Eng. Irene. P. Bateebe is the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development.  She has worked in the Ministry for seventeen (18) years in areas of Energy, Mining and Petroleum.  She has handled the planning and development of infrastructure for the petroleum industry in Uganda including pipelines, the oil refinery and storage facilities.  She has led negotiations for key agreements for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and Oil Refinery.

Eng. Bateebe was a member of the Inaugural Board of Directors of the Uganda National Oil Company Limited (UNOC), where she served for 8 years. She also chaired the Board of Directors of the Uganda Refinery Holding Company Limited, a subsidiary of UNOC.

Eng.Bateebe is an enthusiast of transformational and ethical leadership and is an alumni of the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford where she was part of the Executive Public Leaders Programme.

Ms. Bateebe possesses a BSc in Chemical and Process Engineering from the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), a MSc in Advanced Chemical Engineering majoring in Refinery Design and Operations from the University of Manchester (UK) and MSc in Mechanical Engineering specializing in Sustainable Energy Engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology - KTH, (Sweden).