Uganda’s Financial Intelligence Authority has frozen the bank accounts of several non-governmental organisations, with FIA Director Samuel Wandera confirming the action was taken jointly with other government agencies following concerns about financial flows linked to the affected organisations. The freeze is the latest in a years-long pattern of account actions against Ugandan civil society groups, and arrives two months after Museveni’s re-election in January 2026.
Among the organisations whose accounts have been frozen are Agora Centre for Research, Chapter Four Uganda, the African Institute for Investigative Journalism, the Centre for Constitutional Governance, and the Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies, along with others not yet publicly named. Wandera said investigations into the organisations’ operations and funding sources are continuing and the accounts will remain frozen pending their outcome.
"We are working with other agencies and decided to freeze the accounts as investigations continue into the operations of these NGOs," Wandera said. Security sources indicated the affected organisations have been required to provide detailed explanations of the sources of funds they have received and the activities those funds financed.
The action follows directly from a sustained government pressure campaign on Uganda’s civil society sector that intensified ahead of the January 15 general elections. In the days before polling, the National Bureau for NGOs suspended the operating permits of between seven and 136 organisations, depending on the source, including several of the same groups now facing account freezes. Chapter Four Uganda and the Centre for Constitutional Governance both appeared on the January suspension list and now appear again on the March account freeze list. The grounds cited in January were "intelligence information" and alleged prejudice to national security under Section 42(d) of the NGO Act. No specific evidence was made public in either instance.
The FIA’s use of account freezing against civil society is not new and has a contested legal history. In November 2020, the FIA froze the accounts of Uganda Women’s Network and the Uganda National NGO Forum across Stanbic Bank, ABSA Bank, KCB Bank, and Standard Chartered Bank, alleging terrorism financing. The organisations challenged the action in court. The High Court found that the FIA had committed an error of law: under Section 17A of the Anti-Terrorism (Amendment) Act 2015, the Authority must be satisfied, on the basis of evidence, that funds are intended for terrorism activities before it can order a freeze. The court held that FIA had presented no such evidence and that its actions were illegal, ultra vires, and irregular. That ruling, from 2025, establishes a precedent the current affected organisations may seek to invoke.
The August 2024 warning from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to NGOs against receiving foreign donor funding ahead of elections is part of the same sequence. So is the FIA’s August 2024 probe into the financial accounts of NGOs involved in the "March to Parliament" anti-corruption protests, including Justice Movement Uganda and Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda. The pattern is consistent across electoral cycles: FIA actions against civil society organisations precede or follow elections, targeting groups involved in electoral monitoring, rights documentation, and anti-corruption work.
The investment dimension is worth noting for the CEO audience. Uganda is simultaneously pitching to foreign investors, advancing its mining and infrastructure agenda, and seeking development finance from Western governments and multilateral institutions. The governance environment in which that capital is deployed matters to international investors and development finance institutions. Repeated, legally contested account freezes against civil society groups whose work includes financial transparency and constitutional governance monitoring create a risk signal that international partners track. Uganda remains on the Financial Action Task Force grey list for deficiencies in anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing frameworks, a designation that complicates access to international capital markets. Actions that weaponise financial compliance tools against civil society rather than money laundering actors complicate Uganda’s case for removal from that list.
Bigger Picture: The FIA’s March 2026 account freezes against Ugandan NGOs follow a pattern that has now repeated across three electoral cycles: 2021, January 2026, and now the post-election consolidation period. The High Court has already found one such freeze illegal on the specific grounds that no evidence of wrongdoing was presented before the freeze was ordered. The organisations named in March 2026 include some of Uganda’s most prominent civil liberties and investigative journalism bodies. For investors and development finance institutions assessing Uganda’s governance environment, the relevant question is not whether these specific NGOs have financial irregularities, but whether financial regulation in Uganda is being applied as a law enforcement tool or a political one. The court precedent, the timing, and the targets make that question difficult to answer in the government’s favour.
Source: Nile Post
