The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga has told off the Leader of Opposition Betty Aol that her word is final and LoP shouldn’t expect her to change the decision to extend the tenure of committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE).
“I am the speaker of the House, I am the head of this institution and my proposal is good for the institution,” she said, adding “COSASE is winding up on the BoU investigation. We expect them to write a report and hand it over to the House before they move,” said Kadaga.
Kadaga had earlier on last year written to Ms Aol requesting her as LoP for an extension of COSASE’s tenure as the finish investigations into sell of seven commercial banks by Bank of Uganda.
However, LoP rejected her plea reasoning that extension of the committee would contravene the house of rules of procedure.
The opposition in particular is opposed to the extension of Bugweri County Abdu Kantuntu’s committee in order to bring in Kawempe South legislator Mubarak Munyagwa and others. The opposition mades changes late last year replacing the several committee leaders with new faces.
BoU has failed to account for Shs478.8 billion, the officials say they sank in Crane Bank Limited as liquidity support among other costs before finally transferring it to Dfcu Bank at Shs200 billion.
MP Among while speaking to the press said BoU officials were sent back to bring valid documents related to the closure and sale of Crane Bank Limited to Dfcu Bank which also ironically bought off assets of Global Trust Bank.
She said BoU officials last month tendered in documents that could not convince the committee members on how Shs478.8 billion was spent. She said some of the documented were duplicated by BoU officials.
She said the loan book of Crane Bank was an irony as there are instances where two clients are attached to the same loans. At the time of takeover by BoU, CBL loans amounting to Shs768 billion constituted 65 per cent of the total assets. Shs529 billion worth of net loans were transferred to Dfcu Bank except the insider loans.
She said what BoU officials presented on Monday as documents ‘were mere stationery’ which is not helpful to the committee, the reason she said the committee had to send officials back to bring proper documents on Crane Bank sale.
BoU took over management of Crane Bank Limited (CBL) in October 2016 and sold it off to Dfcu Bank in January 2017 even as owners wanted the transaction dropped. The bank at the time needed Shs157 billion to stay afloat but instead BoU closed it on account of being grossly insolvent. BoU officials would later sink in the bank Shs478.8 billion as they managed it before selling it to Dfcu Bank at Shs200 billion.
According to the Auditor John Muwanga’s special report of BoU on seven defunct banks, BoU did not show accountability of the Shs478.8 billion. “I observed that BoU did not have a documented process of injection of funds to support CBL operations during the statutory management,” he said in August this year while releasing the report.
Cosase has been probing BoU top officials over irregular closure of seven commercial banks including Teefe Trust Bank, Crane Bank Limited, Global Trust Bank, International Credit Bank, Cooperative Bank, Greenland Bank and National Bank of Commerce.
Tomorrow the committee resumes in a closed session where BoU Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile are expected to bring valid documents if any.