Joseph Were

MANAGING Editor of the Independent

[The Observer @observerug]

Law don Mukiibi wins continental award for transformative innovation

Mukiibi, who also serves as Head of the Department of Law Reporting, Research, and Law Reform at the Law Development Centre (LDC), was the sole Ugandan winner at the continental event, which celebrates individuals, teams and organizations driving meaningful change across the legal profession in Africa

https://t.co/Ta39MxiFKi

[Mujuni Raymond @qataharraymond]

👀👀👀

[Joel JAFFER Aita @aitajoel]

Uganda's $500 Billion Economy Will Be Built on Wires, Not Just Watts

By Joel Aita

I have spent more than twenty years building infrastructure in this country, and there is one conversation I have had more times than I can count.
An investor sometimes a manufacturer, sometimes a developer sits across the table, excited about Uganda. The land is secured. The financing is arranged. The business case works. Then comes the question that changes the mood in the room: "When can we get connected, and at what reliability?"

Too often, I have not been able to give the answer they needed to hear. In 2001, an Egyptian Electrical component industry wanted to open a factory in Arua. Challenge, there was no power enough to set up the facility in Arua.

That is why, whenever I hear our national ambition discussed growing the economy tenfold, from roughly US$50 billion to US$500 billion I notice what the conversation always circles around, and what it always misses. We debate dams. We debate gigawatts. We ask how much power we must generate.

Those are important questions. But I believe we are asking the wrong one first.

The bigger challenge is not generating electricity. It is moving it.

Consider where we actually stand. Over two decades, Uganda has invested billions in Bujagali, Isimba and Karuma and several other small stations. Our generation capacity has more than doubled with over 700MW “excess power”. And yet we have watched power plants commissioned before the transmission network was ready to evacuate them. We have watched industrial parks wait years for substations while their tenants ran diesel generators. Today we hold a generation surplus and still lose roughly one in every six units of electricity before it earns a shilling.
Generation attracts headlines. Transmission quietly determines whether those headlines translate into factories, jobs and exports.

Now run the numbers forward. A US$500 billion economy will require somewhere between 15 and 20 GW of installed capacity, but capacity is only half the equation. Supporting it will demand approximately 13,000 kilometres of new high-voltage transmission lines over the next two decades: an investment well above US$5 billion in transmission infrastructure alone, before we count the substations and grid intelligence that come with it.

Should government finance all of this? It cannot, and it should not. The same national budget must build hospitals, schools, roads and water systems. But here is what two decades in this industry have taught me: transmission is not a burden to be carried. It is an asset class waiting to be offered.

Uganda should introduce Public-Private Partnerships for electricity transmission.

The concept is straightforward. Private investors finance, build, operate and maintain transmission lines under long-term concession agreements. 25 to 35 years while government retains ownership of the strategic network and full regulatory oversight. Think of it as a toll highway for electrons: government decides where the highway goes; private capital builds it; users pay regulated charges for access.

The detail that makes this bankable is the revenue model. Investors are compensated through regulated availability payments paid when the line performs to agreed standards, not according to how much electricity flows through it. By separating infrastructure performance from electricity demand, the investment becomes predictable enough for pension funds and long-term institutional capital, the cheapest and most patient money in the world.

This is not theory. Brazil has awarded hundreds of transmission concessions through competitive auctions and attracted tens of billions of dollars into its grid. India's competitive transmission programme has done the same. In both markets, the pattern was identical: early investors earned attractive pioneer returns, confidence grew, and larger pools of international capital followed at ever-lower cost.

I believe Uganda is approaching that same moment and I say this as someone who has delivered projects under this country's regulatory and financing environment, not as an outside observer. We already hold the ingredients investors look for: an experienced regulator in ERA with two decades of credible tariff-setting, the Bujagali precedent proving that landmark private power financings can succeed here, and access to multilateral institutions able to mitigate political and payment risk. NSSF could be the first investor to move into such a project earning a decent 14-18% return.

What remains is the framework: a long-term national transmission master plan tied to our industrial corridors, a transparent tariff methodology written into concession agreements, efficient wayleave acquisition, and a pipeline of projects tendered competitively rather than negotiated one by one.

And one principle above all: build the grid before demand arrives. Industrial parks should have capacity before the investors land. Mining regions should have substations before extraction begins. Data centres each drawing as much power as a small city will choose the country where reliable high-voltage supply already exists, not the country that promises it later.

The investor across the table does not want to hear about our plans to connect them someday. They want to see the line already humming at the boundary of their site.

A US$500 billion economy will not be built by power stations alone. It will be built by the network that connects those stations to every factory, technology park, mine, city and enterprise that depends on reliable electricity.

In the end, Uganda's growth will depend not only on the watts we produce but on the wires we have the vision, and the courage, to finance and build.

Joel Aita
An Infrastructure Consultant
Muni University Council Chairman

[Kayemba Geofrey ssolo @KayembaSolo]

26 January 1971

[Charles Onyango-Obbo @cobbo3]

The mad, cruel, and tyrannical Roman emperor Caligula, who mused about appointing his horse a consul, was so furious at the crowd for cheering the “wrong” faction during a game in the arena, he famously exclaimed that he wished the Roman people “had but one neck so he could behead them all in one blow”. Remarkable. Looking around the world, 1,985 years later Caligula’s spirit is very much alive.

[Zoom Afrika @zoomafrika1]

What have you learn from this photo?

[Alan Kasujja @kasujja]

Did President Museveni's people really ban NTV from covering his functions? How does that even make sense? Who needs the other more?

[Galisonga K. Galisonga @JGkibande]

As my friend, client and colleague, the tribulations Lukwago is experiencing, directly pain me. I know his health is failing, and I know the health facilities we have, fall short of the capacity to cope with his treatment, why he has been receiving treatment from abroad. If the law cannot be used to set him free, at least let's exercise humanity.

[Nyanjura Doreen Omutatina @DoreenNyanjura]

The spinal disc that was carefully fixed during the delicate spinal code surgery was dislocated during the horrific torture he endured in the Muhoozi basement.

To easy pain, he is supposed to under go physiotherapy sessions that can only be effectively managed after an MRI scan which of course isn’t in prison.

It breaks my heart seeing counsel Lukwago in so much pain and helpless. Today he is visibly weaker, more frail, and fading much faster than just last Thursday when he was last in court.

I pray the magistrate finds it in her heart to show mercy and grant him bail before it is too late.

#FreeLukwago
#HandsoffLukwago
#Freepoliticalprisoners

[Brayo🇺🇬 @Ntalebrian22]

If this appears on your timeline, just retweet it please.

#FreeTabz

[CPM MUTUSE @CPM_Mutuse]

Come across this ikanifurahisha sana.
Can be a pocket friendly design.

Your view.

[F. Golooba-Mutebi @FGoloobaMutebi]

A story that is not told enough about some successful “farmers” in Uganda:
1. They have endless access to cash (a story in itself).
2. They have easy access to otherwise scarce government advisory services.
3. Many of the farms are actually not profitable.

[Jimmy Kiberu @KiberuJimmy]

Gen Maliamungu was a towering &revered figure during Amin rule in 1970s.People shuddered at the mention of his name.He was as feared as Okwonkwo was famed in the nine villages of Umuofia in Chinua Achebe's classic novel Things Fall Apart.This's where he rests-forgotten&abandoned.

[Batte Baker Lule @BakerbatteLule]

Here @SsemujjuIN responding to @mkainerugaba

[Modern History @modernhistory]

181 years ago

[Amon 👷 @rwenzori_]

Why Muhoozi Arrested Lukwago!

Today 15th, former Kampala Lord Mayor & lawyer Erias Lukwago was seized from his Wakaliga home by UPDF SFC operatives. He was minutes away from serving court summons on CDF Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba in the case over the Nov 2024 abduction of Dr. Kizza Besigye from Nairobi.

Muhoozi posted on X right after:
“I have captured a FOOL and taken him to the basement!”
“We are still warming up the fool. Pictures soon.”
“This fool will learn the lesson he has been begging for.”

No charges have been announced. Lukwago’s whereabouts and condition remain unclear. Opposition leaders are calling it extrajudicial abduction to block legal accountability

[mmatigari @matigary]

Breaking: China’s Ministry of Education has directed universities to eliminate and revoke 12200 undergraduate degree programs that are irrelevant in the incoming AI era while adding ~10,200 new ones.

“Eliminated degrees” are mostly in:
•Arts & creative fields (photography, illustration, comics, visual communication design, fashion design, animation, new media art)
•Humanities & languages (translation, some broadcasting/journalism). Yes Journalism is gone as a study degree.
- Oversaturated areas (public administration, marketing, information management, product design)

These were cut due to weak job prospects and AI disruption.

New programs focus on AI, robotics, data science, semiconductors, embodied intelligence, and advanced manufacturing to align with national tech goals and ease graduate unemployment.

[Galisonga K. Galisonga @JGkibande]

The jolly good fellow, Emmanuel "Mafuta Mingi" Dombo, aka "ebbesa jiringo." Call him Mafuta if you like. Yesterday you were smart my man, though the lady in front of you complained that "eipeesa lya saati ku mabunda, lyapaswiike, lya mukuba.

[The.PR.Guy @kezio_musoke]

Exactly 16 years ago you left us to meet the Almighty … Today you would be proud of what we have become.

Continue resting in peace!