The Bank of Uganda (BoU) still continues to make news headlines and Eagle Online understands that a top manager who we cannot mention for now is writing his resignation letter and is likely to hand in the script to President Yoweri Museveni mid this week.
The official who was first appointed on January 1, 2001, re-appointed for a second five-year term on January 1, 2006 and re-appointed for a fourth five-year term, effective January 12, 2016 intends to get out of that institution at the time when its image is at its worst owing to the selfish dealings of his senior staffers.
The official in his 18 years of service at that institution has been credited for stabilizing Uganda’s macro-economy as well as the financial sector. He is credit for controlling over the years keeping it at single digits, apart from 2011-2012 when it hit high of about 30 percent when he allowed Museveni to use the money kept in the Bank for campaigns.
But his planned resignation comes at the time when BoU is embroiled in legal battles especially with former owners of Crane Bank Limited (CBL), led by Sudhir Ruparelia who accuses BoU of selling their bank without following the right processes.
The official also is likely to leave at the time when parliament has lined up him and others to answer questions relating to the closure and sale of seven commercial banks now defunct-Teefe Trust Bank, International Credit Bank Limited, Greenland Bank, The Cooperative Bank, National Bank of Commerce, Global Trust Bank and CBL.
The official at one time clashed with Members of Parliament over the Shs142 billion BoU compensated Kampala businessman Hassan Basajjabalaba for loss of city markets. The MPs had wanted him out of office but Museveni intervened to save him, but the president blamed him for paying Basajjabalaba without consulting him. He would later refer to the Mps as ignorant and that only God would remove him from his job at BoU.
The official would in February 2018 later sack the director of supervision Justine Bagyenda without giving any reasons though in a statement he said it was a normal exercise given that other officials were moved from one position to another. Bagyenda would run to IGG Irene Mulyagonja to save her but she was unable. The official said then that he had independence to make changes at BoU and as such clashed with the IGG. Museveni would intervene to settle the differences between the official and the IGG.
But as he goes, the official will live to regret the decision in which BoU sold CBL to Dfcu Bank at Shs200 billion, having invested over Shs400 billions of taxpayers’ money in the bank before the sale. The sale of CBL caused an investigation into BoU by the Auditor General John Muwanga who has handed the report to parliament. Everyone is waiting what the official will say when he appears before parliament, alongside others.