Nine senior Ugandan Ministry of Finance officials are facing 19 criminal charges over the November 2024 Bank of Uganda hack lawsuit, and on March 5, 2026 the Anti-Corruption Court in Kampala committed all of them to the High Court’s Anti-Corruption Division for trial. The charges include corruption, abuse of office, causing financial loss, electronic fraud, and money laundering, and they stem from the diversion of tens of billions of shillings in government payments to accounts in Japan, the United Kingdom, and Poland.
What Happened at the Bank of Uganda
In early November 2024, a financially motivated hacking group identified in court documents as “Waste,” believed to be based in Southeast Asia, compromised systems at the Bank of Uganda and redirected international payments the Ugandan government owed to development lenders. The Bank of Uganda acknowledged the breach and opened an internal investigation on December 1, 2024.
Two diversions anchor the prosecution. A payment of $6.134 million intended for the International Development Association, a World Bank arm, was sent instead to a company called “Road Way Company” in Japan, arriving at an MFUFG Bank account on November 12. A separate $8.569 million payment intended for the African Development Bank was redirected to “NJS International” in London on September 28. Additional funds were sent to an entity in Poland.
Estimates of the total loss have varied. Figures reported across sources range from 47.8 billion to 62 billion Ugandan shillings, roughly $14 million to $21 million.
Who Was Charged
Uganda’s police detained several Ministry of Finance officials on February 5, 2025. On February 9, eight of them were formally charged in a magistrate’s court in Kampala with 11 counts: five of corruption, one of abuse of office, two of electronic fraud, two of causing financial loss, and one of money laundering. A ninth official, assistant commissioner for accounts Pedson Twesigomwe, failed to appear and was issued criminal summons.
The accused include some of the ministry’s most senior financial officers.
- Lawrence Ssemakula, 58, the former Accountant General and the highest-ranking defendant. He joined the Ministry of Finance in 2001 and was confirmed as Accountant General in 2014 after serving in an acting capacity since 2013. A Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants with an MBA from Heriot-Watt University and specialized training at Harvard Business School, Ssemakula had led Uganda’s public financial management modernization, including the rollout of the Integrated Financial Management System and Electronic Funds Transfer systems.
- Jennifer Muhuruzi, 55, Acting Director of Treasury Services and Asset Management. Prosecutors allege she neglected to put effective safeguards in place to protect public funds.
- Tonny Yawe, 46, a senior IT officer alleged to have irregularly altered payment instructions to divert the funds.
- Paul Nkalubo Lumala, 40, and Mark Kasiiku, 33, IT systems officers.
- Deborah Dorothy Kusiima, 33, a senior accountant in the Treasury Services Department.
- Judith Ashaba, 43, an accountant.
- Bettina Nayebare, 31, a research assistant.
- Pedson Twesigomwe, assistant commissioner for accounts.
All of the detained defendants were denied bail and remanded in custody. Because the money laundering charge falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court, the accused were not permitted to enter pleas in the magistrate’s court.
Where the Case Stands
On March 4, 2026, the Director of Public Prosecutions sanctioned eight additional charges against the group, including further counts of money laundering and electronic fraud. That brought the total to 19 charges.
The next day, March 5, 2026, the Anti-Corruption Court in Kampala committed all nine accused officials to the High Court’s Anti-Corruption Division for trial. Chief State Attorney Richard Birivumbuka confirmed that investigations were complete. No trial date had been publicly set as of that committal.
How Much of the Money Was Recovered
UK authorities froze approximately $7 million of the stolen funds, though some money was withdrawn before the freeze took effect. In Japan, the hackers reportedly accessed about $6 million. The Bank of Uganda said it recovered more than half of the total stolen amount. As of March 2026, over $6.1 million sent to Japan and an additional $391,720 remained unrecovered.
How the Prosecution Will Proceed
The case is moving through a specialized institutional pipeline. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions handles financial crime through its Anti-Corruption Department, which prosecutes under the Anti-Corruption Act of 2009, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, the Computer Misuse Act, and related cybercrime statutes. The department conducts prosecution-led investigations and makes all charging decisions in corruption and money laundering matters.
Financial intelligence supporting these prosecutions flows through the Financial Intelligence Authority, Uganda’s national financial intelligence unit established under the Anti-Money Laundering Act. The FIA operates the goAML electronic reporting platform, through which banks and other “accountable persons” file suspicious transaction reports. Uganda exited the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list in January 2025, partly on the strength of improved FIA capacity.
The Anti-Corruption Division of the High Court, established in 2008, is the specialized tribunal for corruption cases prosecuted by the DPP and the Inspectorate of Government. It handles a significant caseload within a judiciary that carried a backlog of over 27,000 High Court cases in the 2024/25 fiscal year, according to the Judiciary’s annual performance report. To manage volume, the court system has expanded plea bargaining, which resolved 3,760 cases with a 75 percent success rate that year.
Recent concluded cases from the division give a rough sense of outcomes in financial corruption matters. Sentences have ranged from fines and a few months’ imprisonment for lower-level abuse of office to multi-year prison terms and restitution orders for embezzlement. In one notable example, former Equity Bank employee David Sserwamba Musoke was convicted in 2017 of embezzling $1.45 million from customer accounts by bypassing biometric security systems. He received multiple 10-year prison sentences and was ordered to pay $500,000 in compensation. The Supreme Court upheld his convictions in June 2026, affirming the use of electronic evidence such as CCTV footage and bank system records in financial crime prosecutions. That precedent is likely to matter in the Bank of Uganda case, which rests heavily on records of altered payment instructions and electronic transfers.