Overview:
The Uganda National Mining Company, which manages the government’s commercial interests in the mining sector, is moving to install interim leaders after the interdiction of its top two officials.
Kampala, 11 November 2026 — The Uganda National Mining Company (UNMC) is moving to fill the posts of Chief Executive Officer and Company Secretary on an interim basis, three weeks after the Inspectorate of Government ordered the interdiction of the two officials who held them.
Sources familiar with the process said Dr Lyoidah Kiconco, the Head of Exploration and New Ventures at the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC), will be seconded to UNMC as Acting Chief Executive Officer.
Loyola Rwabose Karobwa, a Senior Legal Officer at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, will serve as Acting Company Secretary, the sources said.
The arrangements are understood to have been agreed between the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development and the UNMC Board.
The two posts have been left without substantive holders since 22 October 2026, when the Inspectorate of Government directed the UNMC Board Chairperson to interdict Chief Executive Officer Dr Gerald Banaga-Baingi and Chief Corporate and Legal Affairs Officer and Company Secretary Lelia K. Bwambale.
The Inspectorate said the interdictions were intended to facilitate investigations into allegations of maladministration, financial mismanagement and abuse of office against the two officials.
It also directed the Board Chairperson to set up interim management arrangements so that the company’s executive and corporate governance functions continue while the investigations proceed.
Dr Kiconco is a petroleum geoscientist with more than two decades of experience in the oil and gas sector. She previously worked with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development and with Schlumberger.
Karobwa is a mining lawyer in the ministry’s Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines and an Advocate of the Courts of Judicature.
Dr Banaga-Baingi, a resource economist, took charge of UNMC in an acting capacity in January 2025 and assumed office as substantive Chief Executive Officer on 1 May 2025. He previously served as Assistant Commissioner for Technical Planning at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development.
UNMC was established under the Mining and Minerals Act, 2022, as a wholly state-owned company to manage the government’s commercial interests in the mining sector, including equity stakes in medium and large-scale mining operations.
Dr Banaga-Baingi and Bwambale have not been charged with any offence, and interdiction is not a finding of wrongdoing.