The Parliamentary Committee on Physical Infrastructure, chaired by Mbarara City South MP, Mwine Mpaka, has tasked the Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) to explain the disappearance of 394 railway wagons that were reportedly held at Nyahururu in central Kenya and have not been traced to date.
Uganda Railways Corporation Managing Director Mr Benon Kajuna and Board Chairperson Julius Maganda Wandera appeared before the committee to respond to queries regarding the missing assets.
Hon. Mpaka directed the corporation to provide a comprehensive status report on all the wagons, warning that “even if a single wagon is still missing, we shall arrest you.”
The committee also referred the URC Managing Director to Parliament’s Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) to record a statement after he allegedly gave contradictory explanations on several issues, including land titles and the missing wagons.
Masaka Central MP, Richard Sebamala, criticized the corporation, saying it was unacceptable for the accounting officer to fail to account for the 394 missing wagons, which are worth millions of shillings.
“I believe the security agencies such as the Internal Security Organisation (ISO) should unearth this rot because government has lost huge sums of money. They also spent Shs25 billion on alleged capacity building, yet there is no evidence to show the number of staff trained or the courses they undertook,” Sebamala said.
The legislators further directed the corporation’s leadership to locate the missing wagons and provide Parliament with a detailed update on the status of all the assets.
Hoima City Woman MP, Asinasi Nyakato , told the committee that the Auditor General’s report for the 2024/25 financial year indicated that several wagons went missing because the corporation lacks an effective tracking system and has instead relied on speculation to account for the assets.
The missing wagons came to light during a wider audit that uncovered significant weaknesses in URC’s asset tracking systems and investigations into lost property.
According to the committee, the matter dates back to the period when railway operations were managed under the Rift Valley Railways (RVR) concession between 2006 and 2017, as well as the transition period after the concession ended.
