Parliament Demands Clarity on Umeme Buyout Figures

The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Thomas Tayebwa, has tasked the Minister of Energy, Hon. Ruth Nankabirwa, to inform Parliament of the total amount the government would have paid to Umeme. This follows a variance in figures presented by both the government and the Auditor General regarding the amount due for Umeme’s buyout.

His directive came after protests by the Leader of Opposition, Joel Ssenyonyi, and Ibrahim Ssemujju (Kira Municipality), who disagreed with Tayebwa’s request for Parliament to approve the Special Audit report by the Auditor General on Umeme’s concession during Thursday Plenary. They questioned why MPs should approve a report without having access to its contents.

“On the issue of Umeme, since we have gotten varying figures, the Minister of Energy will be required to come back here and report back on what they would have paid Umeme since the Auditor General has guided,” said Tayebwa.

The protest was led by Ssemujju, who noted that he has been in Parliament for several years and that the House has never passed an Auditor General’s report without first reviewing it.

“This is going to be the first, in the modern history of Parliament, that a report can be laid there and MPs pass it without seeing it. He was backed by Ssenyonyi, who wondered why the report on Umeme wasn’t forwarded to the Accountability Committees for scrutiny like all reports from the Auditor General are handled in Parliament,” said Ssemujju.

The Leader of Opposition, Hon. Ssenyonyi, emphasized that Parliament should not hand over the appropriation role to the government.

“I am a little flummoxed because we were here as Parliament, and we appropriated US$190,998,556. We protested that, firstly, because there was no Auditor General’s report, it carried the day. We are now being told that there is an Auditor General’s report mentioning the US$118 million. You are saying we should adopt the Auditor General’s report and hand it over to Government, I don’t know how that gets, because then, are we handing over the appropriation role to Gov’t?” asked Joel.

The Leader of Opposition added, “The Auditor General’s report needs to be studied because they do work for us, as Parliament, so before we pass it, it will be good to know what is in that report, can we ascertain so that we don’t have too many run-ins.”

However, Tayebwa defended his stance, arguing that any delays in clearing Umeme’s buyout amounts would give the distribution company an opportunity to triple its penalties on Ugandan taxpayers due to delayed payment.

“This is a time-bound report, which when you were passing the resolution, you conditioned to this report. And mind you, we must sort with Umeme by 31st March 2025. What it means is that if by then we haven’t pronounced ourselves on the report of the Auditor General, government will continue with what we passed because they don’t know about it. If we don’t settle by that timeline, Umeme will get a blank check to start tripling interest and penalties, so you don’t have much,” said Tayebwa.

Hon. Ekanya Geofrey (FDC, Tororo North County) agreed with the Deputy Speaker, citing practices from neighboring countries like Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa where, he said, governments there do not wait for Parliament approval before implementing such reports.

“Special audit reports have issues of criminal in nature, but also this report is time bound. We request that Speaker invokes the necessary rules so that when Parliament takes a decision, it is within our Rules,” Ekanya said. 

This comes at a time when the government has revised the loan request to buy out the electricity distribution company, UMEME, from over US$190 million to over US$118 million.

The development was contained in the Special Audit Report for the end of the lease and assignment between UMEME Limited and Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL) that was adopted during a plenary sitting today, Thursday, 27 March 2025.

The report was tabled by the Minister of State for Finance, Planning and Economic Development (General Duties), Hon. Henry Musasizi.

On 20 March 2025, Parliament adopted the proposal for the Government to borrow over US$190 million from Stanbic Bank on the condition of confirmation of the actual monetary amount of UMEME’s investment by the Auditor General.

Before the revised figure was passed, during plenary sitting today, Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa urged the government to take into consideration the special audit report when finalising with UMEME.