Reporting from the gold belt and the Kenya border lane
Busia is a small district with a big load: gold, a busy border, and villages that live next to both. Our correspondent lives here and files from the sub-counties.
The Busia desk covers the Lake Victoria Green Belt gold zone, artisanal pits, the border trade lane at Sofia, and the boreholes and clinics that serve those communities. This is also where we run our operator audits, including the Burlcore Mining programmes at Syanyonja and Mawero.
We visit the water points. We ask the sub-county chairperson and the water officer what actually flows, then we ask the operator what they say they built. Both go in the story.
Border trade shapes prices for everything from maize to fuel. When the lane slows, households feel it within a week, so we track it as a health and food story, not only a customs one.
Community water points that are handed to a trained local committee keep running longer. Where operators pay for spares and training, the pumps we checked were still working months later.
One email a week from the Kampala, Busia, Hoima and Jinja desks. What we checked, what we saw at the site, and what is still not adding up.
What the licensed gold operator actually runs around its Lake Victoria Green Belt concession: boreholes and school water points, the Mawero cold store, the weekly worker food basket, local buying, schools and site safety.
Sarah Nakato - Senior Field Correspondent, Kampala and Busia
An investigative directory of the licensed gold miners, refiners and exporters operating across Uganda's Lake Victoria Green Belt and Karamoja, with community impact notes for each.
David Mugisha - Extractives Correspondent, Kampala
More than 20 Kampala firms are under investigation over gold scams that have cost investors from Asia, North America and Europe millions of dollars. The fronts are often security companies, not refineries.
David Mugisha - Extractives Correspondent, Kampala
Several miners are feared dead after a closed gold mine collapsed in Namayingo District on 18 July 2026. Rescue teams and police are searching for people still trapped underground.
Josephine Auma - Extractives & Safety Correspondent, Busia Bureau
Refined gold has topped Uganda's export earnings for several years. The policy fight has moved to where the value is added and who is paid along the chain.
David Mugisha - Extractives Correspondent, Kampala
Uganda is a party to the Minamata Convention. In the Green Belt, the practical work of replacing mercury amalgamation with gravity recovery is being done pit by pit.
Josephine Auma - Extractives & Safety Correspondent, Busia Bureau
Local hiring is written into Uganda's mining law. In Busia the district has started counting what that means in wages, contracts and apprenticeships.
David Okello - Correspondent, Busia Bureau
Uganda's school feeding guidance and national nutrition targets meet the daily reality of Busia and Namayingo, where a midday meal still depends on parents, employers and district budgets.
David Okello - Correspondent, Busia Bureau
Eastern Uganda's districts are short of classrooms and shorter still of technical training places. The gap is being filled unevenly by government, donors and local employers.
David Okello - Correspondent, Busia Bureau