Nobert Mao (Right), Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs appearing before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee
The Attorney General’s Chambers headed by Kiwanuka Kiryowa has won 285 cases between July 2024 to April 2025, thus saving Ugandan taxpayers Shs379.9Bn.
The revelation was made by Nobert Mao, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, while appearing before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee to present the Institution’s Ministerial Statement, where he was responding to the question raised by the Committee, requiring his Ministry to provide a breakdown of cases won and lost and their monetary value.
Minister Mao explained, “In Financial Year 2024/25, Government was represented in 904 cases, 393 cases were concluded, 285 cases were won. In that financial year, government was saved Shs379.9Bn. 108 cases were lost worth Shs76.0Bn.”
The Ministry also revealed that in 2023/24, the Attorney General represented Government in 6,878 cases in court, tribunals and commissions. 418 of these cases were concluded, 311 worth Shs2.784Trn were won while 107 cases worth Shs173Bn were lost.
Mao used this opportunity to ask the Legal Committee to consider increasing salaries of State Attorneys or exempt them from income tax like their counterparts the State Attorneys in the Directorate of Public Prosecution, who are exempted from paying income tax.
“We note that this is a major victory because of the hard work of the Attorney General’s chambers and it is on this basis that we keep on insisting that our attorneys should be better paid than the government. For instance, you know that DPP, you in parliament waived their income tax and ours still have to pay income tax. They are better paid while ours are not well paid and yet it is our attorneys who are at the front line, who are saving government and winning cases worth Shs2.783 trillion, which is actually the equivalent of almost three financial years of PDM. You could say three years of PDM can be attributable to the victories of our hardworking attorneys,” explained Mao.
Richard Oseku (Kibaale County) however tasked Minister Mao to provide details regarding the fate of the many cases that remain unaccounted for in the report, highlighting that although in 2023/24, the Attorney General represented Government in 6,878 cases in Courts, Tribunals and Commissions but out of these, the Minister only alluded to the 418 cases that were dealt with and 311 that won.
“What about the other over 6000 cases that you dealt with, what is the fate of those cases? And it also applies to the next Financial Year, 2024/25, which is the current one, of which 904 cases were dealt with by your chambers, but you only speak about 393 cases. So, what is the fate of the rest of the other cases,” asked Oseku.
Mao also provided a highlight of the Ministry’s performance of legal services to Government indicating that 708 Opinions given to Government, which prompted Jonathan Odur (Erute South) to task the Minister to explain the number of opinions the Attorney General has rendered to the Institution of Parliament, given the numerous corruption and abuse of powers levelled against the entity.
“I want to be told how many opinions or advise have been rendered to the institution of Parliament especially on issues that have come out clearly in the public and I can refer to many of them that I thought required the input of the Attorney General,” said Odur.
He defended his stance arguing that whereas Parliament is an army of Government, but it is still Government and I have seen that many times when there are breaches, touching Parliament, the Attorney General is also required to answer to this.
