How to navigate fuel bill leakage hiding in plain sight
The most expensive litre of fuel is not always the one that disappears. Sometimes, it is the litre that is properly purchased, fully accounted for and completely wasted, writes James Rusoke
James Rusoke. (File)
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OPINION
By James Rusoke
Every litre of fuel charged to a government budget or corporate account should produce a defensible operational return. Yet across Uganda’s transport and logistics operations, fuel can be properly procured, authorized, issued and reconciled while money is lost through empty truck journeys, excessive idling, duplicated trips, poor dispatch planning and underutilized vehicles.
This creates a difficult question for permanent secretaries, accounting officers, Chief Financial Officers and fleet directors. Are we controlling the cost of fuel or merely accounting for its consumption?
The distinction is material. Financial reconciliation can establish where money went. However, it cannot, on its own establish whether the kilometers travelled were necessary, whether cargo capacity was efficiently used or whether the intended service justified the expenditure. As fuel prices rise, the gap between financial compliance and operational productivity becomes increasingly expensive.
In May 2026, Uganda’s average diesel pump price reached sh5,756 per litre, compared with sh4,738 in May 2025, an increase of approximately 21.5%, according to the Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development’s May 2026 Performance of the Economy report.
For government institutions, this creates greater pressure on operational budgets. For transport companies, it threatens margins. For businesses distributing goods across the country, it adds to the cost of getting products to the market.
The issue is not to presume fraud wherever fuel consumption is high. It is to recognize that legitimate expenditure can still represent poor value for money. An expenditure can be fully accounted for and still fail the test of value for money.
Think of fuel wastage that financial reconciliation cannot reveal; imagine a government department with fuel cards, approved vehicle movements, signed logbooks and monthly expenditure reports. Every transaction has supporting documentation. Yet its vehicles spend hours idling, departments dispatch separate vehicles to the same destination, and official journeys are completed without coordinating available transport resources. The records may balance. The operation may still be inefficient. And this is the difference between financial control and operational control.
Financial control asks whether expenditure was authorized, recorded and supported by documentation. Operational control asks whether the expenditure was necessary, efficient and proportionate to the work completed.
Uganda’s public-sector audit findings illustrate why fleet governance deserves attention. In a historical audit of the Law Development Centre, the Auditor General found that the logbooks for all 11 vehicles reviewed had not been properly updated or certified. Another historical district audit found that none of the 16 vehicles sampled had undergone the required annual inspections per the Auditor-General’s 2020 report on the financial statements of Law Development Centre for 2019 – 2020.
These are findings relating to specific institutions and audit periods, not national fleet statistics.
The lesson for Accounting Officers is not simply to demand more paperwork. It is to ensure that existing controls generate actionable management information. A clean audit trail is important.
Demonstrable operational value is the next test.
Look at empty trucks where capacity moves but value does not. Consider a truck delivering cargo from Kampala to an upcountry destination before returning empty because no return load has been secured. The return journey consumes fuel, occupies driver hours and adds vehicle wear. Yet it may generate no freight revenue.
One empty return may be unavoidable. Repeated empty journeys without investigating alternatives represent a potential management opportunity. Imagine a truck travelling 200km on an empty return journey and consuming 30 litre per 100km under its particular operating conditions. The journey would consume 60 litres of diesel. At the May 2026 average price of sh5,756 per litre, that fuel would cost approximately sh345,360. If the same journey occurred 20 times, the associated fuel expenditure would reach approximately sh6.9 million.
This is an illustrative calculation, not a measured estimate of Uganda’s freight losses. Actual consumption varies by vehicle, road conditions, terrain and operating circumstances. The commercial opportunity lies in better dispatch planning, collaborative freight arrangements and digital load-matching systems that connect available trucks with compatible return cargo.
The same principle applies to government fleets. Coordinating visits, sharing suitable transport resources and consolidating assignments can reduce duplicated journeys where operational requirements permit. The question is not whether every empty journey can be eliminated. It is whether management knows how much empty running occurs, why it happens and what it costs.
Construction machinery consumes diesel while waiting for materials or complementary equipment.
Some idling is necessary for safety and equipment requirements I agree but there is also unnecessary, unmanaged idling and that is different.
Suppose a fleet spends sh1 billion annually on fuel. If a properly conducted review identifies avoidable consumption equivalent to 5% of that expenditure, the potential gross saving would be sh50 million.
That is a hypothetical scenario, not a verified national benchmark. Savings must be demonstrated against a credible baseline and adjusted for workload, vehicle utilization, operating conditions and implementation costs.
For senior management, the important question is what causes the waste.
If trucks idle because warehouses are slow to load, the warehouse process must be examined. If vehicles wait because instructions arrive late, dispatch planning needs attention. If machines run while projects lack materials, project coordination may be the real problem. Punishing drivers without investigating these causes risks treating the symptom rather than correcting the system.
Fuel efficiency begins with operational planning not merely driver discipline.
Think of the procurement gaps present, we sometimes tend to confuse buying fuel the same as buying efficiency. Procurement teams are expected to secure competitive prices, comply with procedures and manage supplier performance. But the lowest price per liter should not automatically produce the lowest total operating cost as believed.
Supply interruptions can trigger emergency purchases. Poorly planned refueling arrangements can create unnecessary journeys. Weak coordination between procurement, finance, fleet management and operations can leave nobody responsible for the complete cost of moving people, cargo and equipment. The solution is to connect procurement performance with operational outcomes.
Organizations should assess purchase price alongside supply reliability, delivery arrangements, emergency procurement costs, verified fuel economy and operational downtime.
For Accounting Officers, this is an opportunity to strengthen value-for-money reviews. For corporate executives, it is a way to protect margins beyond the annual fuel-contract negotiation.
A competitive fuel price is a starting point. Efficient fuel utilization is the result management must deliver.
We have all heard of GPS tracking, the technology is here with us but where is the accountability? GPS tracking and fleet-management systems can identify excessive idling, unusual fuel consumption, route deviations and underutilized vehicles.
However, an alert does not create a saving. An investigation, corrective action and verified improvement do. A fleet may generate hundreds of reports without assigning responsibility for resolving recurring problems. Management receives data, but budgets and operating procedures remain unchanged.
The solution is a closed accountability process: detect, investigate, assign responsibility, correct and verify. A monthly executive dashboard should report not only fuel expenditure but also:
Fuel cost per productive kilometer.
Empty kilometers as a proportion of total distance.
Cost of unnecessary idling.
Fuel efficiency by vehicle and equipment type.
Corrective actions completed and verified savings achieved.
These indicators must be interpreted in context. Vehicle type, payload, terrain, traffic and service requirements all influence consumption.
The objective is to identify genuine inefficiency not to impose arbitrary targets or encourage unsafe driving.
What should our leaders the permanent secretaries and accounting officers do next? The responsedoes not have to begin with a costly technology project or a blanket reduction in fuel allocations.
A practical 90-day fuel-productivity review could establish whether material opportunities exist.
Days 1–30: Establish the baseline; reconcile fuel transactions with vehicle movements, odometer readings, dispatch records, maintenance history and completed assignments. Identify recurring anomalies and high-cost operating patterns.
Days 31–60: Correct the largest problems. Test measures such as improved dispatch scheduling, reduced unnecessary idling, preventive maintenance and coordination of compatible journeys or return loads.
Days 61–90: Verify the results. Compare performance against the baseline, adjust for changes in workload and operating conditions, and report the financial impact alongside any effects on safety and service delivery.
The review should assign clear responsibilities across fleet management, procurement, finance, operations and internal audit.
Savings must be evidenced, not assumed. Reducing fuel expenditure by completing fewer essential journeys is not an efficiency gain.
For public institutions, the ultimate objective is to demonstrate that public money supports necessary services at a reasonable cost. For companies, it is to improve productivity and protect profitability.
Uganda’s fuel-management debate must move beyond the narrow question of whether fuel was stolen. It must also examine whether procurement decisions, dispatch practices, maintenance standards, vehicle utilization and management incentives are creating avoidable costs.
-Permanent Secretaries and Accounting Officers need evidence that fuel expenditure delivers value for money.
-Corporate executives need to understand how much fuel is required to produce a unit of useful output.
-Fleet Directors need the authority and data to correct operational inefficiencies.
The opportunity is not to accuse every driver or institution of waste. It is to build systems that distinguish necessary consumption from preventable loss.
The most expensive liter of fuel is not always the one that disappears. Sometimes, it is the litre that is properly purchased, fully accounted for and completely wasted.
The writer is a Ugandan-based thought leader in logistics & transport strategy