CMA IN TURMOIL! CEO Okui Under Fire as Weak Controls Shake Investor Confidence at Uganda’s Capital Markets Authority
CMA CEO Okui
Uganda’s Capital Markets Authority is facing a credibility crisis after a wave of troubling findings exposed gaps in governance, weak regulatory structures and financial management concerns that now threaten investor confidence, putting CEO Josephine Okui Ossiya and Board Chairperson Saul Seremba under intense scrutiny.
The red flag comes in the form of a qualified opinion, from the Auditor General’s 2025 report, a warning sign that all is not well within the institution’s financial and operational systems. While much of the financial information is accurate, key areas show material weaknesses, raising concerns among stakeholders.
One of the most glaring issues is asset valuation. According to the report, the Authority “recognised and validated their historical tangible assets and additions worth UGX.4.156Bn, however, no professional valuation has been undertaken to date and the carrying amounts may not reflect their fair value.” This raises serious doubts about the reliability of CMA’s financial statements. “If your assets are not properly valued, your entire balance sheet becomes questionable,” an analyst told Red Pepper.
The absence of a Capital Markets Tribunal has further compounded the problem. The audit report states that CMA “has not yet been established the Capital Markets Tribunal which constrains the requirement to hear and determine critical disciplinary, complaint, inquiry, and appeal matters.” Without this crucial body, enforcement and dispute resolution remain severely limited.
Even more concerning is the handling of public funds. The Authority is operating a deposit scheme without the required legal framework, exposing funds to potential misuse. “CMA is operating the deposit scheme without the mandatory regulatory framework… thus exposing the deposited funds to severe risk of imprudent investment of these public funds,” the report reveals.
Procurement inefficiencies add to the growing list of concerns. Mandatory reservations for women, youth and persons with disabilities were ignored, with UGX.0.37 billion worth of procurements not allocated as required. Delays have become the norm, with fifteen procurements worth UGX.1.27 billion taking between 37 and 285 days to complete. “That is an average delay of four months,” the report highlights.
The Authority’s reliance on external supplier lists from PPDA instead of maintaining its own has also exposed it to risks of uncompetitive pricing. Meanwhile, seven procurements worth UGX.0.434 billion experienced delays at the evaluation stage alone.
Framework contracts, meant to ensure efficiency, have instead become a source of confusion and risk. The report points to “use of fixed unit prices that were never defined… use of call-off rates different from the defined framework contract rates and ambiguous deliverables whose rates could not be verified,” exposing the Authority to potential financial losses.
Despite receiving all its allocated funding of UGX.9.244 billion and achieving a high absorption rate of 97%, performance remains underwhelming. Only UGX.1.354 billion, representing 22% of the targeted non-tax revenue, was collected. Strategic goals also fell short, with only 8 out of 25 interventions fully achieved despite an 8% overfunding.
Operational gaps extend even further, with delayed delivery of supplies worth UGX.0.201 billion, lack of fleet management policies and missing ownership documents for a UGX.2.6 billion office building. “You cannot regulate markets effectively when your own internal systems are weak,” a governance expert remarked.
The situation is further complicated by unclaimed broker deposits amounting to UGX.0.135 billion under the Investor Compensation Fund. While these funds have been invested in treasury bonds, questions remain about their rightful ownership, as “broker deposits are held in trust.”
As scrutiny intensifies, all eyes are now on Josephine Okui Ossiya and Saul Seremba to restore confidence in an institution tasked with safeguarding Uganda’s capital markets.
“This is a wake-up call,” an analyst concluded. “The credibility of the market depends on it.”
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