In Uganda, the failures of the state rarely announce themselves all at once.
They surface quietly, inside overcrowded dormitories where children wait months for court files that never arrive; in hospital wards where life-saving machines sit idle during power cuts; in warehouses where medicines expire while patients queue outside; and in balance sheets showing billions invested with almost nothing to show for it.
The Auditor General’s latest consolidated report, tabled in Parliament last week, reads less like a technical audit and more like a warning. Across juvenile justice, health care, and public investment, it reveals a country struggling to keep pace with its own promises.
Systems designed to protect the vulnerable, save lives, and drive economic growth are instead buckling under delays, underfunding, and weak oversight. For children held in remand homes beyond legal limits, patients treated in hospitals without reliable electricity or oxygen, and taxpayers funding investments that yield losses, these are not abstract governance problems. They are lived realities.
REMAND HOMES
When a child is sent to a remand home in Uganda, the law is clear about what should follow: a short stay, swift court action, rehabilitation, and reintegration. In practice, many children are waiting far longer than the law allows—caught in a system stretched thin by overcrowding, understaffing, and administrative failure.
That is the quiet but troubling picture painted by the Auditor General’s latest consolidated report for the financial year ending June 2025, tabled in Parliament last week. Buried among hundreds of pages reviewing government spending and performance is a stark finding: juvenile offenders are being detained beyond legally permitted limits in most of the country’s remand homes and rehabilitation centres.
Uganda currently operates seven remand homes and one national rehabilitation centre meant to protect, rehabilitate, and reintegrate children in conflict with the law. Instead, the Auditor General found that all eight facilities continue to hold juveniles longer than the stipulated three months for minor offences and six months for capital cases.
Behind those figures are overcrowded dormitories, long legal delays, and children waiting—sometimes indefinitely—for decisions that determine the rest of their lives. Six of the eight remand homes were found to be overcrowded, with Fort Portal and Mbale among the worst affected.
Fort Portal exceeded its recommended capacity of 45 by 129 per cent; Mbale by 122 per cent. The pressure shows everywhere—from sleeping arrangements to access to basic services. Health care is another glaring gap.
None of the eight facilities has a resident medical practitioner or health worker, despite legal requirements under the Children’s Home Rules, 2013, which mandate at least a full-time registered nurse.
The report notes that some centres have improvised, relying on nearby government health facilities when emergencies arise. But these informal arrangements, while commendable, fall far short of what is required for children living in closed institutions. Nutrition and physical well-being also suffer.
The Auditor General flagged inadequate dietary provision for juveniles on lifelong medication, a gap that risks worsening existing health conditions. Recreational space is limited too.
“Except for Arua and Kampiringisa, the other six remand homes lacked sufficient facilities or playgrounds for outdoor games such as football, volleyball and basketball,” the report noted. Indoor games like Ludo, it added, were often the only option.
JUSTICE DELAYED, CHILDHOODS SUSPENDED
Perhaps the most consequential failure lies not in bricks and mortar, but in paperwork. Of the 9,204 juvenile offenders admitted during the period under review, 5,757 lacked Social Inquiry Reports—documents essential to helping courts understand a child’s background and make informed decisions.
Without them, cases stall. Children wait. Remand turns into limbo. Even after court orders are completed, many juveniles are not released. By October 2025, 115 out of 413 children at one centre had finished their committal orders but were still waiting to be reintegrated into their communities, often because authorities lacked sufficient information about their families or social circumstances.
“The historical context of the RRCs, combined with Uganda’s growing population, underscores the urgent need for reforms in the juvenile justice system,” the Auditor General concluded.
Among the recommendations: expanding existing facilities, completing stalled construction at Kabale and Masindi remand homes, and building new centres to match population pressures and meet health and safety standards.
A BROADER PATTERN OF STRAIN
The findings on remand homes sit alongside another major concern in the same report: gaps in the implementation of the Parish Development Model (PDM), the government’s flagship poverty-reduction programme.
In the 2024/25 financial year alone, the Ministry of Finance released Shs 1.1 trillion to more than 10,500 PDM SACCOs. While disbursement generally performed well, the Auditor General flagged troubling weaknesses in accountability, supervision, and data integrity.
Some SACCOs failed to account for funds. Others disbursed loans to ineligible or non-existent projects. In several districts, households received funds multiple times. By June 2025, Shs 4.9 billion remained parked in SACCO accounts that should have been closed.
The report warned that such failures “could undermine the programme’s objective of poverty eradication.” Taken together, the findings point to a recurring challenge across government systems: ambitious policy goals colliding with weak implementation and limited oversight.
CHILDREN WAITING, SYSTEMS LAGGING
For juveniles in remand homes, these are not abstract governance problems. They are lived realities—days stretching into months, childhoods paused while institutions struggle to keep pace with demand.
The Auditor General’s report does not accuse the state of neglect by design. Instead, it reveals a system overwhelmed by population growth, resource constraints, and administrative delays.
But for the children caught inside it, the distinction matters little. Reform, the report suggests, is not optional. It is overdue. Until then, Uganda’s remand homes remain places where justice moves slowly, and where too many young lives are left waiting for a system meant to protect them to finally catch up.
EXPIRED DRUGS, DARK ICUS
On paper, Uganda’s public systems are designed to save lives, power hospitals, and drive economic growth. In practice, the Auditor General’s latest findings suggest something far more fragile: medicines expiring while patients queue, intensive care units vulnerable to blackouts, and billions of shillings tied up in state investments that barely earn a return.
Taken together, the report paints a picture of systems under strain, not from a single failure, but from gaps in planning, funding, and follow-through that quietly erode public trust and service delivery.
MEDICINES THAT ARRIVE TOO LATE—OR STAY TOO LONG
The National Medical Stores (NMS) sits at the heart of Uganda’s public health supply chain. Its mandate is sweeping: procure, store, and distribute essential medicines to 3,432 public health facilities nationwide.
But the Auditor General’s review shows a system struggling to match needs with resources. According to the National Annual Needs Analysis and Quantification of Essential Medicines, Uganda requires Shs 1.574 trillion each year to adequately supply public health facilities.
In reality, only Shs 1.393 trillion was committed, leaving a funding gap of Shs 181 billion. That shortfall has consequences. By June 30 2025, NMS was holding non- viable or expired drugs worth Shs 8.04 billion.
Of this, Shs 530 million was government stock, while Shs 7.51 billion came from donor-funded supplies. The figure is striking, but also deceptive. It represents a 97 per cent reduction from the Shs 316 billion worth of expired drugs recorded a year earlier, a spike largely driven by unused COVID-19 vaccines. The underlying problem, however, remains unresolved.
“These expiries were mainly caused by misalignment between national medicine needs and procurement decisions, as well as changes in WHO treatment protocols after procurement,” the report noted.
The Auditor General warned that weaknesses in procurement and distribution planning heighten the risk of stock-outs, treatment disruptions, and avoidable suffering, particularly for patients who cannot afford private pharmacies.
In other words, while some medicines expire on shelves, others never reach the people who need them most.
WHEN POWER FAILS, CARE FALTERS
The report’s concerns extend beyond drug supplies to the basic infrastructure needed to keep hospitals functioning. Uganda’s democratic trajectory. For analysts, the warning signs are not new.
They echo lessons from elsewhere on the continent, including West Africa, where a small militia known as the West Side Boys evolved from political utility into a national menace.
FROM CAMPAIGN MUSCLE TO COMMUNITY THREAT
In recent election cycles, residents across the Acholi and Lango sub- regions have reported the presence of loosely organised youth bands deployed to disrupt opposition rallies, intimidate voters, or enforce informal political boundaries.
“These are not ordinary supporters,” says a civil society organiser in Gulu who has monitored elections since 2006.
“They are recruited because they are idle, angry, and expendable. Once violence works, it is repeated.”
The pattern is well-documented in post-conflict societies. In Sierra Leone in the late 1990s, the West Side Boys emerged as a ragtag militia drawn from displaced youth and former fighters. Initially tolerated as auxiliary security actors, they soon turned rogue, kidnapping civilians, attacking peacekeepers, and selling violence to the highest bidder.
“They had no ideology,” explains a regional security analyst based in Kampala. “Only survival. Once the state lost control, they became a business.”
NORTHERN UGANDA’S FRAGILE PEACE
Northern Uganda’s vulnerability is rooted in history. Years of displacement, disrupted education, and militarised governance left a generation of young men with limited livelihoods but deep familiarity with force.
“After the war, many youths expected peace dividends,” says an elder in Pader District.
“Instead, politics came back with threats and money for violence.”
For small sums, sometimes a little more than transport money and alcohol, youth are mobilised during campaign seasons. When elections end, they are often abandoned.
“What do you expect them to do next?” asks a church leader in Kitgum. “They have learned that intimidation pays.”
IMPUNITY AS A TEACHER
Security experts warn that the greatest danger lies in impunity.
“When young people see violence rewarded and never punished, it becomes normal,” says a former police officer now working with a peacebuilding organisation.
“Soon, they don’t need politicians. They start charging traders, landowners, anyone.”
This, analysts say, mirrors the trajectory of the West Side Boys: from political instruments into predatory actors who ultimately undermined the state that once tolerated them.
Northern Uganda already grapples with land disputes, cattle theft, and cross-border insecurity. Injecting politicised youth violence into this fragile environment risks reopening wounds that have yet to fully heal.
DEMOCRACY UNDERMINED QUIETLY
Beyond the visible clashes and arrests, there is a quieter, more corrosive erosion taking place.
“People stop attending rallies. Candidates stop campaigning freely,” says a journalist in Lira who covered the last general election.
“Fear replaces debate.” Over time, voters internalise the lesson. Politics begins to feel less like a contest of ideas and more like a demonstration of force. Elections continue, but belief drains away. Ballots are cast out of habit, not conviction.
“It’s not that people don’t want elections,” the journalist adds. “They want elections without fear.”
THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL
Authorities often justify the use of informal groups as a way to maintain order. History, however, offers a stark warning.
“No government controls hired violence forever,” says a Kampala- based analyst.
“Once loyalty becomes transactional, it shifts. Today’s enforcers become tomorrow’s problem.”
Sierra Leone offers a sobering example. The West Side Boys, initially tolerated as auxiliary security actors, eventually turned their guns on everyone—civilians, the national army, even foreign peacekeepers—forcing an international military intervention.
Northern Uganda, many residents say, cannot afford another experiment with militarised politics. “We buried too many people already,” says an elder in Pader District. “If elections bring back fear, then peace is not complete.”
A CHOICE STILL OPEN
Uganda, civil society groups argue, still has options. They point to a clear set of priorities: demilitarising elections; holding all perpetrators accountable regardless of political affiliation; investing in youth livelihoods beyond campaign seasons; and strengthening traditional and civic leadership structures.
“The lesson from Sierra Leone is clear,” says a peacebuilding practitioner. “Violence hired today does not retire tomorrow.”
As another election cycle looms, Northern Uganda watches closely— hoping the country chooses ballots over batons, and democracy over fear.
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