By Tom Oniro Elenyu
The compass direction of Uganda’s Protection of Sovereignty Bill, 2026 following cabinet approval, is already causing reverberations and goose pimples in the country even before its tabling on the Floor of Parliament. Initially widely criticised and feared as draconian and impulsively targeting journalists, human rights groups and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in the country, it is increasingly burrowing out that the Bill goes beyond the criticism: The draft law “strips Ugandans of their citizenship”.
Article 1 of the 1995 Uganda’s Constitution insists that sovereignty belongs to the people, but “this twist of sovereignty…The Act removes sovereignty from the hands of the people and shifts it to government. This law will close any economic space for everyone in Uganda…You have a regime that is scared of the economic independence of Ugandans. They want to leverage money in terms of their expanded patronage,” constitutional lawyer, Dr Sarah Bireete, said on X, 10 April. She is the executive director of the constitutional watchdog, Center for Constitutional Governance, an NGO operating in Uganda and the Horn of Africa.
“Uganda’s Cabinet recently approved the Protection of Sovereignty Bill, 2026. The government calls it a shield against foreign interference. But a close look reveals something far darker: a ‘North Korea-style’ law that criminalises family love, chases away investors, and treats the country’s diaspora as enemies. For a nation already starved of jobs and capital, this Bill is not sovereignty: It is a suicide note,” Kenya-based socio-political commentator, Solomon Onyango, said on X, 11 April. According to Onyango, Uganda already possesses a robust legal arsenal to track illicit finance, including the Anti-Money Laundering Act, the Financial Intelligence Authority and the Anti-Terrorism Act. “The new Bill adds nothing but paranoia. It gives a single minister the power to label any citizen receiving money from a relative abroad as a potential ‘foreign agent’. The penalties are draconian: 20 years in prison or a fine of UGX 2billion (roughly US$556 million) …for failing to register a remittance.
“Under this regime,” writes Onyango, “a mother in Tororo [district in eastern Uganda] receiving $200 monthly from her son in London could be locked up. A church in Lira [in northern Uganda] running a clinic on diaspora donations could be shuttered.”
Diaspora remittances into Uganda hit $2.5 billion in 2025. Many citizens are abroad eking out a living to support their families back in Uganda. “This $2.5 BN is a target of the proposed sovereignty Bill and the senders will be stripped of their citizenship and be declared foreigners. Their relatives will have to register as foreigners’ agents to receive the money,” tweeted Bireete on 3 April. “If the sovereignty BillUG is about managing relations with foreigners,” she explained, “the biggest actor in that space is actually the government itself…An attempt to strip Ugandans living outside Uganda of their citizenship is the most crazy intention the framers of the SovereigntyBillUG could have demonstrated.”
But government is stiff-necked; defending the Bill as necessary for protecting national sovereignty. The ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party caucus has already given the Bill a thumbs-up and now only awaits its tabling in Parliament where they have vowed to sail it through overwhelmingly; given their numerical strength in the august House. It aims to tighten the screws on what government deems foreign financial flows into the country and criminalises any activity unauthorised by the State.
Fresh from the caucus meeting on 27 March armed with Article 1 of the Constitution, the Government Chief Whip, Denis Hamson Obua, told the media that the law protects the country from “harmful external influence”. “This law is about securing our [national] sovereignty. Any funds entering Uganda must be for legitimate purposes and not undermine national interests.”
But in a rare show of courage, however, given the pulpable hysteria of railing against government and the ruling party position, an NRM member, Wilson Bebaaga Twinomugisha unbelievably surprised many listeners of Kampala-based Radio One’s talk show, Spectrum Extra, on 3 April: “Why would you like my NRM party to bring in money and then wish to shrink the other party? So, let us first do research…let us not over-regulate then legislate…let us be very; very fair. Why should NRM bring in money and then the other party should not? Some of these things will eventually catch up with you.”
The Bill, once law, will control foreign funding, political activities and criminalises individuals or entities receiving foreign support to promote policies not adopted by Cabinet. It makes it mandatory to register “agents of foreign entities” and penalises organisations with about US$1.1 million and individuals can be imprisoned for 20 years. The draft law empowers authorities to seize assets linked to illegal foreign funding and compel financial institutions to report foreign monthly transactions to the Internal Affairs ministry. And more sensitively, the Bill introduces offences relating to any alleged foreign interference in Uganda’s electoral processes and procedures.
“The proposed Protection of Sovereignty Bill has a far-reaching impact on a range of citizens,” regrets Bireete in an interview with this publication, “because of broad definitions of agents and foreigners. The bill will greatly impact all citizens working in foreign corporations; living outside Uganda and businesses receiving funding from outside Uganda including NGOs. The most eye-catching impact is an attempt to strip citizens living and working outside Uganda, of their citizenship, by classifying them as foreigners.”
On 9 January, the National Bureau for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO Bureau), under the Internal Affairs ministry, ordered the suspension of at least seven human rights organisations, including Chapter Four Uganda, the Alliance for Election Finance Monitoring, the Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda, the National NGO Forum, the Center for Constitutional Governance, the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders, and the African Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims. The Bureau cited unspecified “intelligence information” and alleged violations of national security and Ugandan law under Section 42(d) of the NGO Act. The suspended NGOs were ordered to cease all operations with immediate effect pending “indefinite” investigations. The NGOs’ financial operations, too, were halted as banks were ordered to freeze all transactions therein. Offices had to close; halting all activities and staff payments. Service providers were also suspended.
Bireete demonstrated to this publication the rather economic benefits of NGOs to Uganda’s economy and their contribution to the 2026/2027 proposed over US$23 billion budget. Uganda’s new fiscal calendar year starts every 1 July.
“On average, 3,000 operational NGOs employing an average of 10 employees each at UGX 2 million (nearly US$556) can generate an annual income in PAYE [Pay As You Earn] contributions of 2.4 billion (approximately US$557 million).
“Furthermore,” she told Pan African Visions, “NGOs pay taxes through workshops, consultancies and other additional services where they contribute to the national incomes. They also help stabilise foreign cash flows and during COVID lockdown, NGOs single-handedly stabilised the forex earning.”
NGOs had had the latitude of employing more Ugandans than the civil service does. At over 700,000 employees across the country, the NGO opportunity employability of Ugandans largely dwarfed the government’s about 480,000-strong civil service.
But the fate of all these 700,000 NGO workers and their dependants remains hanging on a cliff as government has gone ahead to suspend the operations and blocking the bank accounts of 12 more NGOs; particularly those involved in civic activities in the country.
By 1992, there were only 500 NGOs in Uganda. Then that number jumped to 3,500 by 2002 and numbered 7,000 in 2008. NGOs numbers then doubled to 14,000; indicating the fastest-growing sector in Uganda.
In 2019, however, NGO numbers were slashed from 14,000 to the low of 5,021 by 2023. Government, through the NGO Bureau, claims the chased and now suspended NGOs got involved in activities threatening national security, terrorism and money-laundering. “I still don’t get it: NGOs and CSOs are part of the IMF and WB script. Why is a man [read President Yoweri Museveni] who continues to embrace IMF so tightly messing with this script? Among others, CSO/NGOs not only absorb the shock of the ruins of SAPS [Structural Adjustment Programmes] (like painkillers), but also confuse the would-be revolutionary elite into a soft life disconnecting them from the rest of the wretches!” Makerere University-based political economist and researcher, Yusuf Serunkuma’s 29 March X post, reads.
NGOs and CSOs have defied government claims that they are agents of foreigners and/or terrorists. “We, the representatives of Civil Society gathered here today, assert that we are not terrorists or saboteurs; but partners in the pursuit of a better Uganda,” they said in a recent press statement.
In the statement, the group condemns what they consider as a “systematic campaign of hostility, threats and illegal actions aimed at shrinking civic space in Uganda”.
According to the group’s statement, “NGOs play an essential role in the country’s socio-economic and political fabric, providing vital services and promoting accountable governance where State presence is inadequate”. NGOs have been doing amazing work in the education sector by, for example, building classroom blocks; in the health sector and justice sector, including demanding for electoral reforms.
“The prevalence of NGOs is not a threat, but rather an indictment of the government’s failure to meet its obligations under the social contract,” the statement adds, in part.
NGOs are largely considered entities that complement government work, especially in poor countries like Uganda; whose economy is heavily-lifted by donors. And donors have been preferring to channel their monies through NGOs in order to dodge government bureaucracy, possible fund-pinching and accountability gaps. Government is demanding donors bring in “transparent money”.
Uganda’s external financing and grants are between over US$2.2 billion-US$2.7 billion. Donor-funded projects make-up to between 20%-25% of the budget. The NGO sector injects between US$278 billion–US$556 billion annually into the economy. It is understood suffocating NGO funding could cost Uganda up to nearly US$3 billion in foreign inflows.
The Sovereignty bill, according to experts, will reduce all these inflows by 30%. “I still struggle to understand the wrangling between Museveni and the civil society (NGOs, CSOs): Both serve the same master—our benefactors in the western world. In fact, a smoothly functioning civil society is best for YKM [Yoweri Kaguta Museveni]. Has the civil society become more patriotic—socialist, revolutionary? I’m not sure. Has M7 [Museveni] managed to persuade the west that they don’t need civil society anymore? Because, as Trump cuts funding, M7 [Museveni] is closing them!” Sserunkuma wondered on 12 January. The US President Donald Trump, in a 28 January 2025 Executive Order, froze USAID-funded activities in poor countries like Uganda.
Senior citizens and civil society actors, in a 10 April joint statement rallied against the Bill calling for its withdrawal and total rejection saying it “adds no value”. “The Bill adds no value,” the statement said, “[but] instead, it seeks to overturn the spirit of the Constitution by shifting power away from the people. To protect the stability and future of our nation, this Bill must be rejected.”
But going a notch higher is former Ethics and Integrity minister and now human rights activist, Miria Matembe, who has asked all Ugandans to rise up and protest against the Sovereignty Bill, warning that the proposed Bill, if passed into law, “will cause chaos and misery”.
“I saw the Sovereignty Bill as a window or a door opening to Ugandans to rise up and say, ‘no, enough is enough’. And this time I’m standing, I don’t care whether anybody comes, they will arrest me. When they come to arrest me, my angels will catch up with them. But I want to say, for me, what I want to say now, I want to make an appeal to Ugandans from everywhere; wherever they are, those rural Ugandans. I want us to this time get out and demonstrate as a nation against this law.” Matembe was fired from cabinet in May 2003 for opposing the Third Term for Museveni’s presidency which saw MPs lift the Statute that restricted the presidency to five-yearly two terms on 13 July 2005.
She is concerned about ordinary family livelihoods that depend on diaspora remittances. “This law,” according to Matembe, “will bring sadness and misery to all Ugandans. It’s the government that must be accountable to Ugandans, not the other way round. This law risks creating fear, confusion and hardship. This Bill criminalises the act of sending money for school fees, medical bills and general welfare.”
Watchers of Uganda’s political trajectory caution lawmakers against sailing the Bill through the Floor of Parliament saying it might end up biting them, too, altogether. They cite the example of the then “super minister” and later prime minister, Amama Mbabazi, who was instrumental in championing the promulgation of the Public Order Management Act (POMA) that restricts the freedom of assembly and association without police permission. When he presented himself for the presidential contest in the 2016 general elections, he became a laughing stock: POMA stung ‘victim’ Mbabazi.
