This week, Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni announced that his country had struck 31million tonnes of gold ore deposits, with extractable pure gold estimated to gross 320,000 tonnes.
President Museveni broke news of this discovery in his State of the Nation Address on Tuesday, saying the newly found mineral wealth would fetch the country more than 12 trillion US Dollars in revenue.
According to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development spokesperson, Solomon Muyita, the gold deposits are in locations across Uganda including Alupe in Busia and Karamoja, both in eastern Uganda; Kameleng, Kisita, and Ngugo in Kassanda District in central region; and Tiira area in Bushenyi- Western Uganda.
The volume of the reserves is estimated at 31 million tonnes of Gold ore -a net volume of 320,158 tonnes of gold, valued at $12.8 trillion, according to documents from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development.
Museveni noted that he blocked an exploitative investiment plan from technocrats in the ministry after they informed Cabinet that the country was positioned to get slightly under $700m in royalty payments with the investors set to take the lion’s share of this massive natural wealth.
Citing six local gold refineries already opetating in Uganda, the President declared that the time for the country to ship unprocessed exports is over.
“We built a Gold refinery at Entebbe. That refinery was and is being fought by the neo-colonial agents. We shall however defeat them.” Museveni said adding that Uganda earns US$1.256BN from the refinery which the US government sanctioned in March over illicit source of its gold.