Museveni mourns Kenyan senator who alerted him to fuel middleman scheme

President Museveni has mourned veteran Kenyan politician Cyrus Jirongo, days after identifying him as the man who exposed Uganda’s costly fuel purchases through Kenyan middlemen.

Museveni said on Monday that he had only learnt of Jirongo’s death, nine months after the former Lugari MP died in a road crash.

“I have just learnt that Senator Cyrus Jirongo passed away last December in a motor accident. I was not aware that he had died,” Museveni said.

“This is very sad. Jirongo was a good and patriotic leader who served his country with dedication. We shall miss him. My condolences go to his family, relatives, friends and the people of Kenya. May his soul rest in peace.”

Museveni referred to Jirongo as a senator, although the 64-year-old politician served as Lugari MP and Rural Development minister under former President Daniel arap Moi.

Jirongo died on December 13, 2025, after his Mercedes-Benz collided with a passenger bus at Karai in Naivasha along the Nairobi-Nakuru highway. 

Museveni’s condolence message followed his disclosure that Jirongo alerted him in 2019 that Uganda was buying petroleum products through middlemen in Kenya.

“It was a Kenyan Senator called Jirongo who told me this around 2019. I immediately tasked the then Minister Irene Muloni to sort out that mess,” Museveni said in his birthday reflections published on September 20, 2026.

He said the government failed to change the system until it reached an agreement with global fuel supplier Vitol in 2023.

“Nevertheless, nothing happened until 2023, when we linked up with a group known as Vitol that has refineries in different parts of the world and are also bulk suppliers,” he said.

Museveni said an agreement signed on August 18, 2023, cut the price of diesel from $118 to $83 per metric tonne. Petrol dropped from $97.50 to $61.50, while aviation fuel fell from $114.25 to $79.25 per metric tonne. 

He credited Kenyan President William Ruto with helping Uganda overcome resistance to the new arrangement.

“I want to thank H.E. Ruto because he prevailed over some actors in Kenya who were trying to resist,” Museveni said.

He added that Kenya allowed Uganda to transport fuel through the Kenya Pipeline and acquire a 20.15 per cent stake in the company.

“We are very happy with the Kenya Government of President Ruto on this matter,” he said.

Museveni’s account has revived debate in Kenya about middlemen in petroleum procurement and the government-to-government fuel programme.

However, Jirongo’s reported warning came in 2019, four years before Kenya introduced its current government-to-government fuel import system in 2023. His alert concerned Uganda’s earlier reliance on intermediaries operating through Kenya rather than the present Kenyan programme.