became scarce. Economies stagnated.

Eventually we went back, cap in hand, to the World Bank and IMF and were prescribed the dreaded Structural Adjustment Programmes...

Privatise.

Liberalise.

Cut subsidies.

Reduce government spending.

Allow markets to work.

SAPs remain a dirty word in much of Africa, and understandably so. The adjustment was painful and, in some cases, brutally implemented.

"But we should remember what brought us to the hospital.

If we rebuild the same bloated state enterprises, finance politically connected projects indefinitely and crowd out private capital, we should not be surprised if we eventually require the same unpleasant medicine...

There is an irony here worth appreciating.

We may spend the next decade claiming the free market failed, only to eventually invite the World Bank and IMF back to tell us to embrace the free market again.

Better not to make the journey.

The Heart of a Cheetah is ultimately an optimistic book because Wade refuses to accept that Africa is condemned to poverty.

Africa does not need governments trying to outrun the cheetahs.

It needs governments to build the roads, provide the electricity, enforce the rules, protect property and then get out of the way.

Untie the entrepreneurs’ shoelaces.

Clear the track.

Let the cheetahs run.

Because the road back to Structural Adjustment Programmes may well be paved with loss-making government enterprises.

NRM’S BIGGEST SUCCESS MAY BE WHY THE YOUNG ARE ANGRY

2026-09-01T09:06:19.143+03:00

One of the NRM’s biggest problems after 40 years in power is that some of its greatest achievements are being discounted precisely because they have lasted so long.

Give people an inch and, quite naturally, they will want a mile.

For much of Uganda’s first quarter-century after independence, the questions were painfully basic. Will I get home safely tonight? Will my property still be mine tomorrow? Will there be sugar, soap or salt in the shops? Will another coup or war overturn everything?

Today those questions sound almost absurd.

That, whatever else one thinks about the NRM, is part of its achievement.

Its two greatest legacies will probably be the restoration of security and the revival of an economy wrecked by political turmoil, economic mismanagement and war.

Younger Ugandans often roll their eyes when older people say: “At least we can sleep.”

It sounds like an embarrassingly low bar.

But those five words carry a deeper meaning.

People who lived in Kampala in the early 1980s remember a city that was often compared to Beirut: gunfire, curfews, roadblocks, armed men and the uncertainty of whether you would make it home.

So “at least we can sleep” is not really about bedtime...

It is shorthand for restored security.

And security underpins almost every economic gain we have made since.

You do not build factories, banks, hotels, telecom networks or supermarkets where property rights are meaningless and armed men can undo years of work in one afternoon.

Security was the foundation.

Everything else came on top of it.

But success resets expectations.

A Ugandan born in 2000 is not going to congratulate government because soldiers do not routinely drag people out of their homes at night.

Why should they?

Security is what governments are supposed to provide.

Their questions are different.

Where is my job? Why is housing unaffordable? Why am I still dependent on my parents after university? Why do connections sometimes seem to count for more than competence?

These are legitimate questions.

The same generational disconnect applies to liberalisation.

Many younger Ugandans do not realise how many things they now treat as basic were once privileges.

Take the telephone.

There was a time when getting a telephone line from Uganda Posts and Telecommunications Corporation could take years. You filled in forms, followed up repeatedly and hoped your application had not disappeared into the mountains of paperwork.

"Today there are more telephone users than there were Ugandans in 1986...

That is not a small transformation.

The same applies, to varying degrees, to electricity, banking and the internet. Goods and services once concentrated among government offices, big companies and a narrow urban elite are now accessible to millions.

None of this means access is universal or affordable enough.

It simply means progress happened.

And this is where the NRM’s next challenge lies.

"The gains of the last four decades will remain politically fragile if too many Ugandans believe they have been captured by a relatively small urban elite...

There is still much to achieve in narrowing disparities in wealth, income and opportunity.

For the urban graduate, frustration may mean a poorly paid job, expensive rent and the feeling that connections matter too much.

For the rural young person, it may mean poor roads, weak schools, limited access to finance, unreliable power and little realistic chance of moving from subsistence to wealth creation.

Economic growth is not enough if too many people remain spectators.

The next phase must therefore be about widening ownership of the gains already made.

More Ugandans need to own productive assets. More farmers need to move into commercial agriculture. More small businesses need to become medium-sized businesses. More households need access to good education, affordable credit, reliable electricity and functioning markets.

The question can no longer simply be whether Uganda is richer than it was in 1986.

The question is how widely that prosperity is shared.

There is, however, another danger: assuming all this progress was inevitable.

It was not.

Countries can go backwards.

Economies can collapse.

Institutions can be destroyed far faster than they are built.

"One symptom of our fading historical memory is the growing revisionism around Idi Amin, especially the claim that expelling Asians in 1972 was some heroic act of economic nationalism...

It was not.

The expulsion removed people who had accumulated commercial knowledge, capital, supplier relationships and management experience over generations and handed businesses to politically favoured beneficiaries, many of whom had neither built them nor knew how to run them.

Factories collapsed. Shops emptied. Supply chains broke.

Ironically, Asians later returned and are today, once again, among the main drivers of Uganda’s commercial and industrial life.

There is a lesson there.

Capital is not created by confiscation.

Entrepreneurial ability cannot be transferred by presidential decree.

"Prosperity cannot be redistributed before somebody creates it...

A generation that never experienced the destruction can afford to romanticise it.

History without memory easily becomes mythology.

None of this gives the NRM a permanent pass.

Forty years later, telling a 25-year-old that things are better than they were in 1986 is not an economic programme.

"Young Ugandans are right to demand the mile.

But they should also understand how we got the inch...

The NRM should not expect eternal gratitude for restoring security and rebuilding the economy. Equally, younger Ugandans should resist the idea that today’s relative stability and abundance simply happened.

They were built.

And they can be destroyed.

The real task now is to preserve the foundations while making sure the prosperity built on them spreads beyond Kampala, beyond the politically connected and beyond the already comfortable.

Because “at least we can sleep” should not be the end of Uganda’s ambition.

But neither should we forget why, once upon a time, being able to sleep was an achievement.

UGANDA TELECOM RACE TIGHTENS

2026-08-27T16:02:00.261+03:00

Uganda’s two listed telecom companies turned in strong first-half 2026 results, but beneath the headline growth numbers an increasingly interesting contest is taking shape.

MTN Uganda remains comfortably larger in revenue, customers, profit and dividends. Airtel Uganda, however, grew its underlying operating earnings faster, widened margins and, significantly, generated more data revenue than MTN despite having a smaller overall customer and revenue base.

For the six months to June, MTN reported total revenue of UGX1.888 trillion, 9.7 percent higher than a year earlier, while Airtel’s revenue increased 10.2 percent to UGX1.195 trillion. MTN generated EBITDA of UGX967.5 billion and profit after tax of UGX367.5 billion compared with Airtel’s UGX643.5 billion and UGX224.7 billion respectively.

Financial summary

H1 2026	MTN Uganda	Airtel Uganda
Total revenue	UGX1.888tn	UGX1.195tn
Revenue growth	9.7%	10.2%
EBITDA	UGX967.5bn	UGX643.5bn
EBITDA growth	4.7%	13.4%
EBITDA margin	51.2%	53.9%
Profit after tax	UGX367.5bn	UGX224.7bn
PAT growth	37.7%	13.9%
PAT margin	19.5%	18.8%
Voice revenue	UGX640.4bn	UGX549.5bn
Data revenue	UGX566.8bn	UGX610.6bn
Reported customers	25.4m	19.7m
Capex excluding leases	UGX317.7bn	UGX160.5bn
H1 EPS	UGX16.40	UGX5.60
Annualised H1 EPS	UGX32.80	UGX11.20
Share price, Aug. 26	UGX435.28	UGX171.02
Indicative P/E	13.3x	15.3x
Indicative PEG	0.35	1.10
H1 dividends declared	UGX386.2bn	UGX196bn

MTN reported basic earnings per share of UGX16.40, up from UGX11.90 in H1 2025, while Airtel reported EPS of UGX5.60, against UGX4.90 a year earlier.

For valuation purposes, annualising those half-year earnings gives indicative EPS of UGX32.80 for MTN and UGX11.20 for Airtel. Using their August 26 USE closing prices of UGX435.28 and UGX171.02 respectively gives approximate P/E ratios of 13.3 times for MTN and 15.3 times for Airtel. The share-price data comes from market quotations rather than the companies’ financial statements. (MarketScreener UAE Emirates)

Applying the respective H1 PAT growth rates to those P/E multiples produces indicative PEG ratios of 0.35 for MTN and 1.10 for Airtel. On that simple measure, MTN looks considerably cheaper for the earnings growth being delivered.

But the comparison needs qualification.

MTN’s spectacular 37.7 percent increase in PAT benefited substantially from a 43.1 percent reduction in its tax charge because the comparative period included a once-off transfer-pricing settlement. At the operating level, EBIT increased only 0.2 percent.

That means the 0.35 PEG probably flatters MTN if the current profit growth rate cannot be repeated. Airtel’s 13.9 percent PAT growth was less dramatic but was supported by stronger operating momentum: EBITDA increased 13.4 percent and the EBITDA margin expanded from 52.3 percent to 53.9 percent.

In that sense, MTN looks cheaper on headline valuation, while Airtel’s earnings growth currently looks cleaner.

Airtel wins the data round

Perhaps the biggest surprise in the numbers is data.

Airtel generated UGX610.6 billion in data revenue, up 16.1 percent, compared with MTN’s UGX566.8 billion, up 15.6 percent. Airtel therefore generated about UGX44 billion more from data despite its smaller total revenue base.

Data now represents 51.1 percent of Airtel’s service revenue, up from 48.8 percent a year earlier. Its data customer base grew 18.8 percent to 8.9 million, data usage per customer increased 21 percent and total network data traffic jumped 42.1 percent.

MTN actually reports more active data customers — 12.6 million — but its revenue mix is much broader. Data accounts for about 30.4 percent of service revenue because MTN has another enormous growth engine: fintech.

Fintech revenue increased 10.7 percent to UGX580.6 billion, almost matching data revenue. Active fintech customers increased 11.5 percent to 14.8 million while transaction values surged 26.8 percent to UGX113.3 trillion.

This is arguably MTN’s biggest strategic advantage. Airtel’s Uganda results do not provide a directly comparable mobile-money revenue figure, so the two companies cannot be compared cleanly on fintech from the published numbers.

Margin battle favours Airtel

Another notable divergence is cost efficiency.

MTN’s service revenue rose 9.4 percent but expenses climbed 15.1 percent. EBITDA therefore increased only 4.7 percent and its margin fell from 53.7 percent to 51.2 percent.

Airtel went the other way. Expenses increased only 6.6 percent against revenue growth of 10.2 percent, allowing EBITDA to grow 13.4 percent and margins to expand.

This is why Airtel arguably had the better operating half even though MTN made significantly more money.

Both companies are also spending heavily to protect future growth. MTN invested UGX317.7 billion excluding leases, up 44.6 percent, while Airtel spent UGX160.5 billion, an 82.9 percent increase. MTN raised its 4G population coverage to 93.3 percent and 5G coverage to 25.6 percent.

Airtel rolled out 494 4G sites, 384 5G sites and 1,621 kilometres of fibre and says all its sites are now 4G-enabled. It is also testing direct-to-cell technology with Starlink.

For income investors, MTN remains the heavier cash payer. It declared UGX386.2 billion, equivalent to UGX17.25 per share, in H1 dividends compared with Airtel’s UGX196 billion, or UGX4.90 per share.

So who is ahead?

MTN remains the stronger franchise by scale, absolute profitability, fintech depth and dividend capacity. Airtel currently has the edge in data revenue growth, EBITDA growth and operating-margin momentum.

For investors, the valuation adds another twist. MTN trades at the lower indicative P/E and dramatically lower headline PEG, but part of that advantage comes from a tax-related earnings boost unlikely to recur indefinitely. Airtel is more expensive relative to reported growth, but its improvement is more visibly rooted in operations.

The race is therefore no longer simply about subscriber numbers. Uganda’s next telecom battle will be fought over data consumption, fibre, 5G, home broadband, digital finance and, ultimately, which operator can turn Uganda’s accelerating digital adoption into the highest sustainable return for shareholders.

MUSK, MARKETS AND THE EXPORT TEST

2026-08-25T08:12:02.390+03:00

I have just finished Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk and came away with mixed emotions — awe at what one man has achieved in a lifetime and some horror at the person he appears to have had to become to achieve it.

Musk is only a few months older than me. That makes the reading uncomfortable.

Isaacson portrays a man of extraordinary imagination, risk tolerance and focus, but also one who can be abrasive, insensitive and brutally demanding. Employees, friends and even family can become collateral damage to the mission.

No candidate for beatification here.

Isaacson, who also wrote the excellent biography of Steve Jobs, has a rare ability to get behind the caricature served up by the media and ferret out what drives his subjects. Yet despite the book running to hundreds of pages, I finished it feeling he had only scratched the surface of Musk’s complicated personality and even more audacious vision.

Tesla was the announcement

SpaceX can only be described in superlatives. Reusable rockets have changed the economics of going into space.

But for me Tesla is what announced Musk to the world as a bona fide genius.

Starting a new automobile company is close to madness. Cars require huge amounts of capital, complicated supply chains, technology, distribution networks and consumer trust.

Tesla did not merely survive.

It made electric cars desirable and forced virtually every major car manufacturer to rethink its future. Then it pushed into batteries, software and autonomous driving. I cannot wait to own a genuinely self-driving car — Tesla or otherwise.

And then came the ultimate capitalist validation: the market.

Investors valued Tesla above several of the world’s largest traditional car manufacturers combined.

You can argue they are wrong. You can argue Tesla is overvalued.

But they are putting their own money behind that judgement.

For us free-market adherents, that is the holy grail.

Yes, government helped

Tesla’s rise was not a pure free-market fairy tale.

It benefited from government support, including a $465 million US government loan, which it repaid early. America also protects its industries; Chinese EVs face punitive tariffs in the US market.

So yes, protectionism and state support are part of the story.

But there is an important distinction.

At its best, state support helps a company become strong enough to compete globally. It does not permanently shield it from competition...

You can provide finance, infrastructure, research support and even temporary protection.

But eventually the company must leave the nursery and fight.

The export market is brutal.

That brutality is useful.

Then came BYD

Some will say it is unfair to compare Uganda’s Kiira Motors with Tesla.

I think the opposite.

Who exactly are we supposed to compare it with?

When Kiira sells a bus in Nairobi, Lagos, Dar es Salaam or Johannesburg, the buyer will not lower his expectations because Uganda is a developing country.

He will compare price, reliability, range, financing, technology and after-sales service against every available alternative.

And increasingly that means China.

In fact Tesla may now be the kinder comparison. BYD sold more fully electric vehicles than Tesla in 2025 and is also a major global electric-bus manufacturer.

That is the market Kiira Motors is entering.

Like it or not, Tesla and BYD are the competition.

The import-substitution trap

This is also why I have always been suspicious of import substitution.

There is nothing wrong with producing at home what we currently import. The problem starts when import substitution becomes a policy for protecting companies from competition rather than preparing them for it...

Then the incentives turn upside down.

Instead of becoming more efficient, the company learns to lobby government. Instead of improving its product, it seeks tariffs, tax breaks, procurement preferences and protection from foreign competitors.

That is how cronies are created.

And once protected firms are guaranteed a market, innovation suffers. Why improve quality or lower prices when the customer has nowhere else to go?

The taxpayer becomes a double loser.

First, billions of shillings can disappear into enterprises that never become commercially viable.

Then the same taxpayer, now acting as a consumer, pays again through higher prices, poorer quality or inferior services because competition has been suppressed...

Export-led growth imposes a much healthier discipline.

The Kenyan, Nigerian or South African buyer does not care who your minister is. He does not care how patriotic your industrial policy sounds.

He wants value.

Politicians love inputs

This brings us back to Kiira Motors.

Politicians love inputs.

We allocated billions. We built a factory. We installed a production line. We trained engineers. We made a bus.

Cut ribbon. Take photographs. Mission accomplished.

Except business does not work like that.

The private sector is judged by outputs and outcomes because the market is an unforgiving auditor.

How many buses did you make? How many did you sell? At what margin? Did customers return? Can you export? Can you finance the next production cycle from revenues rather than another government appropriation?

The issue is not whether Ugandans can build buses.

Obviously we can.

The issue is whether we can build buses that strangers will buy with their own money.

That is a completely different test.

If Kiira can sell hundreds and eventually thousands of buses across Africa against BYD and other manufacturers, government should back it enthusiastically.

But if after hundreds of billions of shillings we are still mainly celebrating factories, prototypes and government procurement, we should ask whether that capital might produce higher returns elsewhere.

Musk’s story reinforced something very simple.

Capitalism does not care about good intentions.

Eventually somebody who does not have to buy your product must reach into his pocket and pay for it.

Tesla passed that test.

BYD has passed it on an even larger scale.

Kiira Motors must too.

UGANDA'S POWER SECTOR: STRONG FOUNDATIONS, DANGEROUS NEW STRESSES

2026-08-18T09:43:58.340+03:00

Uganda’s electricity sector is at an inflection point. For the last two decades, it has been one of the country’s better reform stories. Generation capacity expanded, private capital came in, electricity losses fell, regulation improved, and the country moved away from the crippling shortages that once made load-shedding a normal part of business life.

But the next phase may be harder than the last. The easy story of reform is over. The harder story of expansion, credibility and execution has begun.

Saidi Bukenya, whose company Energy Development in Africa has been involved in developing several private electricity generation projects in Uganda and is now looking at transmission, argues that the public debate may be behind the reality on the ground.

The first issue is generation. The popular assumption has been that with Karuma fully onstream, Uganda has surplus power to spare. But Bukenya warns that this comfort is misplaced...

“We don’t have a surplus,” Bukenya said. “We are not meeting our demand.”

That is a sobering claim. For years, the fear was that Uganda had built too much generation ahead of demand. Now the warning from inside the sector is that demand, especially from industry and growing domestic consumption, is already eating into available supply. Infrastructure behaves like this. A road creates traffic. A trading centre creates shops. Electricity lines create factories, welders, cold rooms, agro-processors and households that begin to consume power in ways planners often underestimate.

This means Uganda cannot wait for a crisis before planning the next generation projects. Power plants take years to prepare, finance, procure and build. By the time the public notices shortages, it is already too late. The decision to slow down large generation because of fears of excess capacity may have looked prudent at one point, but development has a way of consuming yesterday’s surplus.

“What we need is one or two big generation projects, not the small ones,” Bukenya said.

In his view, Uganda now needs sizeable generation projects of about 500 MW to 600 MW if the country is to stay ahead of demand. This does not mean Uganda should build recklessly. The Bujagali and Karuma experiences show that generation choices are politically, financially and technically complex. Private capital can be expensive, but public debt is not free either. Government-built projects may offer more control, but they add pressure to the national balance sheet. Privately financed projects require returns that reflect risk, but they also move part of the burden away from the taxpayer.

The second issue is transmission. Generation without transmission is stranded value. Uganda needs to move power from where it is generated to where it is consumed, and that requires heavy investment in lines, substations and grid stability. This is where the old assumption that transmission must remain a purely government activity is beginning to look outdated.

“Government needs $3b to $5b in investment in transmission; surely they cannot borrow all that money,” Bukenya said.

This is the heart of the matter. Uganda’s power ambitions now exceed what the public balance sheet can comfortably carry. The government can continue to own and regulate the backbone of the system, but it may have to accept more private participation in transmission if the grid is to expand at the speed required by industrialisation.

The case for private transmission is not ideological. It is practical. Private developers can sometimes move faster than public procurement systems, raise long-term capital, accept performance obligations and reduce the delays that have become so costly in public infrastructure. The challenge is to design contracts that are transparent, fairly priced and firmly regulated.

The third issue is distribution after Umeme. Whatever one thinks of Umeme politically, the concession solved real sector problems. It reduced losses, improved collections, attracted investment and helped make the electricity value chain more bankable. Its exit has brought distribution back into government hands through UEDCL.

Bukenya gives UEDCL some credit. He says the new public distributor appears to be collecting revenue well and may be more responsive in some areas. But he also raises concerns over technical losses, the speed of new investment and delayed remittances to the transmission utility.

That last point is critical. Electricity is a chain. If the distributor collects but delays remitting to transmission, transmission delays payments to generators, and generators begin to worry about the bankability of the sector. Investor confidence is not built by speeches. It is built by invoices paid on time.

The fourth issue is regulation, where Uganda still has a major advantage. Uganda’s electricity regulator is one of the strongest on the continent, credited with predictability and professionalism. This matters because electricity investors do not only look at demand. They look at rules, tariff predictability, payment discipline and whether contracts survive political pressure.

But even strong regulation will be tested by the politics of cheap power. The ambition to lower tariffs for manufacturers is understandable. Uganda cannot industrialise on expensive electricity. But tariffs must fall because of better planning, lower losses, cheaper finance, higher demand density and efficient procurement — not because the government wishes them down. Artificially cheap power eventually becomes expensive power, paid through arrears, subsidies, shortages or underinvestment.

Uganda’s power sector is therefore not in crisis, but it is entering a danger zone. Its foundations are stronger than those of many African markets. Demand exists. Regulation is credible. Private capital is interested. But the sector now needs speed, honesty and discipline: speed in generation and transmission planning, honesty about the end of the surplus narrative, and discipline in collections, remittances and tariffs.

The next electricity story will not be about escaping darkness. It will be about whether Uganda can build a power system big, reliable and affordable enough to carry industrialisation. That is a much harder assignment.

STANBIC'S PROFIT MACHINE SHIFTS UP A GEAR

2026-08-17T12:30:23.914+03:00

Stanbic Uganda Holdings Limited (SUHL) posted a 28.2% increase in profit after tax to UShs357 billion for the six months to June 2026, from UShs278.4 billion in the corresponding period last year, powered by strong growth in both interest and non-interest income and a turnaround in credit impairment charges.

The numbers suggest that Uganda’s largest financial services group is getting more earnings out of a rapidly expanding balance sheet while keeping costs from rising as quickly as revenues.

Total income before credit impairments rose 21.2% to UShs830.3 billion, compared with UShs685.2 billion a year earlier. Net interest income increased 16.7% to UShs433.6 billion, supported by balance-sheet growth, while non-interest revenue jumped 26.4% to UShs396.6 billion, driven mainly by trading income.

Management said revenues grew 21.2% against a 14% increase in costs, producing positive jaws of 7.2 percentage points. Non-interest revenue now contributes 47.8% of total revenue, up from 45.8% a year earlier, pointing to a more diversified earnings base.

Another significant lift came from credit impairments. SUHL recorded a UShs14.6 billion net impairment release, compared with a UShs7.3 billion charge in H1 2025. Management attributed this to continued improvement in the asset book and recoveries on loans previously written off.

That swing of almost UShs22 billion helped profit before tax rise 34.3% to UShs477.1 billion.

The stronger earnings also translated into improved returns. Return on average equity climbed to 30.4% from 26.9%, while the cost-to-income ratio improved to 44.3% from 47.1%. The credit loss ratio moved to negative 0.5% from 0.2%, although non-performing loans edged up slightly to 1.5% from 1.3%.

Stanbic H1 financials (all in Ugshs) at a glance

Indicator	H1 2026	H1 2025	Change
Profit after tax	356.8bn	278.4bn	+28.2%
Profit before tax	477.1bn	355.2bn	+34.3%
Total income	830.3bn	685.2bn	+21.2%
Net interest income	433.6bn	371.5bn	+16.7%
Non-interest revenue	396.6bn	313.7bn	+26.4%
Customer loans	5.35tn	4.94tn	+8.2%
Customer deposits	9.24tn	8.44tn	+9.4%
Total assets	13.43tn	11.80tn	+13.9%
Shareholders’ equity	2.51tn	2.18tn	+15.3%
ROE	30.4%	26.9%	+3.5pp

The balance sheet continued to bulk up. Total assets increased 13.9% to UShs13.4 trillion, customer deposits grew 9.4% to UShs9.2 trillion and net customer loans rose 8.2% to UShs5.35 trillion. Shareholders’ equity increased 15.3% to UShs2.51 trillion.

And shareholders are getting a bigger slice of the action.

The board approved an interim dividend of UShs220 billion, equivalent to UShs4.30 per share, subject to regulatory approval. This compares with an interim dividend provision of UShs140 billion at the same stage last year—an increase of 57.1%.
The dividend is therefore growing roughly twice as fast as profits. The proposed payout amounts to about 62% of first-half earnings, compared with about 50% in H1 2025.

For shareholders, that is perhaps the most interesting number of all: Stanbic is not only making substantially more money; it is increasingly passing that money through to its owners while still growing deposits, lending, assets and capital.

That is a profit machine shifting up a gear.

UGANDA CAN’T BUILD A $500B ECONOMY ONE PLOT AT A TIME

2026-08-11T08:27:08.794+03:00

For decades, Uganda’s housing strategy has been simple: leave it to the individual.

A Ugandan buys a 50-by-100-foot plot beyond the city and builds slowly. First the foundation, then the walls. The roof may come two years later. Windows and doors follow when other obligations allow.

This model has produced millions of homes. But individual development has reached its limit and is failing to keep pace with urbanisation.

That came into focus during a post-budget dialogue on decent housing hosted by the Uganda Society of Architects. Participants asked whether the national budget and Uganda’s institutions are responding adequately.

The numbers suggest they are not.

"Uganda’s urban population is growing by more than five percent annually. The industry delivers about 60,000 housing units a year against estimated demand of 344,000...

The country already has a housing deficit of about 2.4 million units, projected to rise to 4.5 million by 2035.

No number of individuals laying one brick at a time can keep pace.

The market worked—up to a point

This column has argued that government’s dismal of some people’s clamouring for rent controls was coreect.

Capping rents and restricting advances would have discouraged investment. Less investment would reduce rental supply and eventually push rents higher—the opposite of what the regulations intended.

As private investment increased, landlords who once demanded a year’s rent in advance began accepting six months, three months and, in some places, one month. Competition was improving the terms.

Dollar rents and punitive advances were symptoms of scarcity. Where demand exceeded supply, landlords held all the cards. Increase supply and power shifts towards tenants.

That logic remains valid. But markets regulate prices only when supply can respond.

Uganda’s individual builder has run into expensive land, costly infrastructure, high taxes, uncertain tenure, short-term finance and fragmented planning.

The next phase of urbanisation cannot be built one plot at a time.

The five-dollar opportunity

This is not only a social challenge. It is a major economic opportunity.

Government wants to grow Uganda’s economy tenfold to about $500 billion by 2040. Real estate should be one of the principal engines of that ambition.

Using the sector’s commonly cited multiplier, every dollar invested in real estate can generate about five dollars in wider economic activity.

A housing project employs professionals, artisans and labourers. It buys local materials and creates business for transporters, banks, insurers, hardware shops and furniture makers. Once occupied, it generates demand for utilities, schools, retail and transport.

"Housing construction has a high employment multiplier, uses substantial domestic materials and can mobilise household savings into long-term productive investment...

Housing is not merely where people sleep. It is an economic production line.

Government has made housing expensive

Government cannot demand affordable housing while making development unaffordable.

Roads, drainage, electricity, water, sewerage and other public goods can account for about 40 percent of development costs. Yet developers are expected to provide them and recover the expense from buyers or tenants.

Residential developers also pay 18 percent VAT on building materials. Because residential sales are generally exempt, that input VAT is not recoverable and becomes a permanent cost.

On sh100 million worth of taxable materials, sh18 million is added before land, finance, labour, professional fees and profit.

Government then wonders why developers build for the wealthy.

About 76 percent of Ugandans can afford homes valued at only sh12 million to sh24 million, while a formal starter house costs about sh150 million. An estimated 96 percent cannot afford the cheapest standard house produced by formal developers.

That is not merely an affordability gap. It is a market-design failure.

A private house, a communal asset

"Housing must stop being treated as merely a private responsibility.

It is a public obligation, an economic necessity and increasingly a security and safety issue...

Unplanned urbanisation produces flooding, congestion, crime and unsafe settlements. Factories appear next to homes. Roads and drainage arrive only after thousands have settled.

The house may be privately owned, but much of its value is communal. It comes from roads, drainage, sewerage, electricity, schools, security and orderly land use.

Uganda needs more housing cooperatives, condominiums, land pooling and public land banking. Neighbouring landowners should combine plots rather than develop independently.

Zoning must also be enforced. Productive cities cannot emerge where factories, schools, warehouses and residences are mixed without regard to safety or infrastructure.

Government must become a participant

Government must move beyond being a catalytic agent.

It should become a direct participant—not necessarily by laying every brick, but by assembling land, installing infrastructure, supplying patient capital, guaranteeing projects and partnering with institutional developers.

Resolving the uncertainty around Libya’s shareholding in National Housing and Construction Corporation is central to this shift. The dispute has constrained government’s ability to recapitalise NHCC and use it as a national housing-delivery vehicle.

Once resolved, NHCC should develop serviced land, rental housing, apartments and affordable units in the tens of thousands, not a few hundred expensive houses.

There are encouraging signs. Government has capitalised Uganda Development Bank by about sh1.6 trillion over five years and earmarked another sh440 billion, some of which is expected to support real estate developers.

But the scale must be greater.

Uganda’s commercial banks cannot finance this transformation alone. A single development may require sh80 billion, forcing banks to syndicate.

The country needs housing bonds, mortgage refinancing, pension-fund participation and specialised long-term finance.

"Tax relief should expand supply rather than subsidise individual buyers. Government can service land, reduce taxes on affordable-housing inputs and support developers capable of producing thousands of units.

The Uganda Society of Architects’ post-budget dialogue was about whether Uganda understands that real estate is also a growth, productivity, safety and national-development issue.

To build a $500 billion economy, Uganda must start building at institutional scale.

MTN UGANDA H1 PROFIT JUMPS 38 PCT TO SHS367.5b

2026-08-07T17:18:49.767+03:00

MTN Uganda’s profit after tax jumped 37.7 percent to Shs367.5 billion in the first half of 2026, from Shs267.0 billion in the corresponding period last year, helped by growth in data and mobile money revenues and a significantly lower tax charge.

Total revenue increased 9.7 percent to Shs1.89 trillion from Shs1.72 trillion, while service revenue grew 9.4 percent to Shs1.87 trillion. Data revenue rose 15.6 percent to Shs566.8 billion and fintech revenue increased 10.7 percent to Shs580.6 billion. Voice revenue grew more modestly, up 1.8 percent to Shs640.4 billion.

“MTN Uganda delivered a solid performance in the first half of 2026, with improving momentum in the second quarter, as the business recovered from the disruptions experienced earlier in the year,” MTN Uganda Chief Executive Officer Sylvia Mulinge said.

MTN Uganda H1 financial summary

Financial indicator	H1 2026	H1 2025	Change
Total revenue	Shs1.888tn	Shs1.722tn	+9.7%
Service revenue	Shs1.866tn	Shs1.705tn	+9.4%
Data revenue	Shs566.8bn	Shs490.2bn	+15.6%
Voice revenue	Shs640.4bn	Shs629.0bn	+1.8%
Fintech revenue	Shs580.6bn	Shs524.6bn	+10.7%
EBITDA	Shs967.5bn	Shs924.2bn	+4.7%
EBITDA margin	51.2%	53.7%	-2.5pp
Profit before tax	Shs525.1bn	Shs543.8bn	-3.4%
Profit after tax	Shs367.5bn	Shs267.0bn	+37.7%
PAT margin	19.5%	15.5%	+4.0pp
Capex	Shs455.1bn	Shs279.7bn	+62.7%
Earnings per share	Shs16.4	Shs11.9	+37.8%

MTN’s EBITDA grew 4.7 percent to Shs967.5 billion, although its EBITDA margin narrowed to 51.2 percent from 53.7 percent as total expenses increased 15.1 percent. The margin nevertheless remained above the company’s medium-term target of 50 percent.

The strong PAT growth came despite profit before tax declining 3.4 percent to Shs525.1 billion from Shs543.8 billion. MTN said its tax charge fell 43.1 percent, reflecting the effect of a one-off transfer-pricing settlement in the previous year. The lower tax expense helped lift the net profit margin to 19.5 percent from 15.5 percent.

The company continued to benefit from increased use of data and digital financial services. Its overall subscriber base rose 11.2 percent to 25.4 million, while active data subscribers increased 16.3 percent to 12.6 million and fintech users grew 11.5 percent to 14.8 million.

Mobile money transaction volumes increased 9.5 percent to 2.6 billion transactions, while their value jumped 26.8 percent to Shs113.3 trillion. MTN's fintech agent network grew 23.8 percent to 270,500.

Investment also accelerated sharply during the period. Capital expenditure increased 62.7 percent to Shs455.1 billion, while capex excluding leases rose 44.6 percent to Shs317.7 billion. MTN deployed 224 network sites, increasing 4G population coverage to 93.3 percent from 88.2 percent and 5G coverage to 25.6 percent from 19 percent.

Shs8.75 dividend declared

The stronger earnings will translate into another payout to shareholders. MTN Uganda’s board declared a Q2 2026 interim dividend of Shs8.75 per share, equivalent to Shs195.9 billion.

The latest declaration takes total dividends for the first half of 2026 to Shs17.25 per share, or Shs386.2 billion. MTN said the payout reflected the strength of its earnings, cash generation and balance sheet.

The book closure date is September 1, 2026, while the dividend will be paid on Friday, September 18, 2026, subject to withholding tax. Payments will be transferred electronically to shareholders’ bank accounts or mobile money wallets.

Looking ahead, MTN maintained its medium-term guidance for upper-teen service revenue growth, EBITDA margins above 50 percent and capex intensity in the mid-teens as it continues investing in network capacity and expanding its fintech business.

ITS NOT THE ECONOMY, ITS LACK OF HOSPITALITY

2026-08-04T10:11:55.881+03:00

BOOK REVIEW: UNREASONABLE HOSPITALITY: THE REMARKABLE POWER OF GIVING PEOPLE MORE THAN THEY EXPECT

Author: Will Guidara

Years ago, I walked into a restaurant and ordered a meal.

The waitress took my order and disappeared. Twenty minutes later, there was no food. Another waiter assured me it was coming. Fifteen minutes later, the original waitress returned and explained, without irony, that the person responsible for making my dish had gone somewhere.

Apparently, in a restaurant full of waiters, cooks and supervisors, only one human being had been authorised by the gods to make a grilled chicken breast.

I left without eating.

The owner probably went home and complained that business was slow because the economy was bad.

This is one of our favourite explanations for poor business performance. Customers have no money. Taxes are too high. Government is not helping. Interest rates are punishing.

All may be true. But sometimes it is not the economy that is wanting. It is your customer service.

This is the central lesson I took from Will Guidara’s Unreasonable Hospitality

. Guidara built his career in New York’s restaurant industry, but this is not really a book about restaurants. It is about business, leadership and making people feel seen...

You may run a bank, clinic, garage, supermarket, law firm, school or government office. The product may change, but the question remains: how do people feel after dealing with you?

Guidara’s restaurant sought greatness not simply by serving good food, but by creating a culture of connection, graciousness and belonging. The aim was to make employees and customers feel valued.

When products are similar and prices easily compared, customer experience becomes a competitive advantage. Customers may forget the interest rate you quoted or the flavour of the sauce. They will remember how your organisation made them feel...

Ugandan businesses frequently invest heavily in appearances and poorly in experience.

We import furniture, install shiny tiles and dress staff in smart uniforms. Then the receptionist scrolls through her phone while a customer waits. Calls go unanswered. Complaints are treated as acts of aggression.

Guidara distinguishes between luxury and hospitality. Luxury means giving people more. Hospitality means being more thoughtful.

A roadside restaurant can therefore offer better hospitality than an expensive hotel. It may remember your name and prepare your food the way you like it. The hotel may have chandeliers and a receptionist trained to avoid eye contact.

It is answering the phone, keeping a promise and explaining a delay before the customer asks. It is noticing that an elderly client should not stand in a queue. It is empowering an employee to solve a small problem without seeking permission from seven supervisors.

One of the book’s most useful ideas is Guidara’s test for organisational rules: does the rule bring the business closer to connecting with people, or take it further away?

Many rules are designed for the institution’s convenience, not the customer’s.

The customer must photocopy a document already in the company’s system. The client travels across town to sign a form that could have been emailed. The cashier cannot correct a mistake because the supervisor is at lunch.

Every employee may have followed procedure. The customer has still been lost.

Guidara does not argue that hospitality should replace commercial discipline. He insists on understanding the business, setting standards and holding people accountable.

His formula is memorable: manage 95 percent of the business carefully, then use the remaining five percent to do something memorable.

That five percent is not permission to waste money. It creates room for initiative—to surprise a customer, solve a problem or turn an ordinary transaction into a story the customer will repeat.

A delighted customer brings friends.

The book also contains a lesson many businesses resist: the customer’s perception is the organisation’s reality...

When customers complain, our instinct is to defend ourselves. We explain that the system was down, the supplier delayed or the manager was unavailable.

These explanations may be accurate. They do not change the customer’s experience.

Guidara observes that people often want to be heard more than agreed with. Saying sorry is not necessarily an admission of fault. It acknowledges a poor experience.

Unreasonable Hospitality is not perfect. Many examples come from elite New York restaurants, far removed from the average Ugandan business. Some gestures are difficult to reproduce.

But the principles travel well.

Pay attention. Train your people. Listen. Keep your promises. Sweat the small details. Give employees authority to solve problems.

The Ugandan economy will never be perfect. Taxes will remain a complaint. Customers will want lower prices. Competition will intensify.

But even in a difficult economy, money continues to change hands.

The question is whether it will change hands in your business.

UGANDA'S PEARL BANK AT ONE: NOW COMES THE REAL WORK

2026-07-28T09:31:11.048+03:00

A year ago, PostBank became Pearl Bank.

For many, it was a branding event. New name. New colours. New signage.

But in Uganda’s banking history, the consumer usually notices change before the policy people do.

There was a time when banking was what happened before lunch. Then Greenland Bank opened beyond lunchtime and on Saturdays. Suddenly, the customer mattered.

Then came the ATM. Online banking moved the branch from the high street to the desktop and later to the phone. Then mobile money arrived and blew up the old assumptions altogether.

Electronic money transactions in Uganda rose 28 percent from sh285.9 trillion in 2024 to sh366 trillion in 2025. Uganda’s nominal GDP is about sh250.4 trillion. In other words, more money now moves through digital rails than the economy produces in a year.

That is the world into which Pearl Bank has been reborn.

"The question is not whether Pearl Bank can become a good bank. The question is whether it can become a strategic bank...

I say this as someone instinctively sceptical of government-owned enterprises. No surprise there. I cut my teeth as a business reporter covering privatisation in the 1990s. We saw what political interference, weak governance, overstaffing and patronage did to state enterprises. By the time many were sold, they were not companies so much as carcasses.

And yet one must be intellectually honest.

Pearl Bank’s numbers suggest government ownership need not automatically mean failure. Last year profit after tax rose 34 percent to sh47.3b. Assets grew 31 percent to sh1.87 trillion. Customer deposits rose 43 percent to sh1.42 trillion. Wendi wallet balances jumped from sh45.5b to sh240.5b, a fivefold surge.

These are not small numbers. They show an institution whose balance sheet is becoming capable of carrying a bigger national assignment.

The trick now is to keep the sharks at bay.

Every successful public institution attracts interests that want to turn it into a feeding trough. The defence is governance: strong board, professional management, disclosure, regulatory vigilance, clear targets and no sacred cows.

This is where Uganda can learn from Asia.

In How Asia Works

, Joe Studwell shows how Japan, South Korea and Taiwan used finance as a tool of national transformation. Japan did not have to own every bank. It incentivised and disciplined banks to support long-term national strategy: build productive capacity, raise exports and earn foreign exchange. Credit was pushed towards national capability...

Uganda needs that discipline.

Pearl Bank can be the tip of the spear in supporting the government’s broader ATMS agenda — agro-industrialisation, tourism development, mineral development, and science, technology and innovation.

But ambition requires capital.

Government can inject capital, but the more interesting possibility is listing Pearl Bank on the Uganda Securities Exchange.

Bank of Baroda had listed before Stanbic, but Stanbic’s listing was a watershed because it allowed ordinary Ugandans to participate in the growth of a bank, not merely queue in one. Stanbic listed at sh70 a share in 2007. Today it trades around sh80. But after bonus issues that effectively multiplied the original holding about ten times, one old sh70 share is worth roughly sh800 before dividends.

Pearl Bank can do the same with an even more national mission. A listing would raise long-term capital, widen ownership and impose market discipline.

Then there is Wendi.

This may yet prove to be Pearl Bank’s most important strategic asset because it sits directly in the mobile money growth trajectory.

Mobile money started as a convenience. Send money home. Pay someone quickly. Avoid the bus park courier. Then it became a payments platform: school fees, utilities, taxes, merchant payments, savings, credit, group collections and cross-border flows.

In less than two decades, the phone has become Uganda’s most important financial access point.

That is the opportunity Wendi must ride.

Wendi is not just another wallet trying to imitate telecom-led mobile money. Properly positioned, it can become the bridge between the velocity of mobile money and the balance sheet strength of a regulated bank.

Mobile money has proved that Ugandans will transact digitally at scale. What remains is to convert that behaviour into savings, credit histories, investable deposits and productive finance. Wendi already has about two million users and wallet balances of sh240.5b. Add more than 13,000 Wendi agents, 59 ATMs, 59 branches and 14 mobile vans, and the possibility becomes clearer...

If Pearl Bank can capture even a small share of the sh366 trillion now moving annually through electronic money rails, retain part of it as savings and intermediate it prudently, it can create a low-cost funding pool for farmers, traders, tourism operators, mineral service providers, innovators and SMEs.

That is how a wallet becomes a development tool.

One year after the rebrand, Pearl Bank deserves to celebrate. But not for too long.

The first year was about identity. The next phase must be about scale, discipline and national impact.

Uganda does not need Pearl Bank merely to be another profitable bank. It needs Pearl Bank to prove that a government-owned financial institution can be commercially disciplined, digitally ambitious, well governed and developmentally useful.

If it can do that, the rebrand will be remembered as the moment Uganda began to build a financial spearhead for its next phase of transformation.

WHEN PUBLIC SERVICE BECOMES A LIFETIME CLAIM ON THE TAXPAYER

2026-07-21T12:39:21.190+03:00

Former Members of Parliament have apparently discovered that life after Parliament can be a rude awakening.

The phone stops ringing as often. At public functions, nobody is scrambling to find them a front-row seat. They may even have to queue like “mere mortals”, the people whose laws they once passed.

This, according to reports, has become a national emergency.

The Association of Parliamentary Alumni of Uganda is asking for formal identification cards, official recognition and monthly allowances of between sh10m and sh15m. Former MPs argue that they are sometimes disrespected in public and should enjoy benefits comparable to those provided to former presidents, Speakers and judges.

The association says the proposed arrangement would be contributory. It is not asking for houses, vehicles or domestic workers.

How restrained.

To be fair, there may be a legitimate discussion about retirement arrangements for MPs who served before the present parliamentary pension scheme was established. If some legislators served for years under a system that made no provision for their old age, there is room to examine the matter.

"But sh10m to sh15m a month is not a retirement discussion.

It is an entitlement discussion...

Assuming only 500 former MPs qualified, the scheme would cost between sh60b and sh90b every year. If 800 former legislators qualified, the annual bill would rise to between sh96b and sh144b.

That is before administration, medical benefits and the inevitable demand to increase the allowance whenever inflation bites or serving MPs review their own pay.

And we know how these things work. A scheme begins as “contributory,” develops a funding gap and eventually turns up at the Treasury asking for a bailout. What starts as recognition becomes a permanent charge on taxpayers who were never invited to the meeting at which the benefit was designed.

The average Ugandan approaching retirement is told to rely on savings, children, a small garden, a SACCO or whatever remains of the family business. He is reminded that government cannot provide pensions for everybody.

The former MP, however, wants sh15m every month, an identity card and official recognition to protect him from the indignity of being treated like an ordinary citizen.

You cannot make this stuff up.

Ugandans are already carrying a heavy public wage bill, rising debt-service costs, domestic arrears and endless demands from schools, hospitals, roads and local governments. Every department says it is underfunded. Every district has an unfinished health centre. Every ministry has unpaid suppliers.

Into this situation walks the former MP, asking the taxpayer to maintain the lifestyle and status that came with an elective office that has expired.

This column warned in 2019 that Uganda was headed down a slippery slope. The danger begins when leadership stops being understood as temporary public service and starts being treated as membership of a permanent privileged class.

Once elected or appointed to high office, the official begins to believe that the public owes him not only a salary while he serves, but security, medical care, transport, housing and allowances long after he has left.

Public office becomes less of a duty and more of an investment product.

You put in five years and expect a lifetime annuity.

"This is how extractive institutions are built. They do not emerge overnight. They grow allowance by allowance, privilege by privilege and exemption by exemption...

Drawing on the lessons of Why Nations Fail, inclusive institutions distribute opportunity widely and encourage citizens to work, invest and create. Extractive institutions organise the state around transferring resources to those with access to political power.

The elite redesign government around themselves. They receive subsidised vehicles, generous medical insurance, travel allowances, sitting allowances, fuel allowances, retirement packages and special access to public facilities.

The ordinary citizen is given a speech about hard work.

This is why the proposal has attracted so much anger online. Many Ugandans have asked why former MPs cannot live off their savings, investments or businesses. Others suggest that they join the Parish Development Model, Emyooga or the other wealth-creation programmes Parliament has approved for ordinary people.

That sarcasm is not entirely misplaced.

MPs are the best-paid public officials in the country. Their positions provide access to networks, information, influence and business opportunities unavailable to most citizens.

"If, after five or ten years in that privileged position, a former MP cannot secure his financial future, what does that say about the financial advice Parliament has been giving the rest of us?

Perhaps former MPs need an Unco Money seminar.

The case for special recognition is equally shaky.

Respect cannot be legislated. An identity card may get a former MP through a security checkpoint, but it cannot force the public to admire him. Respect is earned by what one did with the opportunity to serve.

Some MPs will be remembered for defending the public interest and speaking when silence would have been safer. Others will be remembered for sleeping through debates, rubber-stamping waste and appearing in their constituencies shortly before elections.

The public is entitled to distinguish between the two.

Former MPs argue that their experience remains valuable. That may be true. They can advise political parties, mentor younger leaders, teach, write, join corporate boards, work in civil society or conduct civic education.

If their knowledge is useful, society will find a place for it. A former title is not proof of continuing usefulness...

There is also a dangerous assumption that retirement must preserve the lifestyle of office. It does not. Retirement requires adjustment. Income falls. Consumption must follow. The suit may remain, but the constituency allowance goes.

A sensible solution would be a properly funded contributory pension scheme for serving MPs. Members should set aside a meaningful portion of their generous earnings while in office. Those who served before the current pension arrangements may receive modest, targeted support, particularly for healthcare and genuine hardship.

But Uganda should resist another open-ended welfare scheme for the political class.

The country does not suffer from a shortage of former leaders. It suffers from poor public services, low household incomes and insufficient investment in the things that would make ordinary citizens more productive.

Public service should be honoured.

But it should not become a lifetime invoice sent to the public.

SOUTH AFRICA’S XENOPHOBIA IS THE BILL FOR A BROKEN PROMISE

2026-07-14T10:06:35.057+03:00

South Africa’s latest xenophobia—they call it Afrophobia now, flare-up appears, at first glance, to be about foreigners.

It is not.

Foreigners are simply the easiest target. They run the spaza shop. They sell on the pavement. They compete in the informal economy. They are visible in communities where unemployment, poverty and frustration have become daily realities.

But the anger is not really about them. It is about a promise made in 1994 that remains largely unfulfilled.

Political freedom arrived. Economic freedom did not.

"When apartheid ended, South Africa faced a historic challenge: how to dismantle centuries of economic exclusion that doomed the black majority to serfdom and give them a genuine chance at climbing the social ladder...

Apartheid had not only denied people the vote. It had denied them land, quality education, capital, networks, decent housing and the ability to accumulate wealth across generations.

The new democratic state therefore needed urgency.

It needed to build schools that worked and boost job creation by expanding infrastructure, support entrepreneurs and ensure that millions who had been deliberately excluded could participate meaningfully in the economy.

Because political freedom without economic progress was always going to create disappointment.

Black Economic Empowerment was part of that response. It was necessary. A country that had excluded black people from ownership and leadership could not simply pretend the past did not exist.

But BEE was never going to solve everything.

A few people entering boardrooms could not compensate for millions of children receiving poor education. A handful of black billionaires could not transform communities where unemployment remained high, electricity unreliable and small businesses struggled to survive.

The problem was not that some black South Africans became wealthy. Every functioning economy creates winners. The problem was that too many people saw no realistic path to becoming one of them.

That is where resentment grows. Inequality becomes dangerous when people believe the ladder has been removed...

And South Africa is not merely unequal. It is almost in a category of its own.

The World Bank has ranked it as the most unequal country in the world, while the World Inequality Database shows that the richest 10 percent take roughly two-thirds of national income, leaving the bottom half with only a tiny share. In Sweden, by contrast, the bottom half takes about a quarter of national income.

That comparison matters.

It shows that South Africa’s problem is not just poverty. It is the architecture of opportunity. In a more normal society, inequality can be softened by the belief that the system is open, schools work, capital is accessible and effort can still move a family from the bottom to the middle. In South Africa, too many people do not see that path.

The legacy of apartheid did not end with apartheid.

It compounded.

It compounded through land ownership. It compounded through education. It compounded through access to capital. It compounded through where people lived, which schools they attended, what networks they could enter and what assets their parents could pass on.

That is why South Africa’s Gini coefficient remains among the highest ever recorded for a major economy. This is not accidental inequality. It is inherited inequality, reinforced over time.

A poor person can accept that someone else has a bigger house or a better car if they believe their own child has a fair chance of achieving the same. But when opportunity appears reserved for those with political connections, wealth begins to look less like success and more like privilege.

This is the uncomfortable reality of post-apartheid South Africa.

The country moved from a system where race determined economic opportunity to one where political access often became a powerful advantage. The rise of a connected black elite was an important correction to apartheid exclusion, but it also created a new frustration among ordinary citizens who feel they were left behind....

Many fought for liberation together. Yet decades later, some live in first-world luxury while others continue to grovel under sub-human conditions.

That gap is politically explosive.

The statistics explain the anger.

South Africa’s unemployment rate remains among the highest in the world, with young people carrying the heaviest burden. Millions of young South Africans have grown up after apartheid, hearing that freedom had arrived, only to discover that economic opportunity remains painfully limited.

They see politicians and businesspeople with access and influence moving ahead while they struggle to find work.

Then someone tells them the problem is the foreigner.

And the match is lit.

"This is why xenophobia keeps returning. It is not because migrants suddenly become the cause of South Africa’s problems. It is because they become a convenient explanation for problems that are much deeper...

The foreign shopkeeper becomes a symbol of economic frustration.

The reality is more complicated. Migrants are a small share of South Africa’s population, and there is little evidence that they are responsible for unemployment, crime or failing public services. Many migrants are simply doing what South Africa has struggled to encourage enough of its own citizens to do: start small businesses, take risks and compete in difficult conditions.

The tragedy is that their success often becomes a source of anger rather than a lesson.

A society with millions of unemployed young people cannot survive on blame. It needs opportunity.

When leaders fail to provide answers, scapegoats become attractive.

This is where politics enters.

The African National Congress (ANC), once the unquestioned symbol of liberation, has lost much of its dominance. Its loss of a parliamentary majority in the 2024 election reflected growing public frustration with unemployment, corruption and poor service delivery.

A weakened liberation movement faces a difficult temptation: to explain failure or to distract from it.

"foreigner becomes useful because he shifts attention away from the broken municipality, the failed school, the corrupt tender and the political insider who became wealthy without creating broad prosperity...

But South Africa cannot build a future by attacking people who are also trying to survive.

The real challenge remains the same one that existed in 1994: turning political freedom into economic mobility.

And like every unpaid bill, the longer it is ignored, the more painful the final payment becomes.

UGANDA'S HARD RESET: THE POLITICS WE WANTED, BUT MAY NOT LIKE

2026-07-13T09:38:18.399+03:00

Recent events in Uganda should give every Ugandan pause for thought.

Veteran opposition leader Dr. Kizza Besigye has now spent more than a year in custody on treason charges. The government has indefinitely suspended more than a dozen NGOs accused of pursuing a regime-change agenda. Senior politicians including Erias Lukwago, Muwanga Kivumbi and Miria Matembe have been arrested and later arraigned on charges ranging from computer misuse to misprision of treason. Meanwhile, opposition leader Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine, remains in self-imposed exile.

Taken individually, each case has its own legal and political context. Taken together, however, they suggest Uganda is entering a different political era.

Many analysts see these developments as part of General Muhoozi Kainerugaba's efforts to consolidate authority ahead of an eventual succession from President Yoweri Museveni. Whether or not that proves correct, the direction of travel is becoming difficult to ignore. Uganda appears to be moving away from the relatively laissez-faire politics that has characterised much of the last three decades towards a far more disciplined—and less permissive—political order.

Museveni's Contradiction

Ironically, that shift may be the inevitable consequence of President Museveni's greatest political achievement.

For nearly four decades, Museveni has successfully managed a chaotic political elite. Rather than eliminate competing centres of power, he balanced them. Patronage, accommodation and political flexibility became instruments of survival.

It worked.

Uganda has enjoyed political continuity unmatched in its post-independence history. The economy has expanded several-fold. Exports have grown from less than US$1 billion in the mid-1990s to over US$13 billion today. Electricity generation, roads, telecommunications and financial inclusion have all improved dramatically.

But flexibility came at a cost.

A system held together by personalities rather than institutions inevitably breeds patronage. Patronage breeds impunity. Impunity breeds corruption.

Many of Uganda's frustrations—from delayed infrastructure and procurement scandals to ballooning domestic arrears—reflect a political order where maintaining coalitions often mattered more than enforcing discipline.

Museveni mastered managing disorder. His successor may conclude that governing Uganda now requires creating order.

The Political Elite's Biggest Mistake

It would be a mistake to see the current moment simply as an assault on the opposition.

The bigger story is that Uganda's entire political elite has reached the limits of its usefulness.

Across both government and opposition, politics has increasingly become personality-driven rather than programme-driven. Politicians have become experts at attracting headlines but remarkably poor at building durable institutions capable of mobilising citizens around coherent agendas.

The opposition, in particular, has fallen victim to a dangerous illusion.

It has mistaken popularity for power.

Large crowds, social media engagement and favourable public sentiment create the impression of overwhelming support. But political power is built much like wealth—it compounds slowly through years of disciplined investment.

Successful political movements recruit village by village. They organise polling agents. They raise money continuously. They train leaders, build local structures and remain active between elections. Above all, they require enormous sacrifice—of time, comfort, careers and resources.

Too much of Uganda's political class has assumed that public frustration would somehow translate into political change without making those long-term investments.

The consequence has been predictable.

Instead of building organisations capable of compelling government to respond to national priorities—or ultimately convincing it to step aside—they have relied on momentum, emotion and hope. Hope is not a political strategy any more than wishing is an investment strategy.

Meanwhile, those within the ruling establishment have devoted increasing energy to succession politics and patronage instead of confronting Uganda's structural challenges.

The conversation should be about improving schools, raising agricultural productivity, eliminating domestic arrears, industrialising exports and preparing Uganda for a post-oil economy. Instead, politics has become consumed by personalities, arrests and intrigue.

A fragmented political elite that cannot marshal disciplined constituencies around ideas is far easier to control than one rooted in strong institutions.

We Want Rwanda's Results Without Rwanda's Discipline

Ugandans frequently admire Rwanda's clean cities, efficient public institutions and ability to implement policy.

What we rarely acknowledge is that discipline did not emerge accidentally.

Whether one agrees with Rwanda's methods or not, its achievements rest upon an uncompromising insistence that rules matter.

Yet many Ugandans want the outcomes without paying the price.

We condemn corruption but resist enforcement. We demand efficient institutions while opposing tighter regulation. We admire Singapore and Rwanda but forget that order always requires discipline.

There are no free lunches in economics.

There are none in governance either.

The Foreign Guardrails Are Fading

There is another reason this moment feels different.

For years Uganda's political freedoms existed partly because foreign donors possessed considerable leverage. Aid dependence gave Western governments influence whenever governance concerns arose.

That leverage is weakening.

Domestic revenues have grown substantially. Oil revenues are approaching. Alternative geopolitical partners have reduced Kampala's dependence on traditional donors.

The uncomfortable truth is that some of the freedoms we assumed were permanently guaranteed rested less on strong domestic institutions than on external pressure. As those pressures diminish, governments inevitably become more willing to define political boundaries on their own terms.

The Hard Reset

Uganda is approaching a hard reset.

Many citizens have long demanded a more effective state—one that implements projects on time, punishes corruption and delivers better services. Achieving those goals will almost certainly require a more disciplined political system than the one Museveni spent four decades managing.

The risk is that discipline imposed from above can easily become coercion if it is not restrained by strong institutions and the rule of law.

The opportunity is that Uganda finally addresses the disorder that has allowed corruption, inefficiency and weak accountability to flourish.

Whether this transition ultimately strengthens or weakens the country will depend not simply on who holds power, but on whether order is used to build institutions instead of merely consolidating authority.

One thing, however, seems increasingly clear.

The Uganda of the next decade is unlikely to resemble the Uganda of the last four.

A hard reset is coming.

Many of us have spent years demanding a more disciplined state. We may soon discover that history has answered that demand.

The only question is whether we will like the answer.

UGANDA NEEDS TO STOP PRETENDING ITS DEVELOPING

2026-07-07T09:42:39.211+03:00

When Kenyan President William Ruto observed recently that Kenya’s paved road network exceeds the combined total of its regional neighbours. That stung.

Not because Uganda has no roads. We do.

But because the remark exposed an uncomfortable truth. For all the money we have poured into infrastructure over the last two decades, we are still playing catch-up.

"Uganda’s paved road network, at just over 6,100km, is not small because we lack ambition. It is small because too many good plans are suffocated by delayed implementation, procurement games, bureaucratic inertia and land acquisition disputes. In the public eye, all euphemisms for corruption...

In infrastructure, lost time is lost wealth.

Which is why the recent arraignment of Works ministry officials, as part of the probe into the delayed completion of the Busega–Mpigi Expressway, should concern us beyond whether the accused are guilty or innocent.

That is for the courts.

The larger issue is economic.

How many development dreams have we postponed, inflated or quietly killed because we cannot implement projects on time and on budget?

The Busega–Mpigi Expressway was not a bad idea. In fact, it is exactly the kind of project Uganda needs. It was conceived as a strategic road link out of Kampala towards Masaka, western Uganda, Rwanda, DR Congo and Tanzania. It was meant to decongest the Kampala–Masaka corridor, one of the most important trade and passenger routes in the country.

Depending on the section being discussed, the project has been described as a 23.7km to 27.3km four-lane expressway from Busega to Mpigi, with interchanges, bridges, drainage works, service lanes, tolling facilities and links into the wider road network.

Construction started in 2020. The promise was simple enough: cut travel time between Busega and Mpigi from as much as two hours to under 45 minutes.

That is not a small saving.

Multiply that by thousands of vehicles, traders, workers, buses, trucks and farm produce movements over a year and you begin to see why infrastructure matters.

"This is a point Shillings & Cents has made before. The heavy spending on roads, rail and energy is not the problem. In fact, it is the right thing to do. No country has transformed itself by balancing neat little budgets while its people sit in traffic, its farmers cannot reach markets, and its factories cannot get reliable power.

Infrastructure is not consumption. It is economic oxygen....

Roads reduce the cost of moving goods. Rail lowers freight costs. Power allows industry to run. Urban infrastructure saves working people from spending their lives in traffic jams. A tarmac road is not just a strip of bitumen. It is a market access tool.

The farmer in Masaka who gets pineapples to Kampala before they rot, the exporter who can predict delivery times, the manufacturer who can plan logistics, the bus operator who can do more trips in a day — these are the real beneficiaries of infrastructure.

So let us be clear. Uganda is right to bet big on infrastructure.

The problem is that big bets require big discipline.

The Busega–Mpigi Expressway has now become a case study in how good intentions are subverted. The cost has reportedly risen from the original hundreds of billions of shillings to more than a trillion shillings, while completion dates have kept shifting.

A project that began in 2020 and should by now be unlocking one of Uganda’s busiest corridors has instead become another reminder that we are very good at launching projects and much less good at finishing them.

This is not merely an administrative inconvenience.

It is an economic loss.

As Africans, we often behave as if time is elastic. A year lost here. Another year lost there. A project pushed from 2023 to 2026, then to 2027, maybe even beyond. We shrug and move on.

But time works whether we value it or not.

Interest accumulates. Costs rise. Contractors submit variation claims. Land values change. Equipment sits idle. Investors move on. Children grow older.

The lost savings are not theoretical. They are the money a trader never saves on transport. They are the expansion an entrepreneur postpones. They are the taxes government never collects because growth that should have happened did not happen.

And because taxes are not collected, one child — or thousands of children — does not get the classroom, textbook, desk or teacher that should have been provided as their right as Ugandans.

This is where the real scandal lies.

"A delayed road is not just a delayed road. It is delayed growth. Delayed taxes. Delayed services. Delayed dignity...

Infrastructure generates its return only when it is completed and put to work. A road earns its keep when vehicles move faster on it. A dam earns its keep when power reaches homes and factories. A railway earns its keep when cargo shifts from expensive road haulage to cheaper rail.

Until then, the country is carrying debt, paying interest and waiting for benefits that remain theoretical. For example we started repaying the Karuma dam debt long before it had produced a watt of electricity.

This is why project delays are so dangerous. They attack the economics of infrastructure from both sides. First, they raise the cost. Second, they postpone the benefit.

If a road is supposed to save transporters money for 20 years but is delivered seven years late, the country has lost seven years of savings. If the cost doubles along the way, the return on investment falls further. If corruption, poor supervision or needless redesigns are involved, then the public is robbed twice — once through inflated costs and again through delayed development.

The Busega–Mpigi case also points to a deeper institutional weakness.

We need fewer launch ceremonies and more project dashboards.

There must be penalties for contractors, consultants and officials who cause avoidable delays. Independent technical audits should precede major scope changes. Land acquisition should be substantially resolved before works begin.

Uganda cannot afford to abandon infrastructure spending. That would be foolish.

We are still far behind what our ambitions require. But infrastructure without execution discipline is a very expensive way of pretending to develop.