A whistle blower has petitioned the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga to ban parliament’s new Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) from re-investigating Bank of Uganda especially over Shs478 billion that the central bank officials failed to account during the first probe carried out under Abdu Katuntu as chairperson.
Early this week, the Committee chairman Mubarak Munyagwa re-opened the probe into BoU’s closure of Crane Bank Limited (CBL) which was closed on October 20, 2016 and put in receivership until January 25, 2017 when the central bank transferred some of its assets and liabilities to Dfcu bank at a paltry Shs200 billion, despite the central bank claiming they injected in CBL Shs478 billion as liquidity support during the receivership. Unfortunately BoU officials as established in the first probe failed to account for about Shs320 billion of that money as presented by the Auditor General.
On Tuesday, Munyagwa allowed in parliament Deputy Governor Louis Kasekende, asking him about the auditing of BoU’s accounts. He also sent him back to bring accounting documents after BoU failed to account for billions of shillings injected into CBL and blow. The fist COSASE did this work very well to the extent of faulting BoU for poor recording keeping as some documents could not be traced.
Watchers say MP Munyagwa is trying to play on the minds of fellow legislators, to give Dr. Kasekende a chance to table accountability of Shs478 billion which BoU failed to account for during Katuntu’s probe that begin late October 2018 and ended in February 2019, with Katuntu presenting a report of the probe to parliament .
Since the Katuntu report was Okayed by MPs, some BoU officials have been working hard to cover their guilt as exposed by the first Cosase probe that let Ugandans to know how incompetent BoU managers were, and how carelessly closed CBL and six other banks. At the time CBL was closed it only needed Shs150 billion to remain afloat according to Ben Sekabira, a senior manager at BoU.
In his petition to Kadaga dated May 29, 2019, the whistleblower argues that the first committee had interaction with the BoU top officials from which observations and recommendations were made, and are awaiting corrective actions to be taken. He is surprised that Munyagwa wants to push back the process especially as regards Shs478 billion mismanaged.
“It’s our humble appeal that you direct your committee to concentrate on other institutions other than interfering with the previous Committee observations and recommendations than wasting tax payers’ money on a single institution, ”he says.
The whistleblower also requested Kadaga to stop the Sub Committee selected by Cosase from interfering with BoU operations before a treasury memorandum is laid before parliament.
“Rt. Hon Speaker, we request urgent action and guidance of your committee saves tax payers money and embarrassment of the Institution of Parliament.” he says.
As a recap the Auditor General John Muwanga declined to do another audit of Shs478 billion at the request of BoU Deputy Governor Kasekende. Muwanga declined to a second because BoU officials in the first audit failed to present to him all documents related to the use of the money they claim was transferred to CBL in receivership.
