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Who is benefiting from Busia Gold?
In June 2022, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, during the State of Nation address declared that Uganda had discovered massive gold deposits valued at over $12tn!
According to sources, most of the deposits was in Karamoja and the Eastern District of Busia.
Indeed, the government contracted a Chinese Company, Wagagai Mining (U) Limited, owned by Liaoning Honda Enterprise Group.
Ever since the President’s announcement, the Government went completely mute but on the ground, there is beehive activities and we can exclusively reveal that gold is being mined on a daily basis.
Liaoning Honda Enterprise Group was registered in Busia and its operations are ongoing.
In March 2023, the Minister for Energy and Minerals Development, Hon. Ruth Nankabirwa, directed the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) to halt the recovery of gold export taxes.
Uganda has missed out on Ush600 billion ($160.77 million) in uncollected tax from the export of gold products since July 2021 owing to a dispute with exporters and refiners over levies, a report by the country’s Parliamentary Committee on Finance, Planning and Economic Development.
Highly placed people including some Ministers are in the gold business exporting it mainly to the United Arab Emirates.
Currently, the proceeds from the gold mines in Busia and Karamoja are unknown and the beneficiaries definitely prefer the status quo.
The impasse which has led Uganda to lose billions in taxes stems from the dispute of Uganda’s Mining Amendment Bill 2021, which proposed a levy of $200 per kilogramme (Ush746,400) on processed gold and one percent of the value of unprocessed minerals.
A country like Uganda chocking with a public debt of over Sh90tn should optimally tap every area where revenue can be generated but it is quite shocking how the minerals like gold are not serving a nation to this regard.
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