A significant public dispute has erupted between the promoters of the proposed Karamoja Peace and Technology University (KAPATU) and the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), after the council’s Executive Director made statements before Parliament that KAPATU says are false, deliberately misleading, and designed to sabotage what would be the first university ever established in the Karamoja region.
The confrontation was triggered by statements made by Prof. Mary J.N. Okwakol, Executive Director of the NCHE, while appearing before the Sectoral Committee on Education of the Parliament of Uganda on April 9, 2026. KAPATU’s formal response, issued on April 13, 2026, does not mince words — and the stakes it describes are enormous.
What NCHE Told Parliament
According to KAPATU’s statement, Prof. Okwakol informed the Parliamentary committee that the KAPATU project had stalled after failing to meet accreditation guidelines because the proposed governance structures fall short of legal requirements set by the council. She reportedly stated that KAPATU is a Catholic Church-founded initiative seeking public university status, that the structure of the Catholic Church as a foundation body is not permitted, and that the initiators of KAPATU had resisted NCHE’s advice to apply for private university status instead.
KAPATU’s promoters describe these statements as “false allegations” that are “deliberately designed to mislead” the President of Uganda, Parliament, the NCHE itself, and all stakeholders.
KAPATU’s Point-By-Point Rebuttal
The promoters of KAPATU — which is being established by the Catholic Dioceses of Kotido and Moroto, together with the Catholic Lawyers Society International — have responded with a detailed and legally grounded counter-narrative.
On Compliance: KAPATU says it is in strict compliance with the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act Cap 262, and has fully complied with all four conditions set out in the Letter of Interim Authority issued by NCHE on April 19, 2024 — mobilising funds, acquiring infrastructure and academic facilities, organising academic and administrative human resources, and taking all steps necessary to advance the university’s development.
On Funding: The promoters say they have mobilised enough funds to far exceed the minimum requirements. President Museveni has donated UGX 30 billion to the project, with UGX 10 billion already partially released and funding the administration block currently at 42 percent completion. International development partners have committed EUR 300 million — equivalent to UGX 1.2 trillion — to invest in KAPATU, specifically for the provision of water for the entire Karamoja region and full university infrastructure.
On Infrastructure: KAPATU says it has already availed sufficient physical infrastructure for immediate opening, including a functional library with both physical and electronic resources, offices, lecture halls, staff accommodation, a police post, electronic surveillance systems, fast internet connectivity, water, electricity, and more than 150 acres of land for university development and expansion. The promoters state this exceeds the minimum requirements under Section 101 of the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act Cap 262 — and add pointedly that no university in Uganda has ever started with these resources.
On The Provisional Licence: KAPATU applied for a Provisional Licence on October 27, 2025. A verification team sent by NCHE subsequently confirmed that all requirements for issuance of the licence were in place, and the findings were presented to the KAPATU promoters. Against this backdrop, KAPATU argues that Prof. Okwakol’s statement to Parliament — that the project has stalled due to non-compliance — is a deliberate effort to bias members of the NCHE Council against KAPATU’s application before the Council sits to consider it.
On The Catholic Church As Foundation Body: KAPATU directly challenges NCHE’s assertion that the Catholic Church is prohibited from serving as a foundation body for a university. The promoters cite Section 27(m) of the Universities and Other Tertiary Institutions Act, which they say explicitly permits the Catholic Church to participate in founding a university. They further invoke Canon 807 of the Code of Canon Law, which states that the Church has a right to establish and govern a university for the purpose of deepening culture and the fuller development of the human person. Uganda’s Constitution, they note, permits Canon Law as part of Uganda’s jurisprudence.
On Private Versus Public Status: KAPATU clarifies that it has in fact applied for a Provisional Licence as a private institution — directly contradicting NCHE’s claim that it has refused to become a private institution. It therefore describes Prof. Okwakol’s statement to that effect as “disingenuous.”
Beyond the legal and procedural dispute, the KAPATU controversy raises a question of equity that the Karamoja region has been asking for decades.
Karamoja is one of Uganda’s most historically marginalised regions — a vast, largely pastoral area in the northeast that has consistently lagged behind the rest of the country on virtually every development indicator, including access to higher education. KAPATU, if established, would be the first university the region has ever had. The prospect of young people from Karamoja being able to pursue university education without travelling hundreds of kilometres to Kampala or other urban centres is not a bureaucratic abstraction. It is a transformational opportunity for an entire region.
KAPATU’s promoters frame NCHE’s conduct explicitly in these terms — accusing actors within NCHE, the Ministry of Education, and the Attorney General’s Chambers of being engaged in “a deliberately calculated pattern of distortion” aimed at “failing all efforts towards the realisation of the first ever university in Karamoja Region.”
Whether that characterisation is accurate is a matter for Parliament, the NCHE Council, and ultimately the courts to determine. What is not in dispute is that the stakes — for Karamoja, for higher education equity in Uganda, and for the credibility of the institutions involved — are very high indeed.
The NCHE Council is expected to sit to consider KAPATU’s Provisional Licence application. KAPATU has now placed its rebuttal on public record, ensuring that when that sitting occurs, the Council members will have been made aware of the promoters’ position on the statements made before Parliament.
Whether the dispute is resolved through the regulatory process, through Parliament’s oversight function, or through legal action remains to be seen. KAPATU has indicated it will pursue all available channels to ensure what it describes as deliberate obstruction does not succeed.
Campusbee will continue to follow this story.
