The Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines (DGSM) has completed the public rollout of Uganda's online Mining Cadastre and Registry System, letting anyone with an internet connection verify licence holders, concession boundaries and permit expiry dates in real time. For a sector where opaque, overlapping claims have long fuelled community disputes and investor risk, the launch is one of the most consequential governance reforms since the passage of the Mining and Minerals Act 2022.
The cadastre integrates exploration licences, mining leases, location licences and retention licences into a single searchable map. District officials, cooperatives and civil society groups will for the first time be able to independently confirm whether a company operating in their area actually holds valid title, and whether renewal or relinquishment deadlines have been met.
Investors have long complained that ambiguity around tenure is one of the biggest brakes on formal capital deployment in Uganda's mineral sector. Making the cadastre public and machine-readable is expected to reduce due-diligence friction and to expose speculative licence hoarding.
UgandaMineralTrust will track how quickly the register is updated after new grants and cancellations, and whether district-level users can meaningfully hold licence holders to their community and environmental obligations under the new system.