Secret owners of Uganda’s state deals exposed

The laws have been rewritten, but behind Uganda’s bold new push for corporate transparency lies a deeper question: can a country long burdened by opaque business dealings, entrenched corruption, and regulatory loopholes truly sustain a culture of financial accountability?

Over the past two years, Uganda has embarked on a sweeping transformation of its corporate governance landscape, enacting ambitious legal reforms that compel companies to disclose their beneficial owners, the real people behind the paperwork.

This move, unprecedented in scope for the region, aims to dismantle the shadowy structures that have enabled illicit financial flows, tax evasion, and public sector fraud to thrive. At the heart of this shift is beneficial ownership (BO) reform, a policy effort that peels back corporate veils to reveal the individuals who ultimately own or control business entities. Uganda’s bet?

That transparent ownership can curb financial crime and boost investor confidence in one of Africa’s most promising, but still fragile, economies. But ambition alone won’t carry the reform. As a new factsheet by Global Financial Integrity (GFI) and the Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (ACODE) reveals, Uganda’s BO journey is as much about political will and enforcement as it is about technical infrastructure.

The country is building a new kind of economy, one that doesn’t just grow, but grows clean. In 2022, Uganda enacted one of the most sweeping legislative updates in its financial history. Amendments to the Companies Act, Anti-Money Laundering Act, and six other statutes made it a legal requirement for companies, partnerships, trusts and cooperatives to declare their beneficial owners, without the usual thresholds that allow hidden control through minority stakes.

In regulatory terms, that’s bold. Most countries still allow ownership below 25 percent to go unreported. Uganda, instead, opted for the global best practice of zero tolerance for opacity, in line with recommendations from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the OECD.

This legal support, while impressive on paper, was meant to be more than performative compliance. It was designed to transform how business is done and how it is monitored. The engine room for Uganda’s BO reform is the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), which now hosts a central Beneficial Ownership Register, integrated with the Online Business Registration System (OBRS).

The OBRS allows entities to file, update, and correct their BO information digitally, with backend access granted to oversight bodies. The goal: streamline oversight, make BO data accessible, and shift from passive regulation to proactive enforcement.

But the data tells a more complicated story. By mid-2024, only 34.1 per cent of registered companies had complied with the BO disclosure requirement. Over 297,000 companies were struck off the register for non-compliance.

Among cooperatives, compliance stood at 79 per cent, better, but still short of full transparency. The core problem isn’t intent. It’s execution. The factsheet flags a lack of independent verification mechanisms, meaning there’s little to stop a company from filing misleading or incomplete information.

Without meaningful penalties or routine audits, the central registry risks becoming an underutilized filing cabinet rather than a functional oversight tool. Uganda’s extractive industry, long a magnet for both foreign investment and regulatory obscurity, is under particular scrutiny.

Under Uganda’s commitment to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), resource extraction companies must disclose BO information as part of their operating licenses.

This is a crucial shift in a sector often plagued by secretive joint ventures, shell companies and tax havens. Similarly, the government has implemented BO disclosure mandates for all companies bidding for public procurement contracts.

Noncompliance leads to automatic disqualification, an aggressive stance that aims to sever the link between anonymous ownership and public sector corruption. These sector-specific reforms show how BO rules are not just about financial integrity, they are also about fairness and accountability in how national wealth is managed and distributed.

A GLOBAL STANDARD—AND A REGIONAL SIGNAL

Uganda’s removal from the FATF “grey list” in February 2024 was a diplomatic and reputational victory. It signaled to investors that the country had addressed key deficiencies in anti-money laundering (AML) and BO oversight.

The implications are more than symbolic. Access to international finance often depends on a clean FATF bill of health. Grey-listing leads to derisking by global banks, higher transaction costs and reputational harm.

Uganda’s exit from that list opens doors to credit, investment and cross-border financial partnerships. But with that opportunity comes expectation. The OECD and development partners are now urging Uganda to move beyond self-reporting and implement independent verification systems, a standard already adopted by Nigeria.

There are also growing calls to make the BO register publicly accessible, which would allow journalists, civil society and private investors to conduct due diligence and spot inconsistencies in real time.

While the reforms are being positioned as anti-corruption tools, their impact on business confidence could be profound. Transparency levels the playing field. It ensures that contracts aren’t won through cronyism. It provides assurance to foreign investors that their competitors are legitimate and accountable.

It signals to multinationals that Uganda takes governance seriously. Yet, the path is steep. As the factsheet highlights, awareness campaigns have not translated into action. Many companies either misunderstand the new rules or ignore them altogether. Enforcement remains weak.

And in sectors like land trusts and cooperatives, opaque structures still allow illicit financial flows to pass undetected. In other words, the architecture is in place. But without stronger penalties, routine audits, and cross-agency coordination, the reform risks stalling. Uganda is at a crossroads.

Its BO reform efforts reflect a genuine attempt to break with a legacy of hidden wealth and informal economies. The legal groundwork is solid. The digital systems are operational.

The international goodwill is real. What remains is political will—and enforcement muscle. If Uganda can demonstrate that its BO regime works not just on paper but in practice, it could emerge as a regional leader in corporate governance.

It could attract investors looking for stability and transparency. It could help set new standards for public procurement, extractive industry licensing, and financial sector oversight across East Africa.

But if implementation stalls, Uganda risks joining the ranks of countries with well-drafted reforms that change little on the ground. For now, the world is watching— investors, policymakers and civil society alike. Uganda has taken a bold step into transparency. The question is whether it will keep walking.

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