The former Deputy Managing Director of National Social Security Fund (NSSF), Geraldine Ssali has faulted the Court of Appeal judges over the conviction of the fund’s former Managing Director David Chandi Jamwa.
In a Whatsapp message Ms Ssali, says she has been forced to come out of the ‘Kamooli’ on the issue of Jamwa being given a 12-year sentence also mentioning that she has never got a chance to meet him or even talk to him
Ssali who also served as Jamwa’s deputy and later Acting MD, says she as financial professional, she has never really understood Jamwa’s crime on this very transaction of liquidating a bond earlier than Maturity.
According to her, bonds carry risk (Now in hindsight these bonds were Crane Bank Bonds which Bank is now no more).
She explains that the bonds are also speculative in nature and also carry risk so a manager can make a decision exit early if they feel the opportunity cost foregone on the remaining interest is not better than the next best alternative use for that money.
“This is the reason Managers and Officers liability insurance exists – To cover any losses incurred in the process of doing legitimate business as anticipated,” she illustrates.
“Otherwise, anybody who cried “Bail out” in 2015 should be punished when their businesses made losses including economic losses,” she claims.
Ssali believes that the judges with all due respect to them may have looked only at the “liquidity” position of NSSF and ignored all the other factors like interest rates, exchange rates, cost to income ratio and all the other staff they consider “boring”. They have set the wrong precedent/ message.
The former MD adds that the indirect implications of this ruling are that the judgment has killed a percentage of the secondary and primary bond market.
She warns that financial and Fund Managers may not be willing to participate in these bond markets unless they can demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt, the dire need for liquidity.
Ssali notes that is virtually impossible in the world of finance where quick decisions are expected in order to benefit from these trades and make money unlike Uganda where there is more unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy.
“I would challenge those honorary judges. I suspect a political melancholy than a genuine cause of financial loss,” she said.
Ssali says on the strong message needed on managers not playing with worker’s money, they could have got him on all the other stuff like Temangalo along with his board and the rest of the lot that was involved but not on this one.
