By Zoomer Africa

Ugandan entrepreneur and Arua City native Benard Feni, popularly known as Mungu Feni, has been named CEO/Entrepreneur of the Year at the Ghana Merit Awards 2026.

His faith-based, Arua-based non-profit, the Mungu Feni Foundation, took home Best NGO/Foundation of the Year at the same ceremony.

The double honour recognises Feni’s work building scalable enterprises while driving social impact across West Nile and beyond.

Through Euro Gold Refinery, Uganda’s first fully Ugandan-owned licensed gold refinery commissioned in 2025, Feni has pushed value addition in the minerals sector.

The facility refines gold to 99.9% purity to international standards, partners with artisanal miners in places such as Mubende, Abim and Yumbe through formal MoUs, and has secured mining licences while linking local supply to markets including Dubai.

This latest recognition builds on a string of earlier achievements reported by Ugandan outlets. In 2026 Feni was named Entrepreneur of the Year at the Business Excellence Awards organised by Consumer Publications Uganda Ltd, where Euro Gold Refinery was also named Platinum Winner in the Best Natural Resources and Extractives category.

He earlier received the Best Innovative and Extraordinary Entrepreneur 2026 award from the Uganda National Innovative Graduates Wealth Creation Association (UNIGWA), with the association’s president citing his pioneering business initiatives, job creation and community empowerment. 

On the philanthropy side, the Mungu Feni Foundation, registered as a not-for-profit and focused on education sponsorship, vocational skills, youth empowerment and support for vulnerable groups, has itself collected multiple regional honours. 

It was named Best Community Transformation Organisation in East Africa at the East Africa Brand Quality Awards. 

At the West Nile Quality Brand Awards it has taken Quality Excellence Award – Platinum, Best Community Development NGO and Best Local NGO , following earlier wins such as Best Social Impact NGO and Best Community Development NGO.

The foundation supports more than 100 students with school fees and materials and has run programmes including safety training for hundreds of boda-boda riders. 

Feni’s path reflects classic entrepreneurship fundamentals: spotting opportunity in formalising an informal sector, investing in compliance and technology, scaling partnerships, and reinvesting returns into community programmes that build local capacity.

The Ghana awards add an international stamp to a record already validated at home.

As Feni continues expanding both his commercial ventures and the foundation’s reach, the dual recognition underscores a model of enterprise that measures success by both the businesses built and the communities strengthened along the way.

Winner Bernard Feni

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