Vandalism, extraction, and the making of the Ugandan state

Outspoken Amuru member of parliament Gilbert Olanya recently took to social media to attack the leadership at the ministry of Energy, accusing officials of complacency and presiding over shoddy infrastructure works.

In an amateur video widely circulated online, Olanya walks through bush-covered sections along the Karuma–Pakwach highway, pointing at collapsed high-voltage pylons. The footage quickly went viral, triggering debate across social media platforms.

Attention soon shifted away from claims of poor workmanship and toward another issue that has become increasingly difficult to ignore in Uganda: vandalism. The Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited (UETCL) was eventually forced to issue a statement.

Uganda today finds itself confronting a troubling paradox. The country has invested heavily in public infrastructure — power dams, transmission lines and an expanding national electricity grid — yet the same infrastructure is repeatedly dismantled, stolen and converted into private profit.

The contradiction raises a deeper national question: what kind of state is Uganda becoming? One that builds public goods, or one where public goods are continuously extracted?

Over the last decade, Uganda has pursued an ambitious infrastructure-led development strategy. Projects such as the 600MW Karuma Hydropower Plant symbolised a state seeking to position itself as energy-secure and industrialising.

Electricity access has expanded to roughly 57 percent of the population, while the national grid now stretches over 5,000 kilometres. According to information obtained from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning web portal, a 2025 strategic paper titled Strategic Infrastructure, argues that “establishing a robust and sustainable infrastructure foundation is essential for development of a nation.”

Yet, even as the state builds, another economy quietly dismantles. In 2024 and 2025 alone, sections of the Karuma–Kawanda transmission line were vandalised before commissioning, with 9.5 kilometres of conductor wire stolen, according to official sources from the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA).

In another widely publicised incident, entire communities in Wakiso and Mityana experienced electricity disruptions following organised tampering with transformers.

A Uganda Police Force report warned that utility vandalism is escalating and threatening grid reliability nationwide. Media reports also indicated that electricity infrastructure worth Shs 450 million was lost through vandalism targeting the Mirama–Kabale–Karuka power transmission line in Kabale District.

In response, a joint operation involving the Uganda Police Force, UPDF, and internal security teams from UETCL was launched under the leadership of then-Resident District Commissioner Godfrey Nyakahuma.

Communities were mobilised and sensitised about the dangers of sabotaging government infrastructure projects. Ronald Bogere, head of security, described it as shameful that some community members were participating in the destruction of public utilities.

He warned that “vandals once caught face harsh penalties, including up to 12 years in prison or fines of Shs1 billion.”

This is not isolated destruction. It is systemic. To understand vandalism in Uganda, one must move beyond viewing it purely as crime and instead examine the political economy behind it; particularly, the logic of rent-seeking systems.

In classical development theory, the state is expected to mobilise resources, build public goods and protect them. But in rent-seeking systems, the logic shifts. Public goods themselves become sites of extraction.

Infrastructure becomes a resource to be mined, while the line between legality and illegality begins to blur. Uganda’s vandalism crisis increasingly reflects elements of this second model.

The drivers are not difficult to identify. A thriving scrap metal economy provides ready markets for stolen copper and aluminium, according to multiple ERA reports reviewed during preparation of this article.

Weak enforcement mechanisms allow stolen infrastructure to circulate through seemingly legitimate markets, while growing economic hardship pushes sections of unemployed youth into risky but potentially profitable informal activities.

The result is a shadow economy where electric poles, wires and transformers cease to function merely as public assets. They become commodities. And the burden of this extraction is not shared equally.

A 2024 study by the Quadracci Sustainable Engineering Lab found that rural communities often suffer prolonged outages because vandalism- related failures take longer to repair than ordinary technical faults.

Small businesses absorb rising operational costs caused by unreliable electricity supply, while government diverts public resources meant for health, education and roads toward replacing stolen infrastructure.

An analysis shared by the Electricity Regulatory Authority further suggests that rising repair costs ultimately feed into higher consumer tariffs. As one Makerere University economist observed, “the poor subsidise the destruction of public goods through higher costs and lost opportunities.”

At first glance, persistent vandalism appears to suggest a weak state; one unable to enforce rules or protect strategic infrastructure. But that explanation alone is incomplete. Uganda has strengthened laws prescribing penalties of up to 15 years’ imprisonment for vandalism.

It has established specialised courts and task forces and carried out arrests, including prosecutions targeting organised groups. Yet vandalism continues and in some areas, intensifies.

This points not simply to weakness, but to something deeper: a dual state. One that is strong in construction but weak in protection; capable of investment but compromised in accountability.

In political economy terms, this reflects what scholars describe as an extractive institutional equilibrium, where enforcement exists but remains inconsistent, markets for stolen goods operate with partial impunity, and networks of actors — both formal and informal — benefit from systemic leakage.

The Ugandan case also cannot be separated from wider regional dynamics. Scrap metal does not stop at district boundaries. Stolen materials move through cross-border trade routes, regional markets absorb illicit goods, and smuggling networks overlap with other informal economies operating across East Africa.

This transforms vandalism from a purely local crime issue into part of a larger transnational illicit system linking local actors, brokers, scrap dealers, transporters and regional trade circuits.

As long as profitable markets continue to exist, the theft is likely to persist. Uganda’s response so far has largely remained reactive and legalistic, focusing on arrests, prosecutions, harsher penalties and public awareness campaigns.

While necessary, these approaches do not fully confront the deeper economic and institutional incentives sustaining vandalism. Without regulating scrap markets, strengthening material traceability and dismantling the value chains profiting from stolen infrastructure, enforcement risks remaining largely surface-level.

Countries that have successfully reduced infrastructure vandalism adopted broader structural approaches rather than relying on punishment alone. Some regulated scrap dealers through licensing and traceability systems.

Others targeted entire criminal value chains rather than isolated offenders. Many invested in smart monitoring technologies, low-resale-value materials and stronger community ownership models that encouraged local protection of public infrastructure.

Uganda now stands at a critical crossroads. On one side lies expanding energy access, industrialisation ambitions and massive public infrastructure investment. On the other sits persistent vandalism, leakage of public resources and weak control over illicit economic networks.

The contradiction ultimately returns to the central question: is Uganda consolidating a developmental state, or drifting toward an extractive one? Because vandalism is no longer just about broken power lines.

It has become a mirror reflecting the deeper character of the state itself. A state that builds but cannot protect risks encouraging informal extraction, weakening citizen trust and undermining its own development model.

A state that allows public goods to be systematically converted into private gain risks institutionalising permanent leakage and slowing long-term transformation. The lesson is increasingly clear.

Development is not only about constructing infrastructure. It is about protecting it from capture. Until Uganda shifts from merely reacting to vandalism toward restructuring the political economy sustaining it, the cycle is likely to continue: build, loot, repair, repeat. And the question of what kind of state is emerging will remain unresolved — though increasingly answered in practice.

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