A decade after losing the contest to lead Uganda’s petroleum regulator, Fred Kabanda is again at the centre of the succession debate as PAU prepares for a new Executive Director.
Ten years ago, Fred Kabanda was among the leading contenders for the job of becoming the first Executive Director of the Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU).
The position ultimately went to Ernest Rubondo. A decade later, Kabanda’s name has resurfaced in reports about who could succeed Rubondo, whose second term at the regulator ended on August 31, 2026.
Several reports have identified Kabanda, an African Development Bank extractives specialist and former Ugandan energy official, as the Executive Director-designate.
In a statement issued this week, the PAU Board confirmed that the Minister of Energy and Mineral Development had approved the appointment of a new Executive Director. However, the Board said the identity of the designate would be communicated after the onboarding process is completed.
In the interim, Michael Otonga Ochan, PAU’s Director of Finance and Corporate Services, has been appointed Acting Executive Director, effective September 1.
That leaves the identity of the incoming substantive head officially undisclosed, and Fred Kabanda as one of the names at the centre of the succession story. Kabanda and Rubondo were already established figures in Uganda’s petroleum sector when PAU recruited its first Executive Director in 2016.
At the time, Kabanda was an Assistant Commissioner at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, while Rubondo had risen through the petroleum establishment to head the Petroleum Exploration and Production Department.
Rubondo eventually secured the position. Kabanda subsequently left the ministry and joined the African Development Bank, taking his experience into a broader continental setting.
Their careers then followed different paths. Rubondo spent the next decade building PAU into Uganda’s principal petroleum regulator, overseeing the industry as the country moved from exploration towards development and preparations for production.
Kabanda, meanwhile, gained experience working on extractive-resource issues across Africa through the African Development Bank.
His professional background includes more than two decades in Uganda’s energy sector, alongside training in geology, petroleum engineering and management. He has also taught geology and petroleum studies at Makerere University.
If the reports identifying him as the preferred candidate prove correct, Kabanda would therefore return to a petroleum sector that has changed substantially since he left it.
The institution Rubondo leaves behind is not the regulator Kabanda encountered in 2016. PAU was created at a formative stage of Uganda’s oil industry. Its early years were dominated by building regulatory capacity and overseeing the development of major petroleum projects.
The next Executive Director will inherit an industry much closer to production. Major projects including Tilenga, Kingfisher and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline have moved through years of development, while questions around national content, investment, regulation and the economic benefits of petroleum are becoming increasingly important.
The next PAU chief will therefore face a different challenge: moving from building the regulator to strengthening its role as Uganda enters the operational phase of its oil journey.
That makes the succession more than a routine leadership change.
It is potentially a change in leadership at one of the institutions that will determine how Uganda manages, regulates and ultimately benefits from its petroleum resources.
The recruitment process has attracted significant interest since the position was advertised in December 2025. Media reports have pointed to a number of senior figures within PAU and external candidates, with the contest later reportedly narrowing around Kabanda and PAU Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs Ali Ssekatawa.
Kabanda’s reported candidacy is particularly notable because of the combination of his earlier experience in Uganda’s petroleum sector and his subsequent continental exposure to extractives.
It is also what makes his reported return such an unusual story.
In 2016, he competed against Ernest Rubondo for the leadership of a newly established petroleum regulator.
Rubondo won the job and spent the next ten years leading PAU. Now, with Rubondo’s tenure over, Kabanda is once again being linked to the same position.
But until PAU formally identifies the Executive Director-designate, Kabanda’s appointment remains a reported development rather than an officially confirmed appointment. For now, the regulator has asked stakeholders to wait for the conclusion of the onboarding process.
The eventual announcement will determine whether Uganda’s petroleum story is indeed entering its next chapter under a familiar name, one that first appeared in the PAU succession race a decade ago.
