KAMPALA — Uganda’s High Commissioner to Tanzania, Amb Col (Rtd) Fred Mwesigye, has urged mining firms in the region to form joint partnerships, arguing that small-scale operators working alone struggle to attract the capital and skills they need to grow.
Amb Mwesigye was speaking at the 15th Annual Mineral Wealth Conference and Expo at Speke Resort Munyonyo, Kampala, where the Uganda High Commission in Dar es Salaam brought 18 Tanzanian mining companies and organisations. The two-day conference, which ran from 29 to 30 September, was themed around unlocking Africa’s next mining powerhouse. It was organised by the Uganda Chamber of Energy and Minerals and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development.
“Our primary objective is to create a platform where African practitioners in the industry of mining come together and discuss and maybe create joint partnerships,” Amb Mwesigye said. “When they are together they are stronger. But when we operate individually we are weaker.”
The delegation list shared by the mission includes the Tanzania Chamber of Mines, AngloGold Ashanti Tanzania, Shanta Mining Co. Ltd, Tembo Nickel Corporation, Faru Graphite Corporation, Perseus Mining’s Sotta Mining Corporation, TRX Gold Corporation’s Buckreef Gold, Petra Diamonds’ Williamson Diamonds, Lifezone Metals’ Kabanga Nickel Project and Peak Rare Earths’ Ngualla Project, among others. Amb Mwesigye said participants had also come from Zambia and Walawi.
He said the visiting firms were showing interest in partnerships rather than stand-alone investments. “Through partnerships they become stronger and can then attract resources to add value, to increase their capacity in mining,” he said. “Individually nobody looks at them. But when they are together people will be attracted to look at them.”
Amb Mwesigye was one of several Ugandan envoys at the conference. The diplomats came from missions in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas. Amb Richard Kabonero, head of regional economic cooperation and economic and commercial diplomacy, led the delegation.
The other missions represented included the Uganda Embassy in Brussels, led by Amb Mirjam Blaak, and the Uganda Embassy in Moscow, represented by Amb Moses Kizige. Amb Musazi represented the Uganda Embassy in Havana, and the Uganda Embassy in Ankara, Türkiye, also took part. Prof Joyce Kikafunda, Uganda’s High Commissioner in New Delhi, was also part of the delegation.
Their attendance falls under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ economic and commercial diplomacy programme. The programme aims to build economic and commercial diplomacy into mission work plans and to link diplomacy directly to economic transformation. At recent review meeting for Uganda’s missions in Asia and the Pacific in Foshan, China, Amb Kabonero told envoys that diplomacy must now produce measurable economic results tied to the country’s tenfold growth strategy.
Humphrey Asiimwe, chief executive of the Uganda Chamber of Energy and Minerals, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had helped invite investors through Uganda’s embassies abroad. He said the conference had drawn more than 1,000 delegates from 30 countries, with 81 companies exhibiting.
Mineral value addition was a central topic at the conference. Sidronius Opolot Okaasai, the Minister of State for Energy, said the government had taken a deliberate decision to stop the export of unprocessed minerals. He also said it had put in place a policy and legal framework to support local processing, including licensing incentives for investors who set up refineries and processing plants in Uganda.
He urged investors to process minerals in Uganda instead of exporting raw ore. “Process it, refine it, add value to it, and the money is there,” he said.
Mr Okaasai, who stood in for the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Dr Monica Musenero, said the ministry plans a minerals sub-sector with three arms: a policy arm within the ministry, a standalone regulator, and a national mining company, which he said was now in place. He said the government would also increase funding for exploration of critical minerals, including phosphate and rare earth elements.
Mr Asiimwe said the fourth National Development Plan prioritises mineral value addition. He said the Wagagai gold mine in eastern Uganda had begun operating since last year’s conference and, by his account, produces 1.5 tonnes of 99.98% pure gold a year.
The European Union’s ambassador to Uganda, Jan Sadek, said the EU would have mobilised more than €25m in grants for the sector once ongoing and planned projects were counted together. He said the bloc supports Uganda’s ambition to stop exporting unprocessed minerals.
Amb Mwesigye said the high commission follows up with participants after such conferences to check whether what they learnt is put into practice.
He said the mission had previously taken Ugandan small and medium-scale miners to Tanzania, including to Geita, to learn from their Tanzanian counterparts. He described Tanzania as ahead of Uganda in organising small-scale miners, saying it licenses them, organises them and creates a market for their minerals. The trips are made with the chamber of mines, which he said then works to organise Ugandan miners, help them get licences and add value.
Asked about tariff and non-tariff barriers affecting the sector between the two countries, Amb Mwesigye acknowledged they exist. “Definitely they are there,” he said. He added that the mission identifies them through conferences and engages stakeholders, tackling legal barriers through legal channels and seeking to ease financial ones for small-scale miners.
He said Tanzanians had initially been cautious about closer economic ties. “We keep telling Tanzanians that we are actually real brothers, and they should open up like we have opened up,” he said. He added that continued interaction was removing “artificial fears” and bringing people closer.
The mining focus mirrors the shape of trade between the two countries, which is dominated by gold. Speaking at a Uganda-Tanzania trade mission in 2025, Amb Mwesigye put bilateral trade in 2024 at about $2.23 billion, up from $1.36 billion in 2023. He said Uganda’s exports to Tanzania were $185 million against imports of $2.0 billion, an imbalance he said needed to be addressed.
Uganda Revenue Authority data for the 2024/25 financial year shows Tanzania accounted for Shs12.46 trillion, or 21.94 per cent, of Uganda’s total imports, making it the country’s largest single supplier ahead of China, India, the United Arab Emirates and Kenya.
Adam Mugume, Research Director at the Bank of Uganda, attributed the surge mainly to gold and precious minerals, with other Tanzanian goods such as rice estimated at $100 million to $150 million. Bank of Uganda import data cited by Tanzania’s The Citizen shows Uganda imported goods worth $2.26 billion from Tanzania between January and October 2025, against $1.35 billion from Kenya.
Figures published by the Ministry of Finance show Uganda’s largest trade deficit in the East African Community in the second quarter of 2024/25 was with Tanzania, at $497 million.
Diplomatic engagement between Kampala and Dar es Salaam has intensified this year. President Yoweri Museveni visited Tanzania twice in 2026, in February and again on 5–6 August, for talks with President Samia Suluhu Hassan.
Tanzania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the August talks would review resolutions from the Fifth Session of the Tanzania-Uganda Joint Permanent Commission held in March 2026 and include the signing of an energy cooperation memorandum.
Beyond the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, the two governments are pursuing a proposed natural gas pipeline from Tanzania to Uganda, a refined petroleum products pipeline to Tanga, port expansion and railway projects.
Amb Mwesigye also gave an update on Kiira Motors Corporation, the state-owned bus maker in Jinja, which he said had drawn interest from Tanzanian buyers. He said he visited the company about a week ago and found it had built the capacity to produce buses but was manufacturing according to demand.
He said markets had opened in Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi, each with different specifications, though most buyers were interested in electric buses. Amb Mwesigye is also accredited to Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Comoros and Mauritius from his base in Dar es Salaam.
“I have appealed to the government, the minister of finance, that they should not leave that giant lying idle. They should put in money in order to compete with the Chinese producers, because the China government puts funds in these companies,” he said.
In November 2025, the company drove its Kayoola E-Coach through Tanzania, including Dodoma, on an electric expedition from Kampala to Cape Town.
Amb Mwesigye, a retired colonel and former Member of Parliament for Nyabushozi County, has served as High Commissioner to Tanzania since December 2021.
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