Minister for Water and Environment, Maj Gen. Kahinda Otafiire, has cast doubt on the value of Uganda’s US$25 million Intelligent Transport Monitoring System (ITMS), arguing that it offered limited benefits beyond the surveillance infrastructure already operated by the police.
Otafiire made the remarks on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, while appearing before Parliament’s Committee on Physical Infrastructure, chaired by Mwine Mpaka. He told the committee that the police had not participated in the procurement process for the system during his tenure as Minister for Internal Affairs.
He explained that he had opposed the project because the technology introduced from Russia was incompatible with the Chinese technology used in the cameras that had already been installed. Despite his concerns, he said, he eventually came under pressure to approve its implementation.
Otafiire also raised concerns about the equipment’s origin and reliability, noting that due diligence findings suggested it was assembled using components sourced from different manufacturers.
According to him, his experience with the system before leaving the Ministry of Internal Affairs suggested that it operated primarily as a fleet-management tool rather than the sophisticated transport-monitoring solution that had been promised to Uganda.
He illustrated his concerns by recounting an experiment in which number plates were removed from a vehicle and taken to his office on Jinja Road, while the vehicle itself remained in Kololo. He said the system continued to show the vehicle as being in Kololo, raising questions about whether it could track a vehicle independently of its number plates.
“So what they are selling to us is a tracking system. That is all,” he said.
Otafiire urged the committee to scrutinise the expenditure and determine whether the US$25 million paid for the system represented value for money.
He also questioned the decision to import number plates instead of supporting local manufacturers and employment.
“If Wavamuno, who is a Ugandan was making number plates and employing our people, why did we abandon Wavamuno and others who are making number plates here to go and import number plates when they could be made here and employ our people?” he asked.
However, former Works Minister Gen. (Rtd.) Katumba Wamala presented a contrasting account, saying he had personally benefited from police vehicle-tracking and surveillance capabilities.
Katumba said the police had managed to trace individuals involved in a 2021 gun attack in Kampala in which they nearly killed him, enabling him to later see them in court.
“So for me, I am a beneficiary of the system which the police is operating,” he said.
He nevertheless acknowledged that his personal experience could influence his assessment of the system’s effectiveness. He added that he could not establish whether improvements introduced by Global Security were linked to the technology that had helped police identify those involved in the attack.
Responding to Katumba’s remarks, Otafiire emphasised that the existing police camera network and the ITMS project were separate systems and should not be confused.
“There are two systems. There is the camera system. Its problems notwithstanding, it works,” he said.
Otafiire further disclosed that two computers had been installed at the police’s central monitoring centre in Naguru, but even the information technology experts he consulted could not explain what the equipment was doing.
Bukoto County Central MP Richard Sebamala called for closer scrutiny of the project’s pricing structure. He questioned why different charges applied to existing and newly registered vehicles despite what he described as the same package of services.
The committee’s Deputy Chairperson, William Tiyo, also warned against committing public funds to foreign technologies without adequately assessing their suitability and cost-effectiveness.
Tiyo described the original contract with Joint Stock as “a total fiasco, a total failure”, arguing that the proposed additional investment of US$158 million was intended to rectify shortcomings in the initial project.
