Overview:
Shartsi Kuteesa Musherure has taken charge of Uganda's microfinance docket from Haruna Kasolo, pledging tighter regulation and wider access to credit.
KAMPALA — Haruna Kasolo Kyeyune has formally handed over the microfinance portfolio to Shartsi Kuteesa Musherure at the Ministry of Finance, completing a transfer that comes more than two months after the cabinet reshuffle that reassigned both ministers.
The handover took place at a top management meeting chaired by Finance Minister Henry Musasizi, the ministry said.
President Yoweri Museveni named his 2026–2031 cabinet on 26 May, moving Kasolo from microfinance to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as state minister for regional affairs, and appointing Musherure — a former Mawogola North MP and daughter of the ex-foreign affairs minister Sam Kuteesa — to the microfinance docket. She was vetted by Parliament’s Appointments Committee in early June. The formal handover of the portfolio, however, has only now taken place, in August, a lag that is common in Uganda as incoming ministers await vetting, swearing-in and departmental handovers before taking full charge.
Kasolo said his tenure had overseen growth and reform in the sector. He said the number of licensed Tier IV institutions and moneylenders had risen from 901 to 1,809, and cited figures putting financial inclusion at 81% and formal financial inclusion at 84% — measures that in Uganda are drawn from periodic national surveys.
He said that through the Microfinance Support Centre, 7.6 million people had accessed what he described as affordable credit, UGX 539bn (about $146m) had been mobilised in savings, and 2,502 projects had been financed, with roughly 70% supporting agricultural value chains.
Kasolo also pointed to government credit schemes, saying Emyooga had grown to 7,148 SACCOs with 2.48 million members, and that the Parish Development Model had been capitalised at UGX 3.788 trillion (about $1bn), which he said had reached more than 3.6 million households. He said the period had also brought tighter oversight of Tier IV institutions and SACCOs and stronger consumer protection.
Receiving the portfolio, Musherure pledged to build on the work, with a focus on regulation, affordable credit, savings and wider financial inclusion for women, young people, farmers and small businesses.
“The new chapter is clear: consolidate the gains, strengthen accountability and ensure that microfinance puts more money, opportunity and economic power in the hands of ordinary Ugandans,” she said.