A few minutes had passed the twenty-second hour of February 17, 2022 when the House Deputy Speaker finally announced the verdict. The ayes had emerged victorious. Ms Anita Among did not need to gavel the convention to order. Just a handful of lawmakers were in attendance as the House brought the Mining and Minerals Bill, 2021 to a plenary meeting. Most, if not all, of them sang from the same hymn sheet. Iterations to a legislation first enacted in 2003 were tailored to peel away the shroud of secrecy around Uganda’s extractives sector that gives it a bad rap, deservedly so.
With the sector having cultivated an aura of total opacity, the amended legislation, which President Museveni assented to in October of 2022, moved to dispel the mournful silence that settled in the rank and file. Local governments, mentioned fifteen times in the latest iteration—up from two in 2003, have long been saddled with a long list of vexing problems. There is a growing consensus that their relationship with the extractive industry could do with some sincerity and warmth.
This perhaps explains why the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development went to great lengths to make clear that, amidst the chaotic diversity of competing interests, those at the bottom of the food chain would not be ignored. The amended legislation, said the ministry, will persist in its urging of reform around “emerging issues such as mineral certification, value addition, mineral revenue management and formalisation of artisanal and small-scale miners, among others.”
Sharing of mining royalties, the elephant in the room hitherto steadfastly ignored, would not continue to be paid the slightest attention. Local governments (15 per cent), sub-counties or town councils (10 percent) and land occupants variously defined (5 per cent) would also get a slice of the pie. In the first piece of legislation back in 2003, sub-counties or town councils were not part of the equation. Land occupants had to contend with a paltry 3 per cent. This left the centre, i.e. the government, with a gargantuan split of 80 per cent. A surface-level observation invites the conclusion that the 2022 iteration—that brings down the government’s share of mining royalties to 70 per cent—will inflict less appalling harm than great good.
ALSO SEE: THE EXPLAINER: Can Uganda’s mining sector get back its lost innocence?
Paying lip service?
Yet, more than two years later, what stood out as relative bright spots in the new law continue to be nuanced, faintly enigmatic and closed-off. At least according to the report of the Uganda Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (UGEITI) for the fiscal year (FY) 2021/2022. The report published in October of 2024 disclosed that more than 500 companies holding mining licenses either paid minuscule royalties or did not disclose their contributions to any extent. This chimes with the ombudsman’s findings that put the money annually lost to corruption in contract royalties at north of USh800m.
“We don’t have any legal requirement that compels them to give us this information. So we are just depending on their goodwill, and yet without their information the report is not complete,” Ms Gloria Kempaka Mugambe, the head of UGEITI’s secretariat, said of the non-compliant companies at the launch of the report in December of 2024, adding, “We need to have some assistance from […] the Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines, which gives these companies licenses, so that the issue of the license is linked to their complying with our reporting requirements.”
The UGEITI report is not in doubt that mining companies have failed to give sufficient weight to the ambiguities that arise in keeping extractive activities in near-continuous operation. The familiar, if canonical, method of local artisans sifting through liquids in a washbasin used to extract deposits of ore is still more prevalent, and more frequently pernicious in its consequences.
“Most of the work in the mining sector is done by artisanal miners and they are hard to regulate,” Mr Tom Nsubuga, the chairperson of the Miners’ Forum, bluntly posits, adding, “Planning has to be around artisanal miners who number about 400,000.”
Spectre of corruption
Mr Ismail Medi, Moroto District’s Mayor, often sees a great deal of such illegal miners’ prospects for different minerals. It takes hands. Several of them are visible in the district’s outlying settlements where the idea of mining as a saviour holds an appeal for an exhausted lot without a clear solution to the endemic problem of cattle rustling. Gold, cobalt, lithium, limestone, chromite, platinum and marble are some of the many minerals that dot Moroto’s plains in Karamoja sub-region.
Extracting the minerals is a straining process. The dust belched from crushers as the teeth of their machinery reduce ore into smaller pieces appears to be a long way from settling. Both literally and metaphorically.
“Everybody is infected with this disease called corruption,” Mr Medi said in response to claims that local government officials connive with mining companies to whittle down the size of royalties.
The UGEITI report for the FY 2021/2022 indicates that only USh1.3bn was remitted to local governments out of USh6.49bn. This is anything but a novel problem, and is aggravated by the fact the royalties are first cashed into the central government’s purse. The previous two reporting periods also returned similar grim scorecards—just over USh2bn out of USh7bn in royalties was remitted during the first reporting year and USh1.47bn out of USh7.36bn in the second.
“I don’t know how we can fight [corruption]. It is chronic. Cleaning it is a big fight,” Mr Medi confesses.
Dire need to clean up
It is tempting to consider the Moroto Mayor’s use of the noun “clearing” as a Freudian slip. As Mr Medi’s local government dithers over a way out of the illegal mining mess, water bodies in the mineral-rich district continue to be beset with pollution. They are muddied by soil washed off ores and contaminated by mercury commonly used in the washing processes.
The failure of local governments to be more vocal in condemning irresponsible mining practices has not gone unnoticed. It, for instance, took a winding-up commission to bring a terrible secret into plain view in 2017. The worst kept secret in question was of mine tailings at Kilembe polluting River Nyamwamba.
“You need to sit with people and sensitise them and see what can be done,” Mr Nsubuga from the Miners’ Forum told Vox Populi, adding, “It is true that mercury exposes people to cancer. Borax is by far a safer option, but it is expensive. Can the government chip in?”
The Forum’s push for sensitisation takes on added resonance when the concession agreement the Government of Uganda (GoU) entered into with Tibet Hima Mining Co Limited over Kilembe Mines is further interrogated. The winding-up commission stopped short of saying that the local government in Kasese lacked the putative maturity of an elder. This was especially so after Kasese’s top brass failed to push back on the concessionaire’s request that 30,000 tonnes of copper concentrate be sent to China as a sample.
“The Concessionaire [Tibet Hima Mining Co Limited] informed the winding-up commission that it had been unable to fulfill its obligations under the Concession Agreement on account of the floods in 2014 and significantly because the government of Uganda had failed to permit it to export 30,000 tonnes of copper concentrate as samples to China for testing,” the winding-up commission’s report reads in part.
“The commission also established that the amount of 30,000 tonnes was too large to be considered as a sample for export. The winding-up commission established that the copper concentrate contained several other valuable minerals like gold, nickel and cobalt and that the concessionaire had omitted to indicate the exact contents of other valuable minerals in the sample other than copper. The winding-up commission was of the view that the export of such a large quantity of copper concentrate merely as a sample would result in a considerable financial loss to the government of Uganda,” the report adds.
Between rock, hard place
While he reflects unsparingly on the missteps of local governments, Mr Medi hastens to add that external constraints weigh unevenly on their economies. The work that they do comes with a lot of conceptual baggage, he further opines. “Royalties first go to the central coffers before coming back to the local governments. Along the way, there are leakages. They are so big and we lose a lot. […] Many tonnes can leave [Moroto] and you end up with only USh200m.”
A 2022 audit by the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) revealed that what fashions the suffocating atmosphere of pitiful royalties is the dearth of Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) between districts and the Energy ministry. Using Busia as a case study, the OAG came to the conclusion that the district was “rendered […] a dormant stakeholder in the mining process.” This was not without consequences as “the local government was only at the receiving end of royalties determined by other parties.” In which case, “the district’s interests tend to be suppressed.”
Regardless, Mr Nsubuga believes there is a workaround to the normative foundations that, presumably, alienate local governments. During a visit to Moroto, the Miners’ Forum chairperson noticed the presence of an infrastructure that can achieve unmistakable qualitative advantages.
“The local government there has gotten the powers to sit and surcharge trucks that take minerals out of the district. Every truck that exits pays anywhere between USh10,000 and USh50,000,” he noted, adding, “Since they have this infrastructure in place, they should use it to get their royalties.”
The Moroto Mayor broadly agrees. “We can collect the data from here and invoice the end user or consumer. That will be more tight. The transporters will have certificates that will be able to give us an accurate picture while closing out any leakages.”
For now, though, local governments in backwaters like Moroto find themselves in a bit of a pickle. It is truly hard for them not to feel powerless and despairing in the face of punishingly steep challenges. Self-inflicted or otherwise.
Kingfisher project
But it is not just the local governments that are licking their wounds. The latest iteration makes clear its intent to banish the lingering stench of the misfortune and grief of occupants of mineral-rich areas. Although the legislation is reticent on the details around ensuring land occupants do not get a raw deal, the treatment of project affected persons (PAPs), or lack of, keeps a stark and undeniable injustice in the public eye. Climate Rights International’s 2024 report shows the extent to which indiscretions have burned themselves into the consciousness of the Ugandan psyche and yet, paradoxically, still go unnoticed.
The California-based group’s body of work offers remarkable insight into how the presence of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) and the military elite in the oil-rich Albertine graben continues to have a chilling effect on those opposed to the Kingfisher project. The report entitled They Do Not Want People to Live Here shows how people opposed to the project face serious harassment, intimidation, and, in some cases, violence. The Kingfisher project is one of Uganda’s signature oil and gas undertakings domiciled in the southeast of Lake Albert. The Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC), a limited liability entity owned in its entirety by the GoU, estimates that the project “will produce 40,000 barrels of crude oil per day during peak production.” Climate Rights International (CRI), however, says the project’s pursuits continue to exact a high toll in human misery.
“In June 2024, Stephen Kwikiriza, who has documented the environmental devastation and human rights violations suffered by his community because of the Kingfisher project, was abducted by the UPDF in the capital, Kampala, and held for five days, during which he was interrogated and tortured before being dumped on the side of a road,” the report reveals.
According to the report, the travails of the Kingfisher project have not been spotlighted as much as those of the Tilenga project. The latter’s 400 wells—from 31 locations dotting the graben—have been welcomed with a firestorm of support and condemnation. The glaring contrast, CRI adds, is partly due to significantly greater challenges in accessing and investigating the Kingfisher project. This is not least because of the heavy military presence and a militarised atmosphere that makes criticism, even fact-finding, risky for local residents and organisations.
This report is The first in-depth investigation into the human rights consequences of the Kingfisher project, the report is punctuated with vignettes that are oftentimes acutely distressing. Local residents interviewed described forced evictions, inadequate or non-existent compensation for their land and/or other assets, coercion and intimidation in the land acquisition process and loss of livelihoods, reduced standards of living, and impoverishment. Others are impacts on graves and cultural traditions, labour rights violations, gender-based violence, including sexual violence, environmental degradation and pollution, including oil and chemical pollution; and violence against and intimidation of environmental defenders.
Forced evictions
The Land Acquisition and Resettlement Framework signed by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), TotalEnergies and the GoU in December 2016 fervently promised a number of things. Some of the commitments include to adhere to best practices in land acquisition as well as ensuring fair and adequate compensation and resettlement for affected landowners and communities. The framework made clear that it would align with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Standards, notably Performance Standard 5 (PS5) on Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement. These standards require that displacement should be avoided where feasible, and minimised whenever it is unavoidable by exploring alternative project designs.
Moreover, the standards require that displaced communities and persons be offered compensation for loss of assets “at full replacement cost and other assistance to help them improve or restore their standards of living or livelihoods.” Per CRI, the promise of less hangs in the air. The group notes in its report that such is the reality that the “measures” to “secure” the oil resources cited by former Chief of Defence Forces, General Wilson Mbadi, have included large numbers of forced evictions. The UPDF was not readily available for a comment, but its top brass has previously said that CRI’s report should be ingested with a pinch of salt.
It is easy to see why the UPDF has previously shown that the report is unworthy of consideration. The empirical evidence CRI proffers makes for an unremittingly bitter experience. Former residents of villages in the Kingfisher area described being forcibly evicted, often with little or no notice, by the UPDF. Many reportedly left with what little they could carry after they were ordered to leave. Those who returned to their villages afterward to try to collect belongings reported finding that their homes had been emptied and, in some cases, demolished.
The UPDF also, per CRI’s study, expelled the inhabitants of Kyabasambu, the village where the majority of the Kingfisher project’s oil installations are located.
“By 6am, the village was swarming with 30 to 40 military personnel. The soldiers declared: ‘We don’t want you here.’ People protested that they had nowhere to go, prompting the UPDF to start shooting, some shots fired into the air, others aimed to scare. The villagers began to flee. I immediately entered my house, told my wife we are leaving, closed the house and the shop, and directly left,” Solomon Atuhaire, who had been living with his family in the village of Kiina on land passed down by his father, said of what happened in his village in 2021.
When Atuhaire was finally allowed to go back to collect his belongings, almost everything was gone. “Only my bed without the mattress remained. My shop was completely empty. And I had just seven goats left.”
Henry Lwanga, who lived on the shores of Lake Albert until 2020, said thus: “I was in Kyabasambu village when the UPDF came one night during the evening and said that by tomorrow at 7am, I should have left the place. Around 10 soldiers were there with guns. The police were also there. […] The majority of the people that night ran and slept in the school. […] I also lost my 13 iron sheets, my solar battery, my 13 goats, chickens, clothes, bed, sofa. The house was totally empty. I lost my boat afterward.”
Rough around the edges
From bungled contract royalties to maltreatment of PAPs, it is clear that the out-tray of Uganda’s extractive industry cannot lay claim to endearingly good, even sincere, outcomes. While he is careful not to proffer it as a silver bullet, Mr Nsubuga is convinced that a dose of sensitisation can prove to be extraordinarily powerful. In the same regard, it is vitally important, he adds, to acknowledge that building capacity has never been one of the potent tools of local governments.
“Section 58 [of the Mining and Minerals Act, 2022] is very clear about how they can monitor and create dialogue,” the Miners’ Forum Chairperson said of the local governments. “The CAO
has a Natural Resources Officer whose mandate is to ensure resources are used in a certain way. Most of them are totally green. They have to understand that they have a big role to play.”
Mr Nsubuga reckons the latest amendments to the legislation intended to ensure the extractive industry does not move with the handbrake on will see things get immeasurably better. When he however trains some attention on a few provisos in the new law, his submissions vibrate with palpable regret. It, he opines, concentrates a lot of power in the hands of the Energy Minister, a political appointment often shorn of the necessary knowhow. The Energy Ministry is not dependent upon technical ingenuity so much as the difficult process of translating ideas through tangible outputs. Then there is the land question, handled in a rather tenuous way by the new law. At least according to Mr Nsubuga.
“On the issue of land, they made it more complex. Before [the law was amended], they would say you sit with anyone that owns the land and you agree then come to us and get the licenses; now, you have to get written permission,” he said.
Evidently, there are so many rough edges to smooth over.