Like that, nearly two years after a primary school in Busia District was demolished to make way for gold mining activity, the community has yet to see its promised replacement completed. Pupils continue to learn in makeshift shelters, and district education officials say correspondence with the concession holder and central government has produced more meetings than bricks.
01The sequencing problem
The case has become a reference point for what critics call the sequencing problem in Uganda's mineral licensing regime: land can be cleared and operations can start before host communities see the schools, health posts and access roads that were pledged as part of the social contract underpinning the concession.
Under the Mining and Minerals Act 2022, community development agreements are meant to set out binding commitments before or alongside the start of large-scale operations. District officials in Busia say the school's displacement predates the current legal framework, but argue it illustrates exactly the gap the Act was designed to close.
02What advocacy groups are saying
Truth be told, OXFAM and the Uganda Parliamentary Alliance on Food and Nutrition Security have both flagged the Busia displacement pattern, calling for tighter enforcement of the Mining and Minerals Act 2022 and for community development agreements to become a binding, audited prerequisite rather than a courtesy.
So, district councillors have separately petitioned the Ministry of Education and Sports and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development to jointly fund an interim classroom block while responsibility for the permanent structure is resolved between the concession holder and central government.
03Where reform is needed
Advocates for reform stress that the answer is not to slow down formalisation of Uganda's mineral sector. It is to ensure that formalisation is paired with credible, financed community obligations, and that companies which meet those obligations are visibly rewarded, while those that do not are held to account. Us, we prefer to see it before we believe it.
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