MUBENDE — A small-scale cooperative working a hillside about sixty kilometres south-west of Mubende town has produced what independent gemmologists are calling the most promising emerald assay recorded in Uganda in more than a decade. Early grading of a 14-kilogram parcel suggests a meaningful share of the material is of cuttable quality, with a small number of stones likely to reach the upper commercial grades.

The find, made in March but only confirmed this month after laboratory work in Nairobi and Bangkok, has already drawn enquiries from buyers in Jaipur and Geneva. The cooperative, which counts forty-two members and was registered in 2024, says it has not yet agreed to any sale.

“We are not in a hurry,” said the cooperative’s chairperson, Esther Nakato, speaking by phone from the site. “We have waited a long time to find something like this. We will take advice, and we will sell it properly.”

Emerald production in East Africa has historically been dominated by Zambia, with smaller outputs from Ethiopia and, intermittently, from Madagascar. Uganda has long been geologically prospective — the same belt of metamorphic rocks extends across the border — but commercial discoveries have been rare and short-lived. A 2018 find near Kitumbi produced briefly before grading out.

The Directorate of Geological Survey and Mines has dispatched a team to verify the boundaries of the cooperative’s location licence and to confirm that work has remained within the permitted area. A spokesperson said no irregularities had been identified to date.

If the deposit holds at depth — a question that only further drilling will answer — it could mark the first genuinely significant addition to Uganda’s gemstone sector in a generation. For the forty-two members of the cooperative, the more immediate question is rather simpler: who, and at what price, gets to buy the first parcel.