Diamond Trust Bank has moved to mortgage Mike Mukulas two high-value properties in Soroti District to recover an estimated UGX 3.42 billion.
According to DTB,the assets registered under Teso Industries Ltd, include:storeyed commercial building on Jumabhai Road in Soroti City and 12.754-hectare tract of land at Cambi Jaluwo, Soroti District.
The properties secured facilities extended to associated companies after a May 2025 restructuring of about UGX 1.9 billion at 20% interest, the outstanding amount has risen to UGX 3.42 billion.
K&K Advocates and the later published a notice of sale on 10 August 2026 on the bank’s instructions.
DTB instructed minister Kiryowa Kiwanuka’s law firm to sell Capt Mike Mukula’s properties that he offered as security for a loan. Mukula’s loan has ballooned to Shs3.4billion and K&K Advocates have given him 30 days to clear it.
According to enforcement notices published in the local media on instructions from DTB, the bank, through its lawyers K&K Advocates, issued demand and mortgage enforcement notices to the borrowers, warning that failure to settle the outstanding obligations could result in the public sale of the mortgaged properties.
Mukula debt dilema arises from a restructuring of approximately Shs1.9 billion in May 2025, which attracted an annual interest rate of about 20 per cent. With interest and other obligations accumulating, the liability has since reportedly grown to more than Shs3.42 billion.
The development places scrutiny on the business empire that Mukula has built over several decades, spanning property, hospitality, aviation, media and healthcare,
George Michael Mukula, commonly known as Mike Mukula, is a Ugandan businessman, politician, and pilot. He represented Soroti Municipality in the Parliament of Uganda from 1996 to 2016.
He served as a Member of Parliament before being appointed State Minister for Health.
His investments include Voice of Teso, Soroti Hotel,Uganda Aviation Academy and Healing Way Hospital.He a prominent figure within the National Resistance Movement (NRM), eventually serving as the party’s Vice Chairman for the Eastern Region.
For years, he remained an influential political mobiliser in Teso and other parts of eastern Uganda, combining his business networks with a strong political presence.
At one moment he remarked that Uganda must deliberately groom and grow indigenous entrepreneurs and industrialists across Karamoja, West Nile, Bugisu, Sebei, Busoga, Kasese, Tooro and other underserved regions. Industrialization must complement PDM by taking factories, value addition, jobs and capital closer to our people. India, China and Kenya demonstrate the power of building domestic enterprise. Equitable national industrialization is essential to tackling youth unemployment, reducing poverty and building a strong, self-sustaining Ugandan economy.
For now, however, the enforcement notices have placed the financial foundations of Mukula’s business empire firmly under the spotlight, challenging the public image that all is well within the sprawling business network.
Captain George Mike Mukula lives in an enormous multi-million mansion in Bugolobi Kampala,The great crib has spacious rooms with beautiful furniture, a well-equipped gym and a swimming pool. You can say, “The place looks like a king’s castle.”
Born in a humble family in Soroti, Eastern Uganda, Teso sub-region in 1956, Capt. Mike Mukula endured a lot of hardship while growing up.
Mukula was raised by a single mother and passed through a furnace to reach where he is now. He used to sell mandazi for school fees and could go days without food, which motivated him to work hard.
While growing up, he also worked as a houseboy for the late Hajji Nasser Ntege Ssebagala’s family. His responsibilities included driving the kids to school, washing their cars, and ironing their clothes, among other house chores.
Mukula’s dream of becoming a pilot came true while working as a houseboy. Hajji Ssebagala and his wife financed his education and sponsored his career as a pilot in Nairobi. From Nairobi, he went to Texas, America for further studies.
According to the captain, he used this opportunity to do kyeyo in the United States. He worked odd jobs like selling ice cream, which enabled him to save some money while he completed his pilot’s training in the States.
When he returned from the US as a professional pilot in the early 80s, he used his savings to import his first car from Japan, which he sold later for a considerable profit.
Mukula used the profit to order four more cars and started his ice cream shop called Bimbo Ice Cream in Uganda.
Later in the 1980’s Capt. Mukula became President Yoweri Museveni’s personal pilot.
