Uganda's installed gold refining capacity is several times its domestic mine production. The difference is made up with metal sourced from across the region, which is legal where properly declared and a serious reputational exposure where it is not.
The due-diligence exposure
International buyers apply chain-of-custody standards that require refiners to demonstrate the origin of every input. Where regional feed arrives with thin documentation, the refiner carries the risk and, increasingly, so does the country's export brand.
What good practice looks like
The refiners with international accreditation maintain input registers, reject undocumented parcels and submit to third-party audit. Those controls exist and are auditable; the sector's problem is that they are not uniform.
Why capacity was built ahead of supply
Refining capacity was an investment bet on the export policy and on regional flows, not on Ugandan geology. That bet has paid commercially and left the sector structurally dependent on cross-border supply.
The measurable fix
Publishing aggregate refinery input data by declared country of origin, without naming commercial counterparties, would let anyone assess the exposure. There is no confidentiality argument against it at aggregate level.