Wildlife authority blames 'internal issues' over revenue-sharing delay

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The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has expressed remorse over delays in disbursing revenue-sharing funds for the 2024/2025 financial year.

Under revenue-sharing, UWA shares 20% of its annual park revenue with the people surrounding national parks and wildlife reserves. In addition, at Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, UWA shares 10 US dollars (effective from 1st July 2015 - an increase from 5 US dollars previously) from each gorilla-tracking permit sold.

UWA executive director Samuel John Mwandha says the delays are due to internal issues, whose details he hasn't disclosed.

Mwandha has assured the public, particularly the six districts surrounding Murchison Falls National Park, that the revenue-sharing funds would be disbursed by this month to the accounts of local governments of Kiryandongo, Oyam, Nwoya, Pakwach, Masindi, and Bulisa.

 According to UWA, revenue sharing money can be spent on household and community projects that meet two basic criteria: they must contribute to reducing human-wildlife conflict or improve the livelihoods of households in frontline villages.

Projects like goat rearing, piggeries, tree planting, beekeeping, and Irish potato growing have been funded at the household level. The construction
 of schools, health centres, feeder roads, and water tanks have been funded at the community level, as have projects to help reduce damage to crops by wild animals such as planting Mauritius thorn hedges.

Oyam district chairperson Walter Dila Benson Oyuku on January 14, 2025, expressed concern about the delays, noting that they had hampered the implementation of major projects funded by the revenue-sharing funds.

UWA sends the money from revenue sharing to the districts that keep 5% to cover administration costs and pass the remaining 95% on to the sub-counties for the agreed projects.

Only villages that share a boundary with the Park are included in the programme. This, according to the wildlife authority, is because they bear more of the costs of conservation, such as crop damage than other villages that are further away from the Park.

Meanwhile, Pakwach sub-county LC3 chairperson Cephas Anyanyo Gwiktho emphasised the importance of timely disbursement of the funds for effective resource allocation.