As more Bank of Uganda (BoU) officials and others continue to be summoned by police’s CID, sources say the Deputy Governor, Dr. Louis Kasekende, has written to his supervisors, the board, asking that they support in his prayer that he does not appear before the investigators for questioning as regards the on-going currency saga where some officials have already been charged.
Sources say that Kasekende is against appearing before the CID investigators on the grounds that he didn’t participate in the transfer of the printed currency from France to Uganda, much as he sanctioned the paper work of the printing of the shillings notes.
Yesterday BoU Executive Director Currency Operations Charles Malinga Akol was released from the Anti-Corruption Court in Kololo on a cash bail of Shs40 million even though sources say he is the one who reported to Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile about the anomaly in the currency consignment that arrived on April 26, 2019.
Other two officials who were charged at Anti-Corruption court on allegations of inclusion of unauthorised cargo on BoU chartered plane, Francis Kakeeto, a branch manager at Mbale and Fred Wanyama were freed on cash bail after they were first denied bail by magistrate Herbert Asiimwe.
Prosecution alleged that on April 26, 2019 between France, Belgium and Entebbe airport, the duo while on assignment by their employer to carry out a pre-shipment inspection of printed materials in France, in abuse of the authority to offices did an arbitrary act prejudicial to the interest of their employer and allowed the inclusion of unauthorised case on a cargo plane fully chartered by BoU.
And in the alternative, it’s alleged that they failed to refute and report the inclusion of unauthorised cargo on a plane fully chartered by BoU.
BoU officials were dispatched to travel to German aboard a chartered airplane to ferry the printed cash to Uganda and upon reaching German, the Uganda team that was led by a one Dr. Barenzi who is the deputy director in charge of operations. Dr. Barenzi represented Malinga.
It is said upon getting the German, Dr. Barenzi and another officer allegedly printed money to a tune of Shs90 billion in excesses and some of the said Shs90 billion was used for purchasing goods which were as well loaded into the chartered plane.
Investigators are trying to establish how such big sums of money could be printed without the knowledge of the top leaders of the bank including both the Governor and his deputy. However, by the time of the incident, Governor Mutebile had sought for leave as he was seeking medical treatment abroad. It is said his deputy Dr. Louis Kasekende was in-charge.
