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By Kasirye Ronald, Journalist, TV Producer, and CEO of Ronkas Media
Uganda’s government is once again preparing to borrow heavily in the name of development. This time, the request before Parliament is for Shs 8.2 trillion, roughly USD 2.1 billion, allegedly to finance energy and infrastructure projects. On paper, it sounds like progress. In reality, it is another act in a familiar play where borrowed money sustains a system of political patronage rather than national growth.
For years, I have watched this pattern unfold. Each new loan arrives with promises of roads, power lines, or modern industrial parks, but those promises rarely materialize in ways that improve the lives of ordinary Ugandans. What does materialize is a growing mountain of debt that mortgages our future and feeds a small circle of political and business elites who thrive on contracts, commissions, and connections.
Uganda’s public debt has now ballooned to approximately Shs 96 trillion, or about USD 24.6 billion. That means every Ugandan, including newborns, owes more than Shs 2 million. Debt repayment is now the single largest item in the national budget. The government will spend more than Shs 9.1 trillion this year on servicing existing loans. That figure exceeds the combined budgets for health, education, and agriculture. Every new loan, including this one, makes it harder to fund hospitals, schools, and farmers the very pillars of real development.
Economists have a term for what is happening: “debt servicing crowding out development expenditure.” But this is not just an economic problem; it is a moral and political one. Dr. Samuel Mabira, a Kampala-based economist, calls it “a fiscal doom loop” a cycle in which the government borrows to build, loses a large portion of that money to inefficiency and corruption, then borrows again to pay off the old loans. The result is a country permanently in debt but perpetually underdeveloped.
The timing of this latest loan request is not coincidental. Uganda is under financial strain. The World Bank suspended new lending to the country in 2023 over governance and human rights concerns, and foreign exchange reserves have fallen to precarious levels. Faced with this pressure, the government appears desperate for cash to maintain its networks of patronage. As governance researcher Annette Kembabazi put it to me recently, “The urgency is not about building roads. It is about keeping the system afloat.”
Uganda’s recent history offers little confidence that new loans will be used wisely. The country’s infrastructure projects have become notorious for cost overruns, corruption, and substandard work. The oil pre-payment scandal, the Karuma and Isimba dam controversies, and the infamous “iron sheets” affair in which relief materials meant for the poorest communities in Karamoja were diverted by politicians all point to the same conclusion: money meant for public benefit too often ends up in private pockets.
As one legal analyst told me, “We are tired of trying tilapias when the crocodiles are left swimming.” In other words, small offenders are punished, but the powerful remain untouched. This impunity has become the defining feature of Uganda’s political economy. And now, international loans have become the lifeblood that keeps it alive.
This is where the responsibility of lenders such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the African Development Bank becomes critical. Approving yet another loan without strict accountability measures would not simply be bad economics; it would be complicity. These institutions risk financing a system that enriches the few, fuels repression, and undermines the very stability they claim to promote.
It is not enough to issue loans with vague conditions about “improving governance.” Those conditions must be concrete, measurable, and enforced before money is released. Uganda’s lenders should insist on an independent governance diagnostic, similar to the one recently conducted in Kenya, to expose corruption vulnerabilities. They should require real-time public disclosure of all contracts and expenditures linked to any loan. Most importantly, they should make disbursements conditional on actual progress in prosecuting major corruption cases, including those involving politically connected individuals.
To do anything less would be to pour water into a basket. As Dr. Mabira warned, “The people of Uganda are left carrying the heavy, waterlogged debt, while those in power remain dry and content.”
This is not just Uganda’s story. Across Africa, debt has become a quiet instrument of political control. Governments borrow in the name of development, but the money often sustains regimes, not reforms. The result is a continent rich in potential but poor in accountability.
Uganda’s debt crisis is no longer about numbers. It is about the integrity of governance and the moral courage of those who finance it. International lenders face a clear choice: continue funding a patronage system that benefits a few, or stand with the millions of Ugandans who will shoulder this burden for generations.
Uganda does not need another loan. It needs justice, transparency, and a new social contract grounded in honesty and responsibility. Development cannot be built on borrowed money that disappears before it ever reaches the people. It must begin with accountability.
