Uganda’s courier sector is growing and fraying at the same time.
From a single state-run postal operator in the 1990s, the industry has expanded to over 50 licensed private companies – yet unlicensed delivery networks now control nearly 60 percent of the national market.
Speaking at the Annual Postal and Courier Engagement, in Kampala this morning, officials indicated thatinformal riders, operating through mobile phones and social media, have outpaced the regulatory frameworks designed to govern the industry, leaving licensed operators to compete at a structural disadvantage they did not create and cannot easily escape.
The sector’s core weakness is not technological – it is legislative, according to Patrick Omulo, Chairman of the Courier Industry Association of Uganda and Head of Business at SGA Courier Uganda.
Uganda’s legal framework was built for a physical, paper-driven delivery economy.
It does not define or regulate technology-enabled gig delivery, which means informal operators face no licensing costs, carry no insurance obligations, and answer to no regulator when a parcel goes missing.
Licensed firms bear all of these costs. In a price-sensitive market, the gap is often decisive.
Kenya offers both a model and a caution. East Africa’s most commercially developed logistics market moved earlier to engage with e-commerce-linked delivery regulation and attracted regional and international operators who raised service standards across the board.
Yet, even in Kenya, last-mile delivery remains substantially informal outside Nairobi.
Formalisation does not automatically follow regulation – it follows rising consumer expectations and the growing demand for verifiable delivery proof as e-commerce transaction values increase.
Uganda will travel this road, but the question is how much licensed-sector market share will have been surrendered by the time it does.
The opportunity is real and time-bound. Uganda’s e-commerce market is projected to grow at double-digit annual rates, generating sustained demand for accountability infrastructure – tracking systems, formal complaint resolution, digital delivery confirmation – that informal networks structurally cannot provide at scale.
Fred Otunnu, Director of Corporate Affairs at the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), emphasized the need for modern, technology-driven solutions to strengthen industry transparency and efficiency.
Licensed operators who invest now in mobile-integrated tracking and transparent customer service will be positioned to capture the premium segment of that expanding market. Those who wait for enforcement to level the competitive field will wait a long time.
Three things need to happen, broadly in sequence. The legal framework must be modernised to create a tiered regulatory structure that proportionately covers gig-economy delivery platforms alongside full-service licensed couriers.
Licensed operators must compete on accountability and digital differentiation rather than price alone.
And the UCC and the Courier Industry Association must jointly develop measurable sector health indicators – complaint rates, delivery failure data, e-commerce integration metrics — so that progress can be tracked rather than assumed.
Uganda’s licensed courier industry has the institutional foundation it needs.
What it currently lacks is the collective urgency to treat modernisation as a present-tense obligation rather than a long-term aspiration.
The informal networks are not waiting.
