Kampala, Uganda | URN | As President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni seeks a seventh term in office, his case to Ugandans is increasingly framed not in ideology or liberation history, but in economics. Growth figures, infrastructure investment, financial stability, and a long-term vision for structural transformation now sit at the centre of his re-election argument.

“At the beginning, we had almost nothing,” Museveni said at his nomination as the National Resistance Movement (NRM) presidential candidate for the 2026–2031 term. “Today, Uganda’s GDP has doubled in the recent kisanja, from $34 billion to $66 billion.”

To Museveni, that expansion reflects a deliberate state-led strategy: stabilise the country, build foundational infrastructure, expand the money economy, and attract capital.

When Museveni took power in 1986, Uganda’s economy was emerging from years of war, hyperinflation, and financial repression. Bank of Uganda Governor Michael Atingi-Ego, one of the technocrats shaped by that era, describes the period as one in which the financial sector itself had become an obstacle to growth.

“The country was coming from shackles of financial repression,” Atingi-Ego said. “Rampant inflation, a contracting productive base, low tax revenue, and a financial system that was more a barrier than a bridge to progress.”

Interest rates were controlled, credit was directed by the state, and the central bank’s monetary policy was subordinate to short-term fiscal needs, resulting in excess money supply and inflation.According to Atingi-Ego, Museveni’s government took a decisive turn in the early 1990s, embarking on market-oriented reforms that liberalised interest rates, opened the foreign exchange market, and eventually liberalised the capital account in 1997.

“These were not cosmetic changes,” he said. “They were a liberation of the economy.” The decision to open the capital account forced Uganda to adopt fiscal discipline and consistent macroeconomic policies, or risk capital flight. The reforms signalled that Uganda was open for business, attracting foreign direct investment, technology, and skills.

A defining moment in this transition was the privatisation of Uganda Commercial Bank (UCB), once the largest state-owned bank. At the time, UCB was technically insolvent, burdened by non-performing loans and political interference. “UCB had become a living embodiment of the problems of the past,” Ating-Ego said.

Its sale to Stanbic Bank in 2002 remains controversial, but the central bank argues it stabilised the financial system and ended the inflationary cycle of government bailouts.

Museveni’s economic model relies heavily on public investment, particularly in energy and transport infrastructure. Secretary to the Treasury Ramathan Ggobi has defended Uganda’s borrowing, insisting that debt has been channelled into productive sectors.

“About 27 percent of the money borrowed in the last ten years has gone into energy development,” Ggobi said, citing investments in dams, transmission lines, and substations. Another 13 percent has gone into education, health, housing, manufacturing, and digital transformation.The remainder, he said, has funded agro-industrialisation, irrigation, natural resources, and water access.

“Uganda’s debt has grown mainly in productive areas,” Ggobi argued, adding that export receipts and revenue growth have kept debt servicing manageable.Uganda, he insisted, will not default.Museveni’s current economic ambition is encapsulated in the Ten-Fold Growth Strategy, outlined in the National Development Plan IV (NDP IV).

The goal is to grow Uganda’s economy from roughly $50 billion to $500 billion by 2040 by focusing on agro-industrialisation, tourism, mineral development (including oil and gas), and science, technology, and innovation.

For the Bank of Uganda, however, the success of that vision hinges on finance.“A shallow river cannot carry heavy boats,” Ating-Ego warned. While Uganda’s financial markets have deepened—now ranked among the top in Africa—they remain too shallow to finance long-term infrastructure and industrial projects. Commercial banks, he notes, are structured for short-term lending, not the decade-long financing required for manufacturing and large-scale agriculture.

High interest rates, a persistent complaint among businesses, are not dismissed by the central bank. Atingi-Ego attributes them to high operating costs, government borrowing, structural credit constraints, and limited long-term capital.

To address this, the Bank of Uganda is pushing for pension sector reforms, deeper capital markets, and new instruments such as infrastructure bonds, green bonds, Sukuk bonds, and diaspora bonds.

“Government alone cannot finance the tenfold growth,” he said. “We need to unlock domestic and long-term capital.”Despite the optimism, the economic strategy faces clear risks. Ramathan Ggobi, the Secretary to the Treasury, points to regional conflicts, climate change, and global trade tensions as external threats.

Domestically, corruption, climate shocks, and weak market integration remain persistent challenges. Museveni himself acknowledges that growth has created new problems, particularly surplus production without sufficient markets. His answer lies in regional integration, expanding domestic purchasing power, and access to external markets.

“Our problem now is not a shortage,” he has said. “It is surplus.” Museveni’s economic case for a seventh term is ultimately a bet on continuity: that the same leadership that stabilised the economy can complete the transition from subsistence to a fully monetised, industrial economy.

To his supporters, he is the architect of stability. To his critics, the model is too state-heavy, too slow to deliver inclusive prosperity. But as Uganda heads into another election, Museveni is asking voters to judge him less on how long he has ruled, and more on whether the economy he helped build is finally ready to take off.

A President Who Frames Leadership as Struggle 

Museveni, now in his early 80s, rejects the idea that long rule is synonymous with stagnation. Instead, he frames his leadership as part of a continuous historical struggle that began long before he took power in 1986.

“I have been in the struggle for 60 years,” he once told German journalists during a hard-hitting interview. “Student movement. Liberation struggle. Now government. For us, it is the same struggle.”

Critics describe him as an autocrat who altered the Constitution to stay in power. Museveni dismisses that charge as ignorance of Africa’s realities. In his view, Uganda’s challenge is not leadership turnover, but unfinished socio-economic transformation.

“By 1969, only 4 percent of Ugandans were working for money,” he said. “The rest were working just to eat. Today, about 32 percent are in the money economy. But 68 percent are still outside it.”

For Museveni, this slow transition explains both Uganda’s persistence of poverty and the need for continuity. “This is not work for five years,” he argues. “It is serious work.”

Democracy, Force, and the Cost of OrderMuseveni’s critics point to arrests, internet shutdowns, and the heavy presence of security forces during elections as evidence of democratic backsliding. He counters that order is not repression, and that law enforcement is often misrepresented.

“Democracy means choice,” he insists. “And there is choice here.”During the 2021 elections, he defended restrictions on rallies and arrests of opposition figures as enforcement of COVID-19 regulations, not political persecution. “Some candidates refused to follow the law,” he said. “That’s why they were in conflict with it.”

Accusations of corruption and elite capture are similarly brushed aside. Museveni acknowledges corruption exists but insists it is “defeatable,” pointing to continued economic growth as proof that it has not crippled the system.

“If corruption was so overwhelming,” he asks, “how is it that our economy is growing very fast?”

Still Seeking to Finish the JobMuseveni insists he is not driven by power but by unfinished work: integrating Uganda into the money economy, expanding markets, industrialising agriculture, and stabilising a volatile region.

“The situation has changed a little bit now. In 2014, the people who were in the money economy were 32% of the population. 68% are still outside the money economy. Why? Because here, a fool can survive. Fools don’t die here. In Europe, fools die. If you are very foolish, you die, and the matter is resolved,” Museveni has insisted.

“The problem is not the youth,” he says of Uganda’s young population. “The problem is the market.” Political Economist, Professor Julius Kiiza, however stands as a voice for the voiceless, challenging the dominant narratives of Uganda’s economic performance under Museveni.

While regime elites celebrate inflation targeting, macroeconomic stabilization, and the so-called inclusivity of the border economy, Kiiza warns that these measures mask deep inequalities and jobless growth.

“Yes, there is growth—but it is jobless growth. Sixty-seven percent of our youth, especially graduates, remain unemployed. The economy serves elites and foreign interests more than ordinary citizens,” he declares.

He notes that infrastructure deficits are rampant, with roads and public projects built to outdated standards and often encroaching on protected land, prioritizing appearances over functionality.Dr. Kiiza challenges the country’s economic orthodoxy with stark clarity: “Looks can be deceptive. The skyline is changing, the hills are changing, cars are increasing, but not everything that glitters is gold.”

He calls for a reimagining of Museveni from the economy point of view. He dreams of an economy that prioritizes building a capable state, regulating trade, promoting industrialization, and ensuring that economic policies deliver wealth for the people, not just the elites.

The central question he leaves for policymakers is simple yet urgent: are Uganda’s current economic policies delivering the country that citizens want, or are they merely sustaining the interests of a few while the majority remain excluded?

Museveni presents himself not as a relic of the past, but as a custodian of a long, unfinished transformation—one he believes only experience can complete.Whether voters agree that continuity outweighs change will once again be decided at the ballot box.