Uganda Airlines hit with stalled Shs 3bn media probe

The past few months have had a lot of changes at Uganda Airlines as the national carrier looks to reshape its management.

The February, 2026 departure of Jennifer Bamuturaki, the former CEO, shook up the management and board, leaving a trail of divided loyalty.

The current management is headed by CEO Girma Wake who, according to top sources at Uganda Airlines, is mostly out of the country and his limited time in the country has a recurrence of a number of power struggles in the board and management in the past few months.

Our sources say one of the major talking points is the ‘sweeping’ out of Bamuturaki’s allies, whose contracts have not been renewed.

Another major issue is the ‘Unocalising’ of the airline, which loosely means the head-hunting of Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) staff to take over key positions at Uganda Airlines.

Meanwhile, there are also allegations of collusion to kill a Shs 3bn audit probe of the airline’s usage of funds to improve its public image. All these issues have created unease among staff and management. The MD is yet to understand how ‘certain things’ work in Uganda.

“He is very result-oriented and cares little about who is holding which position in management as long as they beat the targets,” said one source.

“As a result, many dark arts are done behind his back, which is causing unnecessary tension.”

NEW POWER BASE
A board member who preferred anonymity has told us that the airline is headed for dire times after being ‘captured’ by a clique of individuals.

“The airline is being held hostage by the company secretary (Susan Batuuka Kaggwa), chief financial officer (Allan Joel Kyeyune) and head corporate affairs (Shakila Rahim Lamar),” said the source.

“They are the people who disposed Jenny (Bamuturaki) and they now think they can control everything. The earlier we get rid of this clique, the better.”

Our efforts to reach out to the three named individuals were futile by press time, but we continue to engage them. According to our source, Shakila is now holding three top-level positions, which is a conflict-of-interest issue.

“Can you believe she is now head corporate affairs, chief commercial officer and at the same time chairperson of the contracts committee? How can a major corporate entity have such a void in management? We’ve tried to fill those gaps but management doesn’t seem bothered,” said the source.

“It is even more disturbing that that guy who is the CFO [Kyeyune] doesn’t even hold any qualifications in ACCA or CPA. And we trust our billions of shillings to such a fella? We have evidence they are even building apartments in Kyanja and Buziga on embezzled funds. We pray that the president intervenes and save the country from such people.”

NO RENEWAL

Some of the top-level people that the airline has got rid of in the past few months by not renewing their contracts is former chief commercial officer Adedayo Olawuyi. The Nigerian flew back after the board refused to consider his request to renew the contract.

Meanwhile, former chief information officer Henry Obare, was humiliated when he was denied to return to the country on grounds that his work permit had expired. Obare, a Kenyan, was a favourite of Bamuturaki and she used to assign him as acting CEO whenever she would travel abroad.

So, by having his work permit expiring, that denied him a chance to plead to the board for an extension. Another is John Kasangaki, the former manager human resource, whose contract was also not renewed.

Then there is Alex Odwong, the former manager procurement, whose contract was not extended in spite of the fact that the board had recommended to him one more year on Performance Improvement Plan (PIP).

FROM UNOC TO UGANDA AIRLINES
Over the past few years, there has been a consistent trend at Uganda Airlines of recruiting staff from UNOC. These include Batuuka, the de facto number two when Girma is out of the country, Kyeyune and several other officials.

According to our source, the latest head-hunt from UNOC is the looming appointment of Michael Kyanzi to become chief of people, a position that has been created to be above the head human resource.

Kyanzi, who is currently head of strategy and innovation at UNOC, is expected to take the new position at Uganda Airlines in the next few days. The position of chief of people has been created to be the overall head of human resource.

Kyanzi’s move has reportedly caused tension among the long-serving airline staff, who feel they deserve to be given first priority before head-hunting from another company.

“It is demoralizing for other staff to see people recruited from UNOC without a chance to compete for positions,” said the source.
“They feel there is a syndicate to ‘Unocalise’ the airline at the expense of competent airline staff.”

The disgruntlement doesn’t stop at Kyanzi; Uganda Airlines management’s recent elevation of another recently recruited former UNOC staff, Abias Kyokusiima. She joined Uganda Airlines early this year as a junior legal officer, but management recommended her fast elevation to senior legal officer, something that raised eyebrows in the board.

According to the source, the board rejected her promotion, along with that of Derrick Akankwatsa, on grounds that the positions were not advertised and that they were too junior.

Indeed, management advertised the positions that ended up with Kyokusiima and Akankwatsa still emerging as the best candidates. Still, the board is yet to confirm their new positions.

“Many staff are not happy that these junior staff have passed them yet they don’t even have five years’ experience and have never represented the airline in any case,” says an insider.

PROCUREMENT PROBE GONE SILENT

Over the years, Uganda Airlines has had several scandals and embarrassing stories. To reverse the trend, management last year procured Shs 3 billion to manage its public relations.

However, the board was not happy with the continued ‘negative’ stories, and in January, 2026, Bamuturaki ordered an internal probe into the usage of the funds. She handed the chief role to Ronald Otukol, the head of Internal Audit.

But before the probe could dig deeper, Bamuturaki was sacked. According to sources, Otukol’s contract was expiring in April, 2026, and some top officials who were being probed pressured him to abandon the probe thereafter.

“No report has been issued since then. He was threatened with not renewing his contract, and when it was renewed in April, the probe died,” says the source.

It so happened that the board also directed for new procurement procedures to align with the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets (PPDA) Act. It required the procurement department to be independent and report directly to the CEO.

However, according to sources, management is yet to implement the directive and the procurement department continues to report to the chief finance officer (CFO).

“There is a clear self-dealing conflict of interest when the CFO approves their own work. There have been situations where the CFO both reviewed and approved a business case as part of the executive team, and then chaired the bid committee that ratified the same deal,” says the source.
“So, by leaving the CEO out of procurement, so many deals are going through unchecked.”