The cost of delay: Quantifying Uganda’s petroleum revenue investment reserve opportunity loss, 2026-2030

Uganda's first commercial oil production, scheduled for July 2026, presents a narrow window to establish a generational wealth foundation through its Petroleum Revenue Investment Reserve (PRIR). Using compound growth modeling and conservative fiscal parameters, this paper quantifies the opportunity cost of delaying systematic PRIR capitalizations between 2026 and 2030. A baseline scenario committing $100 million annually from 2026 at a 7 percent return yields approximately $10.0 billion by 2050; deferring contributions until 2030 reduces this to $7.0 billion—a $3.0 billion irrevocable loss, equivalent to 10 referral hospitals, 5,000 kilometers of paved roads, or perpetual university tuition for 100,000 students. The analysis contextualizes this loss within Uganda's current fiscal stress, where interest payments consume 23 percent of government revenues and external reserves cover only 3.6 months of imports. We argue that the PRIR's existing legal framework (2015) is necessary but insufficient. Without immediate political commitment to frontload savings, Uganda risks replicating the consumption-path dependency patterns of Nigeria and Angola rather than the intergenerational equity models of Norway or the UAE. The paper concludes with institutionally feasible mechanisms to balance current development pressures against future wealth compounding.