A photo depicting money laundering/ Courtesy photo
Uganda’s Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA) is seeking additional UGX10Bn to prepare the country for an evaluation exercise into steps it has so far taken to protect the financial sector from being used as a conduit for money laundering and terrorism financing.
Samuel Were Wandera, Executive Director at FIA made the request while appearing before Parliament’s Finance Committee on 21st January 2026, to present the Authority’s 2026/27 budget estimates.
“Uganda is going to go the third round of mutual evaluation in 2028, when we have to do all the necessary preparations to ensure that we meet the requirements. And we have done an evaluation which has clearly indicated the gaps within our legal and regulatory framework, which must be addressed if we are to survive grey listing, we want to request that the funds be allocated. We need an additional UGX10.2Bn to meet those four areas which we have highlighted in the challenges to be able to meet,” Wandera said.
He defended the request arguing that fighting the crime of money laundering and financing of terrorism is a responsibility of a number of stakeholders in government, thus the need for FIA to prioritise the actions that must be undertaken by the respective entities to ensure that Uganda complies, a move that puts FIA to play the coordination role to ensure that each respective entity of government aligns to the requirements and implement safety requirements to make Uganda compliant.
His remarks were in response to a plea made by Paul Omara (Otuke County), who tasked the Authority to ensure that Uganda fulfils all the requirements set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in order to ensure that Uganda is in tandem with some of the requirements and escape the looming threat of being dragged back to the grey or black list, as this may impact Uganda’s financial sector.
