PARLIAMENT
The Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa has directed the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs to present statement on the failure of the biometric voter verification kits (BVVKs) during January 2026 general elections.
The Deputy Speaker made the directive during the sitting of the House on Thursday, 29 January 2026.
“Some of these matters are so critical and you cannot answer them without very clear consultations. I heard government saying they are carrying out investigations; that will give them an opportunity to update us,” Tayebwa said.
Tayebwa’s guidance followed concerns raised by the Leader of the Opposition , Hon. Joel Ssenyonyi that the biometric voter verification kits did not work during presidential and parliamentary elections.
He alluded to the amount of money spent on acquiring the kits ahead of the 2026 general elections, saying that it was misused.
“We spent nearly Shs400 billion on these machines partly to purchase them, hire and train people who were going to operate them. The other billions were to integrate features on the ballot paper so that when you scan it with the machine, it functions. But on election day the machines failed to work,” Ssenyonyi said.
He challenged the Minister for Finance about including the expenditure in a supplementary budget, which he said was a high cost.
“The Minister for Finance brought a supplementary and said we need to purchase these machines. I asked why we had to purchase these machines expensively at this point in time because we used them in the last elections (2021) and they failed to function,” Ssenyonyi added.
The Minister for ICT and National Guidance, Hon. Chris Baryomunsi assured the House that the failure of the machines to work on polling day did not hinder the integrity of the electoral process.
“The purpose of the BVVK machines was to ensure a one-person, one-vote to supplement the efforts of voter verification. But on the day of voting, I was given a report that there were technical hitches and an agreement was made with the Electoral Commission that voting goes on using the manual register,” Baryomunsi said.
He added that the technical hitches were software related and were eventually rectified, noting that machines were effectively used in subsequent elections of the local governments.
During the sitting, the State Minister for Internal Affairs, Hon. David Muhoozi allayed fears of alleged abductions following the elections.
According to Ssenyonyi, senior officials of the National Unity Platform (NUP) party and their polling agents have been arrested and cannot be accessed by their legal representatives or family members.
“It is unacceptable that people get abducted and their whereabouts are not known. I can be suspected to have committed an offence but what does the law say? Arrest me vis a vis the law and produce me in a court,” Ssenyonyi said.
Gen. David Muhoozi said the law is always followed while apprehending suspects.
“As government we do not abduct, we arrest. If you breach the law, you get arrested. And, we can account for all those people under custody,” Muhoozi added.
SOURCE: Parliament of Uganda
