President Yoweri Museveni has asked two companies – the UK infrastructure firm Globespan Infrastructure and the Ugandan builder SMS Construction – to expand and modernise Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital.
In a directive seen by this reporter, Museveni told the finance and health ministries to work with the two firms to speed up a renovation of the hospital. The aim, the document says, is to raise the number of patients it can treat, add specialised care and bring its older buildings together as a single referral centre.
The hospital, about 40km (25 miles) south of the capital, Kampala, has been under growing strain. It was given regional referral status in July 2019. But it still has only 200 beds, and in 2024 it recorded about 57,000 outpatient visits and 10,500 admissions.
In July 2025, a parliamentary committee summoned the health and finance ministers over the hospital’s condition, after the auditor general reported a shortage of storage space, too few staff and poor services. Members of parliament were told that some medicines were being kept in corridors.
Globespan arranges funding for governments building large projects. It is the lead developer of a new 36,500-seat stadium in Fumba, Zanzibar, being built for the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations, which Tanzania is co-hosting with Kenya and Uganda.
The stadium has been reported to cost about $150m (£112m), although the figure has been disputed in Zanzibar. It was designed by the UK firm AFL Architects and is being built by the Turkish company Orkun Group. AFL Architects also worked on the Lusail Stadium, which staged the final of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
SMS Construction is a local firm that has worked mainly on health and government buildings. Its projects include a multipurpose building at the Uganda Cancer Institute, with treatment wards, a laboratory and training rooms. It also took over the headquarters of the Inspectorate of Government from Roko Construction, a larger firm that ran into financial trouble.
Choosing a Ugandan company alongside a foreign partner fits a wider pattern. In 2022, Museveni told the prime minister to give government construction work to SMS Construction to help build up local firms.
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