The arithmetic
Licensed Ugandan refining capacity comfortably exceeds anything domestic mines can supply. The gap is filled by regional purchase, and the commercial pressure on a plant with fixed costs and empty shifts is to relax its questions about where a parcel originated.
That is the mechanism by which value-addition policy, pursued without a matching feed strategy, can increase rather than reduce illicit flow.
Fixing the feed side
Three levers are available. Formalise and finance domestic artisanal supply so it can sell legally at competitive prices. Attach traceability obligations to refinery licences rather than to exporters alone. And price the levy regime so that legal export is cheaper than the smuggling alternative, including the cost of the risk premium smugglers charge.
The measurement dividend
Metal that passes an audited plant is weighed, assayed and recorded. That record is the only part of the beneficiation argument that reliably converts into state revenue, and it is worth pursuing even where the refining margin itself is thin.