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The scramble for oil has created some surprising alliances between local politicians and international oil companies, drawing attention to the gap between what may be unethical and what is illegal, writes Adrian J Browne

President Yoweri Museveni named a new cabinet on 27 May, appointing former Ugandan Electricity Distribution Company managing director Irene Muloni as energy and minerals minister. Muloni, the MP for Bulambuli, takes over from Hilary Onek, who moves to internal affairs.

Silver Wave Energy, offshore blocks, Petroleum Agency of South Africa, impact assessment, Shell, Orange Basin Deepwater Area, western coast

Tullow Oil has signed sale and purchase agreements to farm down one third each of its Uganda assets to Total and CNOOC, but still has to resolve the thorny question of tax payments (AE 205/14).

Tullow Oil has settled its dispute with the Ugandan government over the tax payable on Heritage Oil Corporation's sale of its assets in blocks 1 and 3A (AE 203/12).

Despite gloomy predictions of recession, exploration has been buoyed by the high oil price and by Asian demand for gas. East Africa has arrived as a significant hydrocarbons industry play, writes Thalia Griffiths in Kampala

China to fund Gabonese grid upgrade; Touré inaugurates thermo-solar plant; ABB wins Moroccan substations order; juwi opens Stellenbosch office; Uganda biomass project

The $50m-100m private sector African Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) has launched its Renewable Energy and Adaptation to Climate Technologies (React) programme, offering grants and interest-free loans of around $250,000-1.5m for local and international investments in East African Community (EAC) countries.

With just two weeks until polling day, Kampala is plastered with election posters,most of them showing President Yoweri Museveni in his trademark straw hat. He is widely expected to defeat his main opponent Kizza Besigye in the first round but, whatever the outcome, the elections will be followed by a lengthy interregnum before the new president is inaugurated and the new parliament in place. This means that much government business will effectively be suspended until at least May, including resolving the protracted dispute over tax due on Heritage Oil & Gas’ sale of its assets to Tullow Oil.

Faced with a reduced share of the Nile’s waters, Egypt is considering setting up a joint venture to produce 1,700MW of hydroelectric power in Uganda, Egyptian newspapers reported on 8 December

Germany's KfW Entwicklungsbank has stepped in with financing to revive a project to bring power to Uganda's remote West Nile region. West Nile Rural Electrification Company (Wenreco), owned by the Aga Khan's Industrial Promotion Services, was set up in 2003 but ran into trouble when the engineering, procurement and construction contractor on the Nyagak small hydro project, Skoda Export, went into receivership. Wenreco had to get out of that contract

Energy ministers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Kenya have established a company to develop a pipeline to run from Lake Edward on the DRC-Uganda border to Kampala, via the Ugandan town of Hoima, close to Lake Albert, then to Eldoret on the Kenyan border, and on to Nairobi and Mombasa

Donors’ darling Uganda has received $100m in direct budget support from the World Bank –less than in previous years amid concern over slow progress in governance reforms and a rise in corruption.

Tullow Oil’s Lake Albert ambitions have been dealt another blow with the Ugandan government talking tough in a tax dispute with the company. Oil minister Hillary Onek has said that the government has repossessed the Kingfisher field following expiry of the exploration licence, in an apparent bid to put pressure on Tullow to resolve its dispute over the tax payable on its buyout of Heritage Oil Corporation’s holdings.

Tullow Oil has completed the $1.35bn purchase of a 50% interest in blocks 1 and 3A from Heritage Oil & Gas, though the issue of Heritage’s tax bill has not been settled. Following conditional government approval on 6 July, all conditions have been met and assets transferred to Tullow Uganda.