Unpaid subscription almost caused Uganda embarrassment at AU summit

KAMPALA - Lawmakers have grilled foreign affairs ministry over failure to pay subscription to international bodies.

This unfolded on March 5, 2026, during a meeting between officials from the entity led by permanent secretary Vincent Waiswa Bagiire and lawmakers on the Public Accounts Committee (Central) chaired by Mawogola South’s Goretth Namugga.

At the time, the two parties were interacting on Auditor General (AG) Edward Akol for the year ended December 2025, in which it was noted that the ministry had accumulated arrears worth shillings 98.95 billion relating to international organisations and consequently, the country had been flagged for non-compliance by the African Union (AU).

A phenomenon, which, besides leaving an egg on the country’s face, Namugga retorted, calls for introspection on whether the country still needs to remain a member of international bodies.

“You even have the capacity to embarrass this country internationally. You have arrears you cannot pay; you cannot budget for international subscription. Do we still need them (bodies) and are they still relevant?” Namugga wondered.

Before adding, “Some of the details we are speaking to, one, is the Commonwealth Foundation and Commonwealth Secretariat. The other one is the UN (United Nations) Secretariat, the other is the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Imam is here (Basalirwa). We have the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), World Food Programme (WFP), UN Peacekeeping Tribunal, AGS Frasers International Removals Limited.”

VP almost denied mic

Responding, Bagiire acknowledged that this imputed a bad image of Uganda, and the matter had been with them for quite some time.

Saying Ugandan delegation to Addis Ababa last year almost suffered a diplomatic hiccup, had they not scrambled some payments just before the event commenced.

“As the report has outlined, the African Union incident last year in February, when we were advised that our microphones may not go red as this one, you can touch it as much as you want, but if you haven’t paid, it won’t turn on, the red will not appear,” Bagiire said.

“The Vice President (Jessica Alupo) led the delegation on behalf of H.E the President (Yoweri Museveni). But as I said, we managed to pay just before the summit began,” he added.

Since then, Bagiire said the subject of subscription has been taken to Cabinet for consideration. But they need the support of Parliament to ensure that these arrears are consistently paid.

“I am given a ceiling in the MTEF, and I am told this is the amount of money that you can budget by the Ministry of Finance. Those resources naturally cannot accommodate a bill of shillings 25 billion annually. If you compile all the subscriptions that the ministry does on an annual basis, the bill is around 25 billion. Our annual bill this financial year, madam chair, as you will appreciate, is around, I think, in a range of 30 billion,” Bagiire added.

“This financial year, we were given funds to the tune of sh17.237 billion to address arrears….But please note, the arrears at that time were Sh80 billion,” he cited.

Goretth Namugga

MPs react

However, Kashongi County MP Herbert Tayebwa said it would have been better if the ministry had budgeted for the item and then been denied the funds, which was not the case.

“Why didn’t you budget for it, because we are not finding it anywhere in the appropriation account. Also relatedly, there is money you spent under domestic arrears of shillings 46 million that you did not actually request; it is not in the appropriation. So, you could have decided to divert from other resources and spent unauthorised,” Tayebwa argued.

For one, Tororo South MP Frederick Angura wondered what the situation might be in other ministries if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which is the torchbearer of the country’s foreign policy, is limping.

“When our people are thrown out because of not having made our subscription fees, it makes us look a bit untidy,” Angura cautioned.